CHIEF TELLS RESIDENTS FINDING AID 'TOUGH'

Despite concerns about drugs, violence and larceny in the Henderson
Extension area, the neighborhood remains unable to get federal funds
for community policing and revitalization because, paradoxically, its
crime rate is too low.

The federal Weed & Seed program - which provides money for communities
to ''weed'' out crime and ''seed'' areas with economic and social
development opportunities - still hasn't provided any funds for the
Hancock Corridor section of west Athens, an area that includes
Henderson Extension, Athens-Clarke Police Chief Jack Lumpkin told
neighborhood residents at a Saturday forum. The crime rate in the area
has been steadily declining from the mid-1990s, when up to half of all
the homicides in Athens happened there, Lumpkin said.

''We've designated this as a Weed and Seed area, but please don't get
your hopes up,'' Lumpkin said at the forum, sponsored by the Hancock
Community Development Corp. ''We're going to try to get those dollars,
but it's going to be a long, hard road.''

The number of violent crimes - murders, rapes, robberies and
aggravated assaults - in the area is down and is lower than other
areas of the city, and those rates are a factor in federal officials'
decisions of where to grant money, he said. Police statistics show
that violent crimes in the Hancock Corridor have decreased from a
total of 98 in 1999 to 67 last year.

''That's a good problem to have,'' said Alvin Sheats, director of the
Hancock Community Development Corp., a non-profit organization
established in 2000 to revitalize a section of west Athens that
includes Henderson Extension. ''But even so, we're not there yet. But
we're certainly making progress.''

Lumpkin also discussed the progress of a police substation that will
be built on the site of a nearby bar and grill at the corner of Baxter
Street and Collins Avenue. The department plans to house its westside
traffic and bicycle units at the substation, which means there will be
about 20 officers coming and going in the area, greatly increasing
police visibility. Lumpkin hopes that will help put a damper on crime
in the area, particularly drug crime like crack cocaine sales.

Police have made hundreds of drug arrests in the area during the past
several years, the police chief said.

''We think the substation is a significant contribution to the
community - once you build a building, it gives notice that the police
presence will be there for a number of years,'' he said. ''You don't
build a building and then walk away.''

Officials hope to complete the substation and move in by March.

Lumpkin also pointed to efforts to increase the number of homeowners
in the Hancock Corridor as a positive sign, not only of how safe
people feel there now but for its future.

''Overall, the community's safer,'' he said. ''And people don't spend
money on single-family housing if they don't feel safe.''