The Simpson Stump - April 2023

Communities Matter. Community Matters.

A bit later than usual, but by popular demand we will be posting the signs for the Simpson

Neighborhood Garage Sale in April! We will have the signs placed around the neighborhood on April 15th, for the duration of the day. We’ll also post this information on Nextdoor, Facebook, AZCentral.com, classified ads in AZ Central, Garagesales.com, and Yardsales.com. So if you’d like to share your particular sale on those links please do so!

We will be pulling together a map of garage sale locations to distribute. If you’d like to be included, please email us your location and we’ll include your location. We’ll also work on handing out a few maps to each of the participating houses to share with shoppers.

We’ll be out holding our own small sale, as well as trying to make the rounds to talk to our other neighborhoods. Looking forward to seeing everyone out there.

City of Phoenix Contact Changes

Some of you were able to attend our previous neighborhood meeting, and meet our new Community Action Officer with the Phoenix Police Department, Officer Eric Boardman (Eric.Boardman@phoenix.gov ; 602-534-1859).

Since our previous neighborhood meeting, we have also been assigned a new Neighborhood Specialist with Phoenix NSD: Johnny Mendoza (johnny.mendoza@phoenix.gov). Johnny worked this beat before as an inspector so he’s very familiar with the issues we struggle with and some of the resources at our disposal to help. We will work on getting Johnny to an upcoming neighborhood meeting to introduce himself and provide a summary of the services he and his department can offer. We’ll be excited to working with him in the coming months.

19th Avenue Community Safety Plan

The Simpson Neighborhood Association is participating in a new Community Safety Plan based around the 19th Ave corridor between Indian School and Dunlap. You may have seen news in the past few weeks about a similar group based around 27th Avenue. This group will serve the same function for 19th Avenue, and are a few weeks behind in getting into motion.

While we will be sharing additional information at neighborhood meetings, it is critical we (the neighborhood and the city) hear about the situations our neighbors are experiencing. You can email us directly and we will share the information with the various city departments. IF you’re able to, we ask that you also report these issues through the myPHX311 app or website (phoenix.gov/myPHX311) or through Phoenix PD. Reporting through official channels creates a history that can be followed up on and identified for correction. If the city doesn’t know there is an issue, they can’t look at helping solve it.

What Can the Neighborhood Help With

The Simpson Neighborhood Association was able to procure a Blockwatch Grant for 2021 and again for 2022. This funding has allowed for the purchase of safety, security tools, & community building equipment to be shared or available free of charge to neighbors. If you need tents, tables, chairs, PA System or anything else for your events, please contact your co-chairs Steven or Randi to coordinate your needs.

Community Updates

As there are always things going on in a neighborhood and city this size, we will be working to share a few of the more timely ones here:

• Changes around Christown Mall and Solano Park are still slowly taking shape. The new Skatepark at Solano is nearing completion. The surrounding neighborhoods continue working with Phoenix Parks to get the park issues under control. And the changes at Christown we have reviewed previously are still planned, starting with two apartment complexes being proposed behind Wal-Mart in the always vacant parking lot.

• Covd hit many of the events that take place in our area hard, and some have been slowly returning. We will be looking at resuming the regular alley cleanups later this year. Watch socials and the newsletter for details in the fall when these resume and how to get involved. We are also hopeful that some other event such as the World Bazaar might be coming back sometime soon!

• There are many community groups that operate in our area of Phoenix, and we’re working to highlight ones that we have worked with as a neighborhood. As part of our April meeting, we will have Christ Church (located near Camelback and 19th Ave) at the meeting to speak more about their support and outreach efforts in our corner of Phoenix.

Upcoming Events

• Neighborhood Garage Sales - April 15th

• Next Neighborhood Meeting will be April 18th @ 6:30 pm - First Indian Baptist Church, 2205 W. Georgia

Get Involved

Volunteer Opportunities abound especially now that we have funding and additional administrative overhead.

• Street Captains to put out luminaries for the holidays

• Volunteers for litter pick ups

• Volunteers to assist as a treasurer

• Volunteers to assist as a secretary willing to help coordinate future newsletters, record minutes, etc.

Follow Us

Look for Simpson Neighborhood Group on Facebook or join Nextdoor for additional online interactions.