Progress at Mayfair Town Watch

The members of Mayfair Town Watch covered a lot of ground Wednesday night at their meeting – the third in a weekly series.

Keeping it short so as not to interfere with the first game of the World Series, President John Vearling said he and the rest of the group were happy to welcome Bill Bush and Angel Hartman of Tacony Town Watch. The two gave the newly formed Mayfair organization pointers, and warned members about what they’ll encounter during their patrols.

Vearling said his main goal is to “take a big burden off the police.” The 15th Police District responds to 145,000 calls per month – number so high Vearling said he thought Capt. Bachmeyer misspoke at first.

As of Wednesday, the group has seven teams of two (nearly half the group’s goal of 32 people, Scheduler Pete Smith noted) who will hit the streets as soon as training is complete. Vearling said he plans to have Chad Enos of Town Watch Integrated Services train some of the members after next week’s meeting. Once that’s completed and Vearling gets the vests and police radios from the former Town Watch president, the group will be good to go – possibly as early as next week for weekend patrols between 9 p.m. and midnight.

Until then, Treasurer Shawn Hagerty said he wants members to focus on bringing in new people and appointing block captains to help get the Mayfair Town Watch name established in the community. Mayfair School and St. Matthew’s School have agreed to help by sending home Town Watch fliers with students.

At next week’s meeting, the members will continue discussing patrol boundaries in order to work with other neighborhood town watch groups and help the police.

“I hope we can help the police any way we possibly can,” Vearling said. “[Police] are taken for granted because they’re always there.”

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