Category: Safety

Categories
Safety

Register your security camera

Police Lt. Mike Villegas, speaking at our Annual General Membership Meeting on April 22, suggested anyone in Palm Springs with a residential or business security camera register it with the Police Department. This link will take you to a Public Camera Registry page, from which you can easily partner with Palm Springs police when they are trying to determine whether crimes have been captured on video.

“Participation in this program will help strengthen our investigative abilities and give us an easier way to communicate more effectively with potential witnesses,” the Police Department says.

Categories
Safety

How to attend the Community Police Academy

The Police Department has invited us to attend its fall Community Police Academy. Its mission is to strengthen community partnerships by offering the opportunity to interact with PSPD professional staff, increase their understanding of police operations and become ambassadors to the community.

The free, interactive course is designed to acquaint adults who live or work in the Greater Palm Springs community who are not sworn police officers with the activities of the Police Department.

The Community Police Academy will run twice annually for 12 sessions in the winter and fall of each year. The classes starting September 20, 2022, will meet on select Tuesday nights from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Along with the classroom sessions, participants will have the opportunity to attend one ride-along session.

Classes fill up quickly and applicants are accepted on a first come, first served basis. For more information, visit:

https://www.palmspringsca.gov/government/departments/police/community-policing/community-police-academy

Categories
Civic affairs Safety Signs

Speed limit reduction ceremony

City officials came to Canyon Palms on April 8 to celebrate the reduction of speed limits on 36 street segments in Palm Springs.

Mayor Lisa Middleton and State Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, the author of Assembly Bill AB43, explained that the new state law gave cities the authority to reduce speed limits to prevent traffic and pedestrian fatalities and injuries.

They unveiled a new speed limit sign near the corner of La Verne Way and Toledo Avenue. Also attending were the city manager, police and fire chiefs, and officials of ONE-PS and Canyon Palms, which had both made the speed limit reductions a priority. In 2021, Palm Springs had 1,500 traffic collisions resulting in 450 injuries and 16 deaths. That fatality rate was disproportionate to the city’s population and up from an average of nine killed each year since 2013.

In our neighborhood, Toledo Avenue’s speed limit has been reduced from 45 to 40. The higher limit was a result of state law formerly basing limits on traffic engineers determining the speed at which 85 percent of cars travel on a roadway. So roads that speeding made more dangerous automatically got higher speed limits, increasing the risk of fatalities.

Categories
Civic affairs Safety Signs

Traffic safety breakthrough celebration

Categories
Civic affairs Safety

Police meeting with residents

UPDATE from PSPD: “We will now move forward with analyzing the data we collected over 5 days, meet with all PSPD staff members and our business community, and identify our next steps as we move forward. We will come back to the community in the near future with a report on what we have found, and what the strategies will be for the mission that has been defined for the Palm Springs Police Department.”

The Palm Springs Police Department announced the dates and locations of community public meetings with residents and businesses to help shape the department’s future. Meetings will be held in each of the five City Council districts and Council members will be present. The sessions will take place in a structured town hall environment where everyone will have equal input. Community input will help to establish PSPD’s mission and chart their path forward. 

The second part of each meeting is to establish crime-fighting priorities by city area. Chief Andrew Mills is emphasizing a community policing approach of going after the underlying conditions that cause crimes instead of being more reactive.

Meeting times:

  • February 15 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm, Victoria Park, 2744 N. Via Miraleste
  • February 16 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm, Convention Center, 277 N. Avenida Caballeros
  • February 17 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm, Cahuilla Elementary School, 833 E. Mesquite Ave. (OUR DISTRICT 5 MEETING)
  • February 18 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm, Palm Springs High School, 2401 E. Baristo Road
  • February 19 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm, Demuth Park, 4200 E. Mesquite Ave. 

The PSPD crime analyst will provide attendees with crime maps, data on crime trends, and calls for service. If you can’t make the meeting in our Council district, you are encouraged to attend another session on a date that works for you. 

Categories
Code enforcement/public works Safety Signs

Nearby street safety

The city has rejected a proposal to add crosswalks on La Verne Way and Caliente Drive as unwarranted. An engineering study monitored traffic from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Oct. 20 and found 75 pedestrians attempting to cross in various directions, including 23 pedestrians crossing La Verne. The Canyon Palms Neighborhood Organization had formally requested a traffic calming solution on June 1. CPNO’s suggested solutions were addition of two high-visibility crosswalks across La Verne west of Caliente and across Caliente on the south side of La Verne, new signage to alert approaching vehicles of the crosswalks, and increased use of neighborhood speed awareness signs, radar speed display units, and targeted police enforcement of current speed limits.

The distance on La Verne Way from the crosswalk at Camino Real to the new crosswalk at Toledo Ave. is about a half-mile. This distance makes it hard for pedestrians to cross safely between Canyon Palms and Twin Palms. Cars and trucks regularly exceed the 40 mph speed limit on La Verne. The city would need property owners’ permission to install radar units that provide visual feedback of vehicle speeds.

With the volunteer help of a lawyer in our neighborhood, CPNO recently obtained the engineering study and related documents. The study included maps showing the obtuse angle of the intersection and a note saying it was “not ideal” for crosswalks. But it appears the crosswalks were deemed unwarranted because the study found a low volume of pedestrians, given the lack of nearby retail, schools or parks. The city also looks at accident data. Of course, there is no way to count any incidents in which pedestrians barely escape being hit. CPNO board members said they would continue to seek solutions before someone gets hit by a vehicle.

Categories
Safety

Security Tips

We advised participants in our October 2021 neighborhood-wide yard sale to take these precautions, repeated here for anyone who may be having a yard sale or selling goods online:

  • Lock your home and car while the sale is in progress. Never allow anyone inside for any reason. If someone needs to use a restroom, rather than let them into your house, common sense suggests you direct them to a nearby public facility (Ralph’s)
  • Do not sell alone. There is safety in numbers, so invite your friends and family to help.
  • Do not keep too much cash with you. As money comes in, designate someone to take it inside. If you have a fanny pack or bank bag, you might want to keep your money in there.
  • If a buyer asks you to break a large bill, offer to hold the item while they leave to get change.
  • Keep jewelry or high-priced items close by to keep an eye on your most valuable items.
  • Sell your items in your driveway or yard, not in an enclosed garage. Doing so blocks visibility and can be dangerous for sellers.
  • Call police if someone is acting suspiciously, so have a phone handy.
Categories
Civic affairs Code enforcement/public works Safety

Code enforcement meeting

The ONE-PS Code Enforcement and Public Works Committee is holding a public meeting via Zoom on Wednesday, May 5, at 10 a.m. Among the topics to be discussed: 

  1. Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Middleton will speak about Assembly Bill 43, Traffic Safety, which would provide more flexibility to local governments in calculating speed limits on roads, and a City Council staff report dated March 25, 2021 regarding formal adoption of an official resolution by the City in support of this legislation at the state level.
  1. Discussion of the code enforcement process by the co-chair of the ONE-PS Code Enforcement and Public Works Committee.
  1. Updates on traffic calming projects, other traffic-related projects, and city building projects by the City’s Engineering Services. (Two approved traffic calming projects in our neighborhood are an all-way stop at La Verne Way and Toledo Avenue and upgrading the stop signs on Toledo Avenue at Maricopa to solar powered LED signs, with a new curb ramp on the north side of Toledo Avenue, and the addition of a two-leg continental style crosswalk.)

To view, listen or participate in the meeting, use the following link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85929254806?pwd=RDVFdlF1azJNTWZCeUxGL0ZxcTdGUT09,
Or dial in and use Zoom Meeting ID 859 2925 4806, Passcode 019014

Categories
Code enforcement/public works Safety

Traffic calming project update

The city has a webpage with updated information about projects to improve pedestrian safety through traffic calming. The projects include:

  • An all-way stop at La Verne Way and Toledo Avenue.
  • Upgrading the crosswalk street markings on Toledo Avenue at Maricopa, with a new curb ramp on the north side of Toledo Avenue. (This description has been corrected since it was originally posted in April.)

Click this link: Citywide Traffic Calming Projects | City of Palm Springs (palmspringsca.gov) to see what those planned projects and several others will look like. The Canyon Palms Neighborhood Organization would like to thank Joel Montalvo, Francisco Jaime and Donn Uleyo with the city Engineering Services for keeping us in the loop.

Categories
Civic affairs Safety

Virtual Walk Audit

Do you believe that pedestrian safety in our community has room for improvement? Have you wanted to share your concerns? Here’s your best chance.

The Palm Springs Pedestrian and Safe Routes to School Plan Community Outreach Team is holding five Virtual Walk Audits. The sessions will help the city compete for transportation funds to improve pedestrian safety and neighborhood walkability.

Our neighborhood would be part of the District 5 Virtual Walk Audit, to be held with Mayor Pro Tem and our Councilmember Lisa Middleton on Tuesday, March 30, 2021, from 4-5:30 pm. Any one who would like to participate can register at http://bit.ly/PS_District5

Virtual Walk Audit FlyerDownload