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Mankato hires neighborhood support officer to help deal with nuisance complaints

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Mankato has added a new neighborhood support officer -- a graduate of Minnesota State Mankato -- to help neighbors find effective ways of dealing with nuisances such as barking dogs and loud parties.

2006-07-24
By Dan Nienaber, Free Press staff writer [published in The Free Press, Mankato, MN, 7/21/2006]

MANKATO — Except for a cleanly wiped drawing board and a few crinkled old maps of Mankato, the walls in Chris Boyce's new office are empty.

There are no community oriented policing awards or pictures of Boyce shaking hands with city officials. The promotional posters for National Night Out neighborhood picnics or crime free apartments aren't up either, at least not a couple of days ago.

Boyce's co-workers in the Mankato Police Department have suggested he at least find a plant for the windowless room. He's more concerned about figuring out what his role will be as the city's new neighborhood support officer, a recently created job he is the first to fill.

Those walls will get decorated as his purpose with the police department is defined.

"There's lots of room for growth," he said. "That's the way I look at it."

Fielding nuisance complaints is Boyce's No. 1 priority, a duty that requires him to work closely with police officers, community service officers, firefighters and the city's Community Development office.

Nuisance calls include residents' complaints about a wide range of neighborhood problems, which is why Boyce is called a neighborhood support officer. Those complaints can include reports of barking dogs, loud parties, junk in yards and neighbors renting without a license.

It's going to be Boyce's job to filter through those calls, decide how they should be handled and to follow up to make sure each complaint is addressed. That could mean letting the people making complaints know the city has done what it can, even though the problem hasn't been fixed.

"People can be ticketed and go to court for having a junked motor vehicle in their yard, but that doesn't necessarily mean the junked motor vehicle had been moved," he said.

So he knows another part of his job will be educating people about the city's system for handling complaints, and the limits of the law. But he'll also be finding ways to teach neighbors how to handle problems on their own before getting police or other city officials involved.

That could be as easy as getting to know your neighbors so you feel comfortable telling them their dogs were barking at 2 a.m.

"I just have a belief that a lot of what police work is about is the quality of life in neighborhoods and helping neighbors talk to neighbors," Boyce said. "People don't talk so much anymore, but a lot of problems could be solved with dialogue between neighbors."

That dialogue starts with introductions, then finding ways they can look out for each other, he said.

He will also be working closely with the city's rental inspectors, said Paul Vogel, Mankato Community Development director. A fair portion of the city's nuisance complaints are from people reporting residential properties being rented without a license. Those calls are expected to increase when students return to Minnesota State University and the area's smaller colleges this fall.

One of Boyce's first major public projects is helping plan Mankato's National Night Out events. He'll also be working on the upcoming Senior Expo event that's organized by the Police Department and developing neighborhood watch groups.

"The position was created based on a need to better coordinate neighborhood issues," said Matt Westermayer, Department of Public Safety deputy director. "With the community growing the way it is and the need we were seeing, it was obvious we needed to improve by having someone in that type of position."

Westermayer said Boyce's job hasn't been completely defined yet. It will develop as he starts working with neighborhoods and finds out what things work and what things don't work.

Boyce, who majored in law enforcement and political science at MSU, left his previous job as a YMCA program director to fill the new city position. He's working on getting his master's degree in public administration from the university.

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