MONROE, MI — The Greenwood Townhouses saw a new addition to their community this summer, as work was completed on the Anthony Webb Community Center and its police community office.
“The police are a wonderful presence in our community and we wanted to provide positive community relationships and a partnership with the police department,” said Nancy Wain, executive director of the Monroe Housing Commission. “And so with children that are always outside, and even the parents, they can talk to them and ask the questions and it gives them a great sense of security as well, having their presence available.”
This collaboration between the Housing Commission and the Monroe Public Safety Department is mutually beneficial, as it gives the community and the police further access to each other. The Greenwood Townhouses are far from Downtown Monroe, where the main Public Safety Department office is located, so having the substation is helpful for growing police presence.
“I know it’s not a primary call station, we don’t primarily have officers there all the time,” explained Commander John Wall with the Monroe Public Safety Department. “But with our outreach projects that we do in the community, it helps us to have a place that we can go to and be at for doing programming and different things that we might do in that area.”
The Anthony Webb Community Center was recently completed after a year and a half of planning and construction. The center is named after a late board president of the Monroe Housing Commission. Two other past board members, Bonnie Doster and Jackie McGhee, have the community center’s library named after them.
— Contact reporter Connor Veenstra at CVeenstra@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Monroe Public Safety Department opens new substation
Reporting by Connor Veenstra, The Monroe News / The Monroe News
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