A Word On Valley Cultural’s Concerts In The Park
As many of you are aware, the Valley Cultural Center (http://www.valleycultural.org) puts on many concerts in the park every summer. Many people love these, and they are generally well received. To be totally honest, I’ve never been to any of them. Also, in general, you won’t find me writing about them much on the blog.
That being said, if you are interested, check out the upcoming 2010 concert schedule here. The concert season kicked off with the Playboy Jazz Festival on June 6th, and Wang Chung yesterday.
As far as some commentary I’d like to throw out there, while the VCC seems to put a lot of effort into these concerts, they put almost no effort into outreach to let people know about them. They rely almost entirely on word of mouth or the happenstance that you drive by one of the venues and see signage. Which is sad, because they have an e-mail subscription feature on their website, but so far I have yet to receive any e-mails about any of these events.
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LAPD Sergeant Cathy Riggs Writes Regarding LAPD Topanga Station’s Use Of Nixle Alert System
Sergeant Riggs writes in with regards to some recent commentary on the blog about the lacking of Nixle alerts during recent incidents. It should be noted that since the previously blog entry, there was also no notification during or after the Warner Center bomb scare incident earlier this week. However, a notification was issued with regard to police activity in West Hills this morning. So, maybe we are moving in the right direction.
Sergeant Riggs writes:
Guys,
Girard does have a point, and that is that the LAPD is using Nixle but the public’s expectations are sometimes higher than the amount of information put out. I am a Watch Commander at LAPD Topanga and use the system. What gets sent out depends on who the watch commander is that day, whether that person has been trained to use the system, how comfortable they feel about sending out messages, and if they have the time to do so. I think with time, training, and public support of the system, the quality and quantity of the messages will get better. Thanks for everyone’s support of our use of the system.
Sergeant Cathy Riggs Topanga Watch Commander
I really appreciate you writing in, Sergeant Riggs. Having heard the same from other sources, I was aware that the alerts being sent depended on who was working that day and if they were trained. I hope that you will work within your capacity and authority to get the other Watch Commander’s up to speed so that when emergency’s unfold the system can be used to send alert no matter who is on shift.
It seems to me that the LAPD does want to keep the community informed about what is happening in their neighborhoods. In my opinion, the Nixle system is a great step towards that – as long as it is used.
Hopefully Topanga Station’s head honcho Captain Sherman is aware of the community’s interest in this system, and procedures can be set up to make sure it is used when it should be.
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