TURNING A COMMUNITY AROUND IS 'A JOURNEY'

A police narcotics dog sniffed around the parking lot of the Crescent
Square apartments Monday morning as Janice Warren unloaded groceries from
the trunk of her car. The dog and its handler left without finding
anything. "It's good," said Warren, who has lived at Crescent Square for a
month.

Nearby, a grounds crew cut the grass and trimmed trees. A year ago Crescent
Square had a reputation. "It was bad out here as far as drugs," Warren
said. But efforts by Cobb police, community leaders, apartment managers and
others have begun to make the Austell Road complex a better place to live.
Two months ago an access gate was installed and residents were issued
identification cards.

Officers from Cobb's Community Oriented Policing Environment unit spend a
lot of time on the complex talking and getting to know residents.

The apartment managers also hire off-duty officers to patrol the grounds,
and one lives in the complex. "There used to be a lot of robberies here,"
said Alfredo Garrido, 27, who has lived at Crescent Square for two years.
"Now everything is more secure.

Everything is more peaceful now." The improvements are part of a
communitywide effort to upgrade the south Cobb area within the Osborne High
School attendance zone. Three apartment complexes in the area, Crescent
Square, Windmill Lake and Forest Creek Crossing, were identified for
special efforts because of drug dealing and other problems.

The complexes are part of a federal "Weed and Seed" program, which uses
police and community resources to rout out drugs dealers. About 12,000
people live in the Weed and Seed area. About 50,000 people live in the
Osborne area. Problems in the Weed and Seed area "run the whole gamut from
domestic violence, to drug abuse and distribution, to vandalism," said Tom
Barrentine, president and chairman of the Osborne Prevention Task Force.
The seeding portion includes programs that restore long-neglected community
ties or establish links that did not exist. At Crescent Square, in addition
to the police efforts, it has meant offering ESOL classes for residents.

Management also improved landscaping and lighting in the complex.

There is a plan for an after-school program for middle school students, and
another for Hispanic girls is planned for the fall. This summer two
teachers from Milford Elementary School, where most of the younger
residents attend, spent Thursday afternoons sitting around the pool reading
with children and giving them books.

They dubbed their effort "Book Buddies." "It gave me satisfaction," said
Denise Kettles, a first-grade teacher and a member of the task force board.
"I felt like they were getting something that they would otherwise not
get." The books were donated from various sources, she said. Kettles and
Kelly Lloyd took the initiative because they wanted to be sure that
students in their school kept up their reading during the summer. But the
children ranged from preschoolers to teenagers, said Lloyd, who teaches
second grade.

The teachers gave the children Popsicles as they read. "The first day they
were more interested in the Popsicles," Lloyd said. "By the last day they
were just clamoring for books.

They were asking 'Can I take some for my cousin?

For my sister?

For my friend next door?' This was a great experience because of all the
fun the kids had." Episodes like that make Barrentine smile.

The task force was started in 1996. To get a handle on crime in the area,
75 volunteers combed through thousands of police reports to pull out the
ones in their zone. The 500-hour effort helped them pinpoint the hot spots
for the first areas of concentration. The group did not collect race and
ethnic data, Barrentine said. "If they live here, they are residents.

That's what we are concerned about." So far, money to the task force has
been slow in coming.

It has received notice from the U.S. Justice Department that it is eligible
for $124,000 in grants and is getting the paperwork together for programs,
said Victoria Avila, the community development coordinator. But the group
has parlayed its efforts into partnerships. The after-school program for
children from Forest Creek Crossing is funded with a $73,515 United Way grant.

The Cobb County Commission also has given the group a $15,000 grant. Space
for the program is donated by Life's Hope Baptist Church on Hicks Road.
Calvary Presbyterian Church on Windy Hill Road donates office space for the
task force. The group also adopted a two-mile stretch of Windy Hill for
Keep Cobb Beautiful and had its first cleanup last month. "What we are
saying is 'Residents, if you don't like the way things are, let's make them
better,' " said Barrentine, who moved into the area 37 years ago. "I don't
think we will ever be finished," he said. "This is a journey, continuous
involvement, continuous improvement."