By Leslie Long

I have been asked by several people over the past couple of months why I would want to be involved with the Neighborhood Watch Program. There are many reasons.

I believe we are blessed to live in the Mountain Communities. This is a beautiful setting with clean fresh air and at night the stars seem so close that you feel as though you could almost reach up and grab a handful.

But it is also a place where people can live anonymously and under the radar.

Although we greet everyone at the post office and the market, very few of us actually can name who our neighbors are. I know after living here three years that I can’t.

Last year I was given some information about the general location of some drug houses. This was passed along by some people that I assisted getting into rehabilitation programs and who wanted to see these shut down. While there are several people that know who and where these are, no one seems to want to come forward and turn them in.

On two separate occasions when I was walking my dog in the park in January, I witnessed "suspicious activity" between a man and kids that were no more than 13 years old. Money changed hands and so did a baggie that looked to me as though it was marijuana.

It was after those incidents that I wrote to Sergeant Barker and to The Mountain Enterprise with my concerns.

As a person who is involved with starting a sober living home and having already started Hope Haven, a home for battered and abused women and children, I see first hand the devastation that drug and alcohol use can inflict.

Over 95% of crimes that are committed are drug or alcohol related. Just in the past two weeks we have seen stories that relate to the sales of drugs on the front page of our local paper. One of the stories was about the arrest of an individual for the sales of drugs to a minor.

I have spoken to three women in our community who have been physically abused by their husbands because of the husbands’ drunken stupors. Two of these women are afraid to file charges against their husbands and one did end up getting a restraining order but had to jump through hoops to do so.

I was dismayed to see that we have 11 registered sex offenders who live amongst us. Being such a small community, unless these men stay in their homes all day there is a good chance that at some point they are coming in contact with our children.

I would urge everyone to go to the Megan’s Law website and check out these individuals.

Finally, statistics for child abuse is staggering. One in five children will be the victim of some sort of abuse.

It is our responsibility as citizens to watch out for our children. This is a tragedy that knows no racial or economic boundaries. The children in these instances are told to keep quiet by those that abuse them. We as concerned citizens need to be the voice for these children.

These are just a few of the crimes that plague every community. Let’s not let them plague ours. Together we can make a difference and maybe even save a life.

We have only five deputies to serve our community. Until we can get a larger force we must be willing to get out of our comfort zone and help them. They can’t be everywhere and see everything. There is almost always a witness to every crime, we just need to be willing to report it.

Join us on March 22, at 6:45 p.m. for our initial Neighborhood Watch meeting. The meeting will be held at Family Resource Center across from the library.

Call Leslie at (661) 993- 8079 for further information.

Leslie Long is the founder of the Believe group home for sober living and the I Came To Believe nonprofit for assisting women and children affected by substance abuse and violence.

This is part of the March 23, 2007 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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