Extra! Extra! Read all about it. Menlo Park's Belle Haven neighborhood gets its own newspaper. Well, sort of.
Less than six months after an intensive neighborhood survey concluded that residents lacked a good, central source of information about vital community services, the inaugural edition of the Belle Haven Community News has hit the street.
Publication of the quarterly, tabloid-size newsletter two weeks ago represented an important, tangible response to a survey of residents conducted by the city.
The Belle Haven Needs Assessment, conducted last year, sought for the first time to measure and articulate the education, employment, public safety and recreation needs of a neighborhood that historically has felt forgotten or ignored by city leaders and other parts of the community.
Belle Haven community leaders and others who wrote articles and helped produce the Belle Haven Community News believe it will do more than simply tell residents about the wide range of services available to them through the city, the schools and other public and private agencies.
The city printed 3,000 copies of the newsletter to distribute by mail to Belle Haven's more than 1,500 homes. Copies were also sent to local businesses, schools and placed at city hall and the police department.
According to Vivian Chang, a part-time city employee who coordinated its production, the newsletter cost $5,000. The city last year created a special fund of $30,000 to publish the newsletter at least four times.
Isolated by the six-lane Bayshore Freeway, the predominately minority, low-income neighborhood located on the city's eastern border has battled against the kinds of serious economic, crime and drug problems more often associated with troubled inner cities.
"I think a lot of people think of this community as the ugly stepsister," said Belle Haven resident Christine Larson, who also serves on the city's Planning Commission.
It has been that reputation and the attention given to Belle Haven's high-profile problems by the media that local leaders complain has obscured much of the hard work of residents and the many successes they've had in turning around their neighborhood.
"We have a lot of good people here and a lot of good things going on and that needs to be reinforced," said DeBorah Dillon, head of San Mateo County Organizing Project, a grass-roots organization which during the past year has helped Belle Haven residents get a handle on some of their problems.
That's why the Community News had the look and feel of more than just a simple, informational brochure. In recognition of the neighborhood's changing ethnic balance--an estimated 30 percent of Belle Haven's residents are Hispanic--the newsletter was printed in both Spanish and English.
"Here is 20 pages of newsletter that says there are a lot of good things going on," Dillon said.
The first edition offers a smattering of brief articles telling residents about programs, services and events--from child care to senior activities--available to them through local schools, the Onetta Harris Community Center and churches.
Employment training programs are highlighted in one section, and several job opportunities are listed. Residents also are encouraged to participate on a variety of local government commissions.
The newsletter describes the work of various local activist groups and churches and the people who have been instrumental in organizing them.
It profiles Belle Haven Against Drugs, the group credited with leading efforts to stem crime and drug problems, and the Latino Organizing Project of Belle Haven. One historical article recalls the neighborhood's origins in the early 1930s as a premier housing development.
"Sometimes, folks feel they're alone and they hear these positive stories . . . it does a lot for self-esteem," Dillon said. "It makes people rise up."
--Rufus Jeffris
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