The University Park Community Club

Based upon extensive coordination with various County/City officials to resolve public nuisance problem properties in the University Park residential area, a series of steps and recommended documentation have been developed for your use. In the near term, only phone calls or letters are required, but if the problem(s) persist, excellent documentation by the neighbours is essential for city attourneys to proceed with prosecution. Contacting residents of the problem property is one avenue to persue, at least initially. However, if neighbours fear for their own safety or for vandalism against their properties, this is considered adequate reason, in the eyes of a judge, for neighbours not to contact the problem property and rather pursue the other steps addressed below.

1) Confirm specific address(es) where problem is occurring or has occurred.

2) Call police at 625-5011 (non-emergency) or 911 (emergency) and write down the date, time, and incident number assigned by the police. You should get this from the police operator. You should call the police even if you feel that they will be slow to respond and/or be ineffective. Documentation of calls to police is crucial should prosecution be pursued. Even if you need to call another agency regarding a problem with the nuisance property, such as DCLU or Liquor Control, you need to document the call.

3) Call or write the residence owner for each event, and record the date, time, and content of the communication. If the owner is not contacted, he or she can claim to be unaware that there is a problem, should the problem property end up as a court case. If you don't know the name and address of the non-resident owner, call Chicago Title at 628-5666, during normal business hours, and ask for a property profile on the property concerned. You will need to give them the specific address. A property profile will be mailed to you within several days and will include the owner's name and address. Chicago Title will ask what company you are with; just tell them the information is for you, a private citizen.

4) Periodically forward the above information to Kent Willis at 5210 16th Avenue NE (526-7149 - if you have any questions). Alternatively, you can make a record of your efforts on our web-based reporting form. Your report gets saved to disk, then later printed and given to Kent in batches.

5) If the problem is alcohol related, you should contact Bill Schrader, Liquor Control Board (464-6095) and discuss the problem with him. He can and will send a letter to the residence concerned. It's another avenue of problem documentation, and preliminary action can be taken by local authorities to quell the problem. This kind of documentation is useful in the City Attourney's Office should they decide to prosecute the owner or residents. You still need to call the police first, even if you are going to call Liquor Control.