McKinley East Sacramento Neighborhood Association (MENA)

Neighborhood Response Team cuts through red tape

Oct 13, 2005

Tired of high weeds at an abandoned house on your street? Given up trying to get a neighborhood developer to follow city codes? Try reporting your problem to the Neighborhood Response Team.
Neighborhood Response Team meetings are held monthly and are designed to bring volunteer neighborhood ?“team captains?” together with various Sacramento City departments?’ members to quickly resolve on-going problems. The primary city departments involved with the NRT meetings are the police department, code enforcement, neighborhood services, and dangerous buildings.
Each neighborhood captain is allowed to bring five on-going neighborhood problems to the panel at the meeting. Problems are assigned to the appropriate department and NRT is given one month to work on the issue and get back to the neighborhood captain. After getting back to the captain, the neighborhood captain has the option to keep the complaint active, thereby giving the assigned department another month to work on the problem or replace the complaint with a new one.
NRT is designed to address a wide range of problems within the city?’s jurisdiction. Problems previously addressed by the NRT meetings range from traffic issues, to dangerous buildings, as well as drug related activities.
The meetings offer an effective way to cut through the ?“red tape?” normally associated with dealing with government bureaucracy regarding neighborhood issues. Additionally, NRT meetings offer a built-in accountability that does not exist if a citizen simply lodges a complaint with a city department on their own. The meetings hold the departments assigned to the problem accountable for solving the problem in a timely manner. They also allow local neighborhood organizations, such as MENA, to be kept updated on the progress in dealing with the specific complaints generated.
If you have an ongoing problem that you would like to have addressed at an upcoming NRT meeting please contact MENA at MENA@eastsac.org. The MENA Public Safety and Neighborhood Impacts Committee will review the complaint and decide if it should be included in the five problems allowed for our neighborhood at that particular time. The Public Safety and Neighborhood Impacts Committee members meet prior to each MENA board meeting on the first Wednesday of each month, while the NRT meetings are held on the second Wednesday of each month at the Hart Senior Center at 6 p.m.