LEADERS PLAN TO ADDRESS DRUG, CRIME PROBLEMS

Lead Residents Want To Keep Dealers Out Of Their Neighborhood Just Outside
Foley

FOLEY -- Residents of the Mills community, just west of Foley, want to keep
drug dealers out of their neighborhood.

"We don't want them here," said Clifford Calhoun, president of the Mills
Churches Community Organization.

"One day, we don't want to become another Prichard," he said, referring to
the city on the outskirts of Mobile, where shootings and other crimes often
occur.

Calhoun's group is holding a meeting tonight at 7:30 with Foley Mayor Tim
Russell, Police Chief James Miller and members of the Foley City Council to
discuss beefing up law enforcement in the area, he said. The meeting will
be held at Little Rock Missionary Baptist Church on Airport Road, west of
Alabama 59.

The public is invited to attend.

"The meeting will address concerns regarding drugs and fear in the
community and be a first step in cleaning out the negative elements who are
degrading the community," a release from the organization says.

Mills community, located north of U.S. 98 and west of the Foley city
limits, is inside the Foley police jurisdiction. Calhoun said it is a
predominately black neighborhood and that drug dealers sometimes recruit
young people from the community to help them sell marijuana, cocaine and
even crack.

"There's so much drugs here. The mayor needs to let us know what's going
down," Calhoun said. "Drugs are our biggest problem here. You can't help
but see it. We've got people down here making the sales out in the open.
They're young and old and they don't have any respect for anybody."

Calhoun estimates that there are two or three "big-time dealers" in his
neighbor hood. And, he said, "the police can call them by name."

Police, he said, "know where all the hot spots are."

Mayor Russell said he's proud of members of the community for calling this
meeting and for taking the right steps in assuring that Mills grows and
develops "the right way."

"I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to meet with them. I have a lot
of friends who live there, a lot of supporters out there. I want to be able
to work with them to make the community the best it can be," Russell said.

City Councilman John Koniar said community activism, like what is being
shown now in Mills, is the first step in stopping the crime.

"The people who live in that community know if they have a problem there,
and it is our responsibility to listen to them," he said Saturday.

"If it's happening in their community, there's a chance it will pop up
someplace else," he said.

Koniar said a neighborhood watch program might be effective in Mills.

"Anytime people are out looking, and when people know they are being looked
at, I think the crime will go down," he said.

The Mills Churches Community Organization -- which includes area pastors
working in conjunction with Ecumenical Ministries to improve the community
- -- has lobbied to have roads paved and drainage improved in the area.
Members are working to get three additional roads resurfaced and to have
street lights added.

[SIDEBAR]

FYI

WHAT Mills Churches Community Organization meeting

WHEN 7:30 tonight

WHERE Little Rock Missionary Baptist Church on Airport Road, west of Alabama 59