NACA GENERAL MEETING

Thursday October 20, 2011

Little Walnut Creek Library

 
Introductions:
 
Eleanor Langsdorf called the meeting to order at 7:01pm
 
Announcements
 
The September meeting minutes were distributed and approved with several additions.
 
NACA currently has $596.32 in general operating funds; there is $14,657.14 in Allied Waste Beautification Funds. There are currently 142 members. For new NACA members, you must submit your 2012 dues by middle December to be able to vote on officers at the January meeting. NACA still owes $10,000.00 in matching funds for the Quail Creek Park renovation.
 
Linda Moore spoke about a fund raiser raffle for holiday items which will occur Saturday December 3rd at 9605 Mountain Quail from 8:30am to 1:30pm. Contact Linda to donate any holiday items.
 
The Tortilleria, Samantha and Savanna’s Resale Shop are two new NACA business members. Both are located in the strip center at North Lamar and Fairfield behind the Jack in the Box.
 
The owner of Blue Whale moving company donated pizza for the meeting.
 
Speaker; Yasmine Smith, AKNOWLEDGE
 
AKNOWLEDGE is currently a charity but will be a non profit by the end of the year. Yasmine wants to educate the public on the signs of human trafficking. She works with ALLIES and The Pegasus Fund.
 
Over 200,000 people are at risk of being victims of sex trafficking each year. There are over 27 million slaves in the world; over 1 million in the USA. The three main slave groups are labor, sex and domestic. A domestic slave can be nanny or housekeeper.
 
The following are signs to recognize. You know a person who works at a house but never leaves. Some don’t speak the area language. They are quiet and introverted and are instilled with helplessness. Sleep and food deprivation are also tactics by traffickers to subdue victims.
 
Ask the following questions: Where are you from? Where is your Visa? Where do you sleep? How much do they pay you?
 
The missing C in Aknowledge means just because you don’t see it means it is not there.
 
Speaker: Officer Adan Ballesteros, Constable, Travis County Precinct 2
 
He has been an officer for 31 years; 20 as a Dept. of Public Safety officer. He has served in Narcotics in the Rio Grande Valley.
 
He has 26 deputies, ten clerks, three emergency medical techs and one nurse that work at his precinct.
 
A Constable is the people’s police and determines the needs and what should be done to meet those needs. They serve papers in civil lawsuits. They are not immediately dispatched to a 911 call unless the officer asks for backup.
 
Examples of community outreach includes: life long community service with the Boy Scouts. Training the community in CPR; how to be proactive in recognizing suspicious purchase items that could be used in methamphetamine labs or marijuana grow houses. They do Learning for Life speeches at schools and partner with Power Squadron and US Coast Guard Auxiliary.
 
His office is located at 10409 Burnet Road. He has an open door policy and encourages people to visit.
 
www.spotcrime.com is an email service of crimes committed in your area. www.krimelabb.com is another site which lists crimes committed in your zip code.
 
Speaker: Officer Frank Wilson, APD, District Representative for NACA
 
He has been an officer for seven years with APD. NACA is the only neighborhood association that he serves.
 
He passed out a 22 page snapshot of crime in NACA for the last 30 days. He uses a team approach to resolve crime problems in the area. He encourages calls. They offer free security surveys and improvements to your home. He stated there is a lot of crime occurring in the Northgate area. He has contacted all the apartment complex managers about holding monthly or quarterly meetings with residents and police officers.
 
They recently performed a cleanup in the Hoop Zone area. They teamed with Code Enforcement and Easter Seals. They also interacted with the transients who live in that area.
 
Street of the Month is a program that would allot time to focus on residents or businesses on that street.
 
The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 pm.