From City Manager - Judy Gilleland

CSX Community Service Day- Saturday, June 23rd
Many thanks to Rusty Orben, Director of Public Affairs – Ohio CSX Transportation, Taylor Ferguson of City Year promotions and all staff and volunteers who made this event such a huge success. Here are pictures depicting some of the improvements made to Smith Park:

Thank you to the groups and individuals who donated their time and efforts to make improvements at Middletown’s Smith Park.

Middletown Police Division
The Middletown Division of Police has created a task force to deal with neighborhood problems. The goal of the task force is to problem solve and partner with these particular neighborhoods to ensure a safer community for all. The task force has been working since May and each month dedicates a large number of man hours to developing a plan of action to combat crime and nuisance issues. As you can see by the statistics below, crime in each beat sector has declined in some fashion. The beats selected were Beat 7 and Beat 5. Beat 7 is the Woodlawn/Crawford/Sherman Park Area. Beat 5 includes the Lakeside/Downtown/Clark St Area.

Beat 7: a 10% crime decrease in May and a 30% decrease in June
Beat 5: a 13% crime decrease in May and a 20% decrease in June

While we continue to work these areas, we have had many positive comments come back from citizens about the increased visibility of police in their neighborhood. There have also been several arrests made by police in areas in which we have been receiving complaints, along with the indictments of numerous gang members in June. This partnership between the police and the community shows that crime and neighborhood nuisances can be lowered and decreased when working together.