Jamestown Police Chief Timothy Jackson is pictured Thursday during a community meeting at Allen Park. A range of public safety concerns were brought up during the first of four meetings to be held this summer. P-J photo by Eric Tichy

A range of concerns, from speeding traffic and noise to drug use and derelict properties, were discussed during a well-attended community meeting at Allen Park in Jamestown. The Thursday evening session, the first of four this summer, was hosted by the Jamestown Police Department and city Department of Development.

About 25 people turned out at Allen Park for the hourlong talk before a downpour made it hard to hear inside the shelter. The forums have been organized in response to state funding the county and JPD received for being part of New York’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination initiative.

Representing the police department were Chief Timothy Jackson, who also serves as city public safety director, and Capt. Scott Forster. Crystal Surdyk, city director of development, Mayor Eddie Sundquist and several members of the Jamestown City Council also were in attendance.

A Cole Avenue resident who also works on Forest Avenue was the first to speak Thursday, raising concerns about traffic speed in his neighborhood.

“I swear some people think that these two streets are a speedway,” he said. “I mean, they start from Foote Avenue and they gun their engines, and by the time they get up to my house … they must be doing in excess of 50 to 55 mph.”

The lifelong city resident noted that several families with small children live near him. He’s worried that a child may one day accidentally run into the street and be hit by a speeding vehicle.

“It’s out of control,” he continued. “They don’t pay attention to any speed limits; they don’t have any common curtesy for people that are pedestrians, not to mention the people that live on the streets that have to listen to this noise. And the noise is a separate factor, with the loud mufflers and the crotch rockets and all that, that’s a whole separate issue.”

He added, “I’d be willing to put up with the noise if they would just slow down and go the speed limit.”

Forster responded, stating that traffic speed is a common problem across the city. He said the department has three speed trailers that can be moved around to deter fast driving, though he acknowledged some motorists simply ignore the devices.

The captain said JPD did receive a state grant last year to help with traffic enforcement. Results from that program proved successful in terms of tickets that were issued to drivers breaking the law.

“A lot of that is reckless driving — seatbelts, cell phones, distracted driving, going through red lights, stop signs,” Forster said. “We just got that grant last year for the first time in a few years. We got a lot of positive results from it.”

Jackson alluded to the department’s early success in deploying a nuisance officer. The officer handles a variety of calls for services or, as the police chief put it Thursday, “All the little things that irritate people.”

Examples of work for the nuisance officer, Jackson noted, include dealing with bicyclists riding in the middle of the street and the ever-problematic illegal fireworks.

“And I can tell you, you may not notice it yet, but he’s made a huge impact,” Jackson said of the officer.

Sundquist said his administration has “made it a policy to go hard on the small things.” Doing so, he said, proves to the public that the city will not tolerate “those quality-of-life issues.”

The mayor said the city is seeking maximum fines on tickets issued by its nuisance officer upward of $200 to $300. “We’ve kind of changed our ways a bit,” Sundquist said. “We’re going hard on those small things because we want the public to know that this is a big deal to our community.”

Among other topics broached during Thursday’s community meeting:

¯ people breaking into and squatting inside vacant city homes. The problem, one woman said, is bringing down property values and prevents her from wanting to invest further into her home.

¯ constant noise from motorcycles, many which appear to be traveling in loops in certain parts of the city. “I don’t know how you stop that, motorcycle people going around,” a resident said.

¯ speed bumps. Melissa Paterniti, a local Jamestown resident, questioned why the city has not installed speed bumps in problem areas within city limits to deter speeding.

“Second Street is like a raceway,” she said.

Jackson said speed bumps have previously been discussed as a local option. The mayor said speed humps are another option.

¯ efforts to tamp down on code violations. Surdyk provided a handout to the public on the code enforcement process, from the time a complaint is filed, efforts to obtain compliance and to going to court when all else fails.

Surdyk said complaints to the code enforcement office are logged as they come in. On average, she said, the city receives 62 complaints every day. “That’s just what we physically can take,” she said.

Surdyk said the city is looking at introducing an ordinance that will allow code enforcement to directly issue violations, similar to JPD’s nuisance officer. Violations can be for tall grass, junk and debris, and unregistered or illegally parked vehicles.

“We can go right to ticket, rather than go through the whole trying to get compliance,” she said.

Forster said he wrote down many of the concerns aired Thursday to bring to the new nuisance officer.

The next community meeting is scheduled for July 20 at Jackson-Taylor Park, followed by July 26 at Lillian Dickson Park and Aug. 2 at Bergman Park. All meetings start at 6 p.m.