Association helps unite Lubbock neighborhoods

By JOHN DAVIS
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

She wants to get to know her neighbors.

There's something nice about knowing who lives next door or down the street, said homemaker Amy Hodges, who is in the planning stages of creating a neighborhood association in the Pheasant Run neighborhood near 82nd Street and Frankford Avenue.

''We felt like we were disconnected from our neighbors,'' Hodges said of moving back to Lubbock after four years in the Metroplex. ''There's a lot of potential, though, to have a great neighborhood.''

But it's not just a social aspect that Hodges wants to foster. She'd like to do beautification projects and hold concerts in the park.

Lubbock neighborhood associations 1) Arnett Benson 2) Clapp Park 3) Guadalupe 4) Parkway & Cherry Point 5) Harwell 6) Raintree 7) Chapel Hill 8) Preston Smith 9) Tech Terrace 10) Heart of Lubbock 11) South Overton 12) North Overton 13) Caprock 14) Chatman Hill 15) Bayless-Atkins 16) Wheelock & Monterey 17) Jackson-Mahon 18) Bluesky 19) Maedgen Area 20) Dunbar-Manhattan Heights 21) Slaton-Bean 22) Clayton Carter 23) Northridge 24) Skyview 25) Bowie 26) Maxey Park 27) Remington Park 28) North By Northwest 29) Coronado Area 30) Ballenger 31) Regal Park 32) University Pines 33) Waters 34) Southgate 35) Carlisle 36) West End 37) Wester 38) Windmill 39) Kings Park 40) Stubbs-Stewart

''So much of the time, we pull up in our driveway, shut the door and stay there until the next morning,'' she said. ''I just wanted to see if my neighbors would like to get to know one another.''

From the neighbors she's asked, she's had a positive response to creating a neighborhood association. Not only will it be fun to know new people, but also, knowing the neighbors is a good crime deterrent, she said.

Hodges is in the first stage of creating a neighborhood association, said Carol Hedrick, executive director of Lubbock United Neighbor hood Association.

LUNA is a conglomerate of 40 organized neighborhoods across the Hub City that helps the associations figure out crime statistics, which city department handles what problems and crime prevention, Hedrick said.

Though there have been neighborhood associations in Lubbock for more than 30 years, LUNA began at the city level as a voluntary consortium in early 1993, Hedrick said.

The organization began as a separate entity in 1994, she said.

''We give neighborhoods the tools that they need to function as a neighborhood group, whether that be putting them in contact with different departments at the city or information on how to hold a meeting or special event, or how to work with difficult people,'' Hedrick said. ''They also can receive monthly crime reports on organized neighborhood associations.''

Also, LUNA can inform the group on how to attain non-profit status and will print up the organization's monthly news letters.

The requirements for becoming a neighborhood association include having a set of bylaws, a board of directors and set boundaries.

''We take them through that process,'' she said.

The process takes between three and four months for new neighborhood associations to organize, and about a month to reactivate old associations, she said.

For more information on LUNA, call 749-5862.

[email protected] t 766-8713