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Neighborhood Foot Patrols Added: City police will be walking beats this spring and summer as part of an effort to deter crime and improve communications.

Chief Bryan Washowich says three two-officer teams are currently on patrol and a fourth will be added when this school year ends.

"We want to try to enforce the little things to make the neighborhoods a better place to live," he says.

Besides criminal activity, police officers will be watching for public health and safety nuisances, including abandoned cars, Washowich says.

Fourteen city neighborhoods are part of the foot patrol rotation, he says.

Bicycle patrols are also being reinstituted, with the help of private contributions and donations, Washowich says. The bike officers will be added to the neighborhood patrol rotation, he says.

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Curfew Warning Posted: Juveniles who are out after the city's 10 p.m. curfew face prosecution this summer, Washowich says.

"Right now, we're doing a lot of verbal warnings, but soon they'll be more arrests," he says.

Under a new strategic plan being developed by officers and Mayor Jim Brewster, police are targeting certain areas where there are "an influx of juveniles at various times of the day," he says.

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Fire, Police Reports for April: City police made 170 arrests in April and issued 79 traffic citations, Washowich told city council this month.

Fire Chief Kevin Lust said his department responded to one structure fire, three kitchen fires and 21 calls for downed power lines, according to

In addition, city firefighters are helping train out-of-town members of the fire service this spring, he says.

On Saturday, firefighters are scheduled to use an abandoned house at 601 Atlantic Ave. in the lower 10th Ward for a training exercise, but Lust says the building will not be burned. Instead, firefighters will practice "breaching" the walls and roof. The property, owned by the city, is slated for demolition.

Lust also thanked Polish National Alliance Lodge No. 352 in the city's East End and First United Methodist Church in the Seventh Ward for donating positive-pressure ventilation fans to the department.

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