Frankford Community Blog | Local News, Events, Community Resources
The Frankford Civic Association meeting scheduled for tonight has been cancelled due to snow. The next meeting will be held on Thursday, April 2nd at 7PM at St. Mark’ Church at 4442 Frankford Avenue.
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SEPTA police chief Tom Nestel spoke at the Frankford Civic Association meeting on February 5th. The issue that prompted the invitation was the most recent PSA meeting where residents noted that criminal activity is rampant at the Margaret-Orthodox El station, often apparently under the eyes of SEPTA personnel. The individuals who sell drugs openly stand at the top of the El steps and don’t seem to be intimidated by SEPTA police. When Philadelphia police are in the area, they will often move on to SEPTA property seemingly using it as a safe haven.
Nestel said that January 11th saw redeployment in district 4 which is headed by Sgt Cavallaro and includes the Margaret-Orthodox El station. It now has double the number of personnel than any other district. That redeployment was driven by data indicating that crimes rates in district 4 are the highest in the system. He acknowledged that this area has not been receiving the attention it should and said “Give me a couple of months and see if there is a difference”.
He went on to talk about the Broken windows theory and its application to crime on the SEPTA system. Last year there were 5,172 arrests for fare evasion while at the same time felony crime went down by 16% after 10 years of rising crime. Nestel says “If they think they can get away with jumping the turnstiles they’ll think they can get away with robbing somebody”. “If you’re selling loosies, you’re not doing it to make a living or to feed your kids. You’re not going to make enough money selling loosies to take care of anybody. You’re selling loosies to be in an area so that you can watch and look and see for a better opportunity to arise.”
The result has been push back from the court system which has had to add days on the calendar exclusively dedicated to SEPTA arrests.
But the big question from the Veronica Daniel, who lead the talk for the CDC was are the SEPTA police and the PPD (Philadelphia Police Department) working together to address the crime issue not only at Margaret-Orthodox but all along the line in Frankford?
The answer is – not so much. In regard to resources, the PPD has 6500 officers while SEPTA has 275. Nestel says he has excellent relationships with both Captain McCloskey and Commissioner Ramsey but it is apparent at this point that the Captain feels he has adequate resources to do the job.
However, SEPTA does monitor the J band on police radio and when a need arises, offers assistance to the PPD. Nestel notes “We didn’t know about the robbery pattern surrounding Frankford and Bridge until one of our customers told us” but when they became aware of the situation they deployed one of their mobile video cameras which did in fact record one of the robberies taking place.
One interesting piece of information is that SEPTA has 13,000 video cameras and their radio dispatch can look at any one of them if they get a call. So if you see something suspicious like that guy making the hand off on the platform, call 215-580-8111 and tell them what’s going on. If you have a major non time critical gripe call Tom Nestel or better yet email him. 215-580-3640 email tnestel@septa.org
I recommend that you take a look at the video of the meeting, its long but not boring and very informative. Part 1 is below. This is a link to part 2 and here is a link to part 3.
The next Frankford Civic Association meeting will be held on March 5th at 7PM at St. Mark’s Church.
The Frankford Civic met on Wednesday, January 7th.
The first order of business was a proposal to move the location of the meeting to St. Mark’s church at 4442 Frankford Avenue. This would allow the Civic to meet on the first Thursday of the month. Aria Hospital is unable to offer their meeting room on that day and so the motion was approved. The Civic Association will be meeting at St. Mark’s on the first Thursday of the month. Entrance is from the parking lot on the side of the church. Use the door at the top of the stairway.
In other news, the PSA1 meeting which was scheduled for January 15th according to their web site, will be moved to January 22nd at 7PM at Aria Hospital. This has been confirmed by Captain McCloskey even though the 15th district web site continues to list the meeting as the 15th.
The SafeCam task force continues to meet and plan a program that will encourage business and home owners to utilize this program. News will be forthcoming when the plan has been finalized.
Discussion about the coordination of Philadelphia and SEPTA police pointed out that there appears to be none around the SEPTA station at Margaret Street. The drug dealers and vagrants will move when Philadelphia police tell them to move but return to do their business under the watchful eyes of the SEPTA police. Why is that? A representative of the SEPTA police will be invited to a future civic meeting to discuss the issue.
The next Frankford Civic meeting will be on February 5th at St. Marks Church.
Frankford Civic will meet on Wednesday, January 7th at 7PM at Aria Hospital, 4900 Frankford Avenue. New day of the week for this meeting which had been the first Thursday of the month. Now has moved to the first Wednesday. Meeting will discuss the possibility of relocating to another site.
There were no zoning cases to discuss at the meeting with about 20 people in the room at Aria Hospital on December 4th but there was a lively discussion about the issues of voting and citizen participation. Due to changes at Aria Hospital, the Civic meeting will move to the first Wednesday of the month starting on January 7th, 2015.
The next PSA meeting will be held on December 18th at 7PM at Aria Hospital. Captain McCloskey will be there to discuss the recent shootings on the 4700 block of Penn Street. The issue of why know drug corners are allowed to continue in operation and what is being done about that is on the agenda. Come out and hear it first hand from the Captain.
