Neighbourhood watch, rural watch, traffic watch and business watch are all organizations to keep our community safe.
Now an umbrella organization to encompass all of these organizations is taking form in Blue Mountains
Community Policing Committee Chair Larry Hall says the town’s business watch has been very successful as has their Neighbourhood watch program – so now “Community Watch” is being formed.
Tonight — the format of the program will be brought to the pubic.
Hall says residents will hear how the program operates and will help keep them safe and the community to flourish as new residents move in and the residential as well as tourist population grows.
Hall says while the community is a safe one and policed well the town is changing as tourism and population rises.
Hall says this program will be very useful to seasonal residents as they are not always in the area when crime rises on residences in the off season.
Hall hopes to have the program up and running by this summer season when the next influx of tourists arrive.
He adds community watch will not null and void the organizations that fall beneath it – rather make them strong through co-operation with eachother.
He adds community watch is basically to re-introduce the idea of neighbourhoods to areas where a sense of neighbourhood once was – meaning someone watching out for another.
Hall says the committee went to council a few weeks ago and was approved for 10-thousand dollars in funding towards the project with additional funds coming from corporate sponsors and a service club.
The meeting starts at 7 PM at the library in Thornbury,
Hall says they are looking for anyone who may be interested in volunteering in the program in any way to attend.