From:                                         Knutsen, Jon D. <jknutsen@cob.org>

Sent:                                           Thursday, June 27, 2019 17:10

To:                                               mnacrep@yorkneighborhood.org

Subject:                                     Greetings, Fireworks and National Night Out

 

Hello there,

 

I am happy to announce that after six months of holding down the Neighborhood Police Officer “fort” by myself, Officer Josh McKissick has officially joined me in the Outreach Division. I will now be focusing on the southside neighborhoods while Officer McKissick takes on the northside of town.

 

Since January, the majority of my time and energy has gone into providing training to community members and city employees (Safety Training, De-escalation Training, Active Shooter Preparation, etc.), working with other city departments to tackle various issues, assisting with homeless camp clean-up projects, and when possible, attending neighborhood meetings. Up to this point my involvement with specific neighborhoods has unfortunately been limited due to my other obligations and staffing limitations at the department. However, I’m really looking forward to connecting with the south neighborhood associations in the upcoming months.

 

With that in mind, I would like to reach out to all of the south Neighborhood Presidents and MNAC Representatives to address a couple of upcoming events.

 

Fourth of July:

 

As I am sure you all know, Fireworks were made illegal in the City of Bellingham several years ago - https://bellingham.municipal.codes/BMC/10.24.130

 

Last year we received approximately 143 calls for service regarding fireworks, with a large majority of those complaints coming from residential neighborhoods.  The Bellingham Police Department prioritizes calls for service so that emergent calls are handled first, and less emergent calls unfortunately must hold until Officers are available.  This often means that by the time an Officer responds to the area of a fireworks complaint, the ‘show’ as it were is over and we are unable to identify, warn or cite the offenders.  This can be frustrating, and so I would like to reach out to you if you know of any specific problem offenders that we can contact beforehand to help educate in hopes that this will reduce the number of complaints generated to 911. If you know of a residence where fireworks are historically displayed despite the ban, please email me back with the specific address. My hope is to preemptively contact these problem houses on July 2nd and inform them of our stance on fireworks and make them aware of enforcement action that could be taken if necessary. Please send me any related information prior to July 2nd (all tips will remain anonymous).

 

National Night Out (Tuesday, August 6)

 

If your neighborhood is hosting an event, please reach out to me and let me know the following information:

1.       Location of any event/gathering

2.       Start and end time for the event

3.       Point of Contact for the event

4.       Would you like to have an officer stop by your event if staffing allows?

 

If you are requesting an Officer, I or another staff member will attempt to make it to as many events as possible.  I will also make sure that our on-duty Patrol Officers are made aware of your event so they can stop by if call load permits.

 

Feel free to reach out to me with any question’s comments or concerns.  Thanks.

 

Jon Knutsen | Neighborhood Officer

Bellingham Police Department

505 Grand Avenue | Bellingham, WA 98225

360.778.8691  |  jknutsen@cob.org

 

My incoming/outgoing emails are subject to public disclosure requirements per RCW 42.56