GREEKS & ROBBERS

Since the SGA passed a resolution supporting the development of a Greek neighborhood watch program more than three weeks ago, SGA Greek Legislator and program-founder Gabi Band said he has been working tirelessly in hopes of getting the program off the ground during the spring semester.

But while Band has made some progress, he has also encountered sororities who have expressed their concern about the safety of their members.

To help calm their fears, Band said at first only fraternities will patrol the designated area - the eastern side of Route 1 between Fraternity Row and Hartwick Road. He hopes sororities will take the opportunity to watch how the group operates so they can ideally become a significant piece of the effort.

"I feel that the sororities are an incredibly important part of this program. Part of this program is so that we can walk drunk people back to bus stops," Band said. "A nice young lady standing on the side of the street might not like it with six guys approaching her."

But as of now, the only accessories Band knows for sure will be part of the group ensemble are orange vests and flashlights, which wasn't enough protection to reassure sororities concerned about how to protect their members.

Brianna Russo, the president of Delta Phi Epsilon, said that while she is open to hearing alternatives to increase the safety of her fellow sorority members, she still feels uncomfortable forcing them to walk the streets.

"While I realize 'safety in numbers' is something we preach to all our members in regards to personal safety, it has many times proven to be insufficient in preventing crimes in the College Park area. That being said, I just do not feel comfortable asking any of my sisters to be out on the streets of College Park for longer than they need to be," Russo wrote in an e-mail. "I am certainly open to hearing of the different measures being taken and will keep an open mind, but with my current understanding of the Neighborhood Watch, I do not think it is a good match for my chapter."

Nevertheless, Band continues to speak to as many people as will listen in hopes of making the program run as smoothly as possible when it is implemented.

"I spoke to city council over the summer, I have met with the [Greeks for a Better Community] and the Panhellenic Association, and I just met with Paul Dillon of the University Police to try and move the idea from the planning stages to the implementation stages," Band said. "Although there are still a lot of details to work out, we hope to have it ready to go by next semester."

Paul Dillon, the University Police spokesman, said the police welcome the possible help.

"Whenever our community members want to get involved, it is a positive thing." Dillon said. "The more eyes and ears that we have helping us patrol, the better chance we have of keeping the area safe."

Band said there was no sudden inspiration to create the group, but rather a long-formulated plan he had intended to implement.

"I wanted to take care of the safety of our community," he said. "Whether the safety is getting better or getting worse, there is always the perception that we are unsafe in our own community and the easiest way to foster that trust is to have our own peers patrolling the streets."

Band has also been working closely with junior government and politics major Chris Galarza, who is not in the SGA but who came up with his own idea of starting a campus-wide neighborhood watch after the armed robberies in Leonardtown that occurred the morning of Sept. 25.

The groups will be covering different areas of concern, Galarza said, but they will still co-exist.

"The way we want it to work is that if we are short one night, then Gabi can help us out, and vice-versa," Galarza said. "We want to work with their group as much as possible to make it as successful as possible."

Band, a senior biology major, said he understands he won't be enrolled long enough to see the program through. But he hopes Greeks for a Better Community will take over the day-to-day operations of the program.

"The Greek community is transient by nature; we are here for four years and then we leave," Band said. "I have designed this program to be one of the GBC's main missions. I graduate at the end of this year, but the GBC will always be here, and that is how we can address the issue of transience."

One of the ways Band hopes to assuage these concerns is through the use of MyeVyu, a new application created by faculty at the university that will allow members of the watch group to contact police easily and use GPS to track everyone's movement. The group will sign out two iPhones that have GPS built in so police and the rest of the group can track members of the group who need to walk a lone student back to their dorm, said Dan Sugarman, vice president of public relations for the GBC.

lemairedbk@gmail.com