Neighborhood Block Watch is returning to Rancho El Dorado and other HOAs. [Brian Petersheim Jr.]

Jim Devenezia is working to revive neighborhood Block Watch in Maricopa.

A Rancho El Dorado resident for 17 years, the community support specialist for the Maricopa Police Department organized a meeting last month to unite others in the city interested in breathing new life into the crime prevention effort. Nearly 40 residents attended to hear about the success of programs in Chandler, Casa Grande and Anthem.

Devenezia will lead another organizational meeting from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at Maricopa Library and Cultural Center. He said the meeting will focus on “what do we do and how do we do this.”

Block Watch has been around Maricopa for at least 15 years.

In 2007, the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office led a community session to help residents who wanted to set up in their own neighborhoods. Residents from Tortosa, Maricopa Meadows, Senita, Glennwilde, Cobblestone Farms and Acacia Crossings attended.

A good neighbor is one of the best crime prevention tools and neighbors working together in cooperation with local law enforcement make a great crime-fighting team, the residents were told. While serving as the “eyes and ears” of law enforcement, Block Watch is not a vigilante group and eschews the active civilian patrols that characterize similar efforts in other cities.

In February 2012, Block Watch took another step forward with the appointment of MPD volunteer Joi-Ashli Gibbs to coordinate the program. Dozens of block captains worked under Gibbs. The program had division managers in Maricopa Meadows and Rancho El Dorado, and Gibbs worked to recruit them in other HOA communities.

Then-incoming police Chief Steve Stahl sought to expand Block Watch to support his mantra: “Get to know your neighbor, get to know your community.”

Maricopa police Sgt. Hal Koozer was the department’s volunteer coordinator when he tapped Gibbs to lead the effort.

“Block Watch is an enormously effective tool for the community if worked properly,” Koozer said this week. “In years past we witnessed great success with the program. Neighbors taking care of neighbors. The program never went away, but with the ebb and flow of a growing community, some programs tend to go to the way side. Block Watch was one of the victims of this tide.”

Now, amid a heightened perception in some circles that crime is rising in the city, Venezia said he doesn’t want to reinvent the wheel.

“I know the city had Neighborhood Watch in the past, but I really wasn’t sure what it looked like,” he said. “ So it was let’s see if we could have a resurgence, bring it back to the HOAs in the communities and neighborhoods. Have people do it with the support of the police department, but not sponsored by the police department.”

Devenezia said he was working on preparing flyers to introduce himself to his Rancho neighbors, asking them to join him for a get-together to talk about organizing a Watch on their block.

“I walk my dogs every night and yet I don’t know my neighbors that well, which is a shame,” he said. “As we talked about at the (March) meeting, we live in these homes with block walls and people don’t have that connection that I had back east, living in New Jersey, where you have chain link fences or no fences, and you know your neighbors. Here it’s different.”

Neighborhood Block Watch is returning to Rancho El Dorado and other HOAs. [Brian Petersheim Jr.]
With Saturday’s meeting, Devenezia will try to spark interest in Block Watch and encourage attendees to take it back to their neighborhoods and make it happen. To that end, he is trying to keep participation from being onerous. Just two meetings a year at minimum, no paperwork and no active patrols, he said.

“It’s just the heightened sensitivity and awareness that you’ve got my back, I’m getting your back,” Devenezia said. “Let’s be more active and aware of our neighborhoods because this is my street.”

Koozer agreed it’s a good time to reenergize.

“We believe we have the right people in the right seats to get this program rejuvenated and back up and running,” he said. “We have seen a great drive by our citizens who want safer neighborhoods and are willing to participate.”

IF YOU GO
Block Watch organizational meeting
Saturday, April 23 – 2-4 p.m.
Maricopa Library and Cultural Center
18160 N. Maya Angelou Dr.
Contact: Jim Devenezia