Lochwood 2022 in Review
Lochwood is a unique and vibrant neighborhood despite extraordinary challenges in 2022. It’s always encouraging to be with other neighbors, and we look forward to more opportunities to do so in 2023. The people are what makes this neighborhood special and we will continue working together and with others to promote safety, community, and beautification.
Shout out to the Lochwood Parent’s Group for spearheading our two best neighborhood events: another colorful 4th of July Parade celebrating America’s Independence with a new parade route and after-party at the park pavilion – decorated trikes, bikes, scooters & convertibles, patriotic songs, food & drinks, young and old and in between…and our 6th annual celebration of Christmas at the park with train rides, movies, food & drinks, and face-painting!
Thanks to two neighbors for jump-starting community get-togethers including one at Lochland’s Food & Spirits and the second at Jake’s Game Day; and to one who just initiated a monthly breakfast club! Coming soon: Lochwood Young Adults. And hats off to those who led or participated in the Craft Fair at Reilly Elementary, Halloween parties, and Christmas Crawl, among others. Keep the creative ideas coming!
We continue to wholeheartedly support our Dallas police officers including the three (3) we hire to patrol Lochwood as part of the city’s ENP (Expanded Neighborhood Patrol) program; our ENP cops patrolled 1,414 hours (27+ hours per week) in 2022 thanks to your faithful financial giving.
In one incident, alert neighbors called in a suspicious vehicle while one of our ENP Officers happened to be on patrol. After a chase, the officer identified the vehicle as stolen, the suspect took off running, our cop called for back-up and caught & tackled the suspect, and arrested him. Our ENP officer reported, “The individual arrested had a very, very long history of criminal activity. He is 45 years old and has been in the crime business since he was 17, has been to prison several times ranging from aggravated robbery, burglary, and dangerous drugs...glad we got the guy and hopefully they’ll lock him up for a while. i did not get out of work until midnight!”
Remain vigilant reporting to 911 any suspicious activity, persons, or vehicles. Phone number to the ENP car is (214) 478-3678. Also, consider investing in a ring camera to remain proactive, and communicating with each other about suspicious situations on social networks is paramount.
Over the years, Lochwood has fought battles to preserve and protect our quality of life and the safe haven we enjoy including:
An attempt to develop apartments on what used to be horse stables, then a golf driving range, but now is home to 150 single-family homes at “The Enclave at Wyrick Estates”
The removal of a double-wide trailer that showed up one morning on a vacant lot to the surprise of neighbors
Prevented Lochwood Blvd from being a cut-through gateway to and from NW Highway
Joined other East Dallas neighborhoods to fight the city’s attempt to quietly & unannounced push through a plan to build a concrete batch plant adjacent to Lochwood. Had not a whistleblower come forward alerting Lochwood that our representatives downtown were attempting to push through the construction of the batch plant we’d likely be breathing that toxic air today. Our city rep’s appointed Plan Commissioner had already ok’d a re-zoning approval without notifying constituents ahead of time. The neighborhood push-back forced our city rep to postpone the, until then unknown to us, soon and upcoming council vote and finally forced her to publicly state opposition to the plan.
Identical to the concrete batch plant situation, in 2022 a “heads-up!” alert was given to Lochwood once again by a whistleblower this time about a plan being pushed through to re-zone and demolish our area’s 66-year-old church facility (which recently had gone through a multi-million-dollar modernization) to put in its place a 4-story apartment complex.
East Dallas and Lochwood residents owe an enormous debt of gratitude to these two whistleblowers!
Once alerted to what was being perpetrated, hundreds of residents of Lochwood, Eastwood, Reinhardt, Old Lake Highlands, Casa View, and The Peninsula initiated and attended (and forced the players downtown to attend & initiate) public meetings strongly voicing disapproval of 4-stories, asking repeatedly for a concession to be made to 3-stories. More than 2,000 petitioned for this. Hundreds of hours were devoted to making our voices heard to the power brokers downtown and to the church leadership, all falling on deaf ears including some truly head-spinning things said, done, and written by the same.
Recent concerns about gunfire, car-racing, and break-ins will be addressed through soon-to-be scheduled in-person, quarterly meetings at the Dallas Northeast Police Substation. Stay tuned.
On a personal note, the biggest shout out of all goes to my friend & neighbor who invested thousands of hours of his time investigating, researching, uncovering, chronicling, developing, and presenting data in our fight for what was right & just in the proposed re-zone, while simultaneously presenting reasonable alternatives. Meetings were met at different times with scorn, cursing by our representative at city hall, her appointee representative storming out of a public meeting in a rage, public mocking from the same, lies, and the developer attempting to intimidate/threaten the employment status of one of our spouses. When positions of power and the pursuit of riches are threatened, otherwise normally sane people do some crazy things! The bullying and intimidation tactics show just how high the stakes were for those hoping to reap financial & political rewards. It was a civics lesson neither of us signed up for and it did expose to be true what we were told from the outset, that Dallas City Hall is known in certain quarters as “the secret handshake city”. Attempting to fight against this plus the thousands of dollars of campaign contributions from developers, the sly developers themselves, and millions in government handouts and tax loopholes was seemingly a wall too high to overcome. So, the next time you see Thomas Buck tell him “Thank You.” He left it all on the field fighting for what was right and just.
Thank you all for playing your part - we will continue working with Lochwood neighbors, area neighborhood leaders & stakeholders, and DPD to advance our mission of safety, community, and beautification this year!
If we all do a little, it will make a great BIG difference…
Scott Robson
President, Lochwood Neighborhood Association
