Payne Phalen Neighborhood Leadership Network:
You CAN make a difference in your neighborhood!

Building a better neighborhood is in your hands. The Payne-Phalen (District 5) Community Council can help provide you with the tools to make the community a better place to live, work and play. District councils can be an incredible asset for neighborhoods. But the

district council and its staff cannot do it all. It is vital to have committed, involved citizens, drawing on a wealth of community resources, to improve our neighborhood. Committed, involved citizens look out for each other and their community. They work together and share information and resources. They support each other. That’s where the Neighborhood Leadership Network or NLN comes in.

Sometimes when things aren’t going well in your community, it’s all too easy to think that you are the only person who cares about what is happening on your block or in your neighborhood. But that just isn’t true. We have many concerned and committed neighbors here. The key is to get everyone on the same page, working together.

Think of the Payne-Phalen neighborhood and the Neighborhood Leadership Network as a set of building blocks. You live or work on a block, bounded by streets. The neighborhood itself has about 370 street blocks. The St. Paul Police Department, for its crime tracking and reporting purposes, puts groups of blocks into groups known as grids. While most grids are similar in size, not every grid has the same number of blocks. As a city, St. Paul has about 280 grids. You can see a grid map at the city’s web site, under the police department pages, at www.stpaul.gov/

If you do not have Internet access, the district council office or police can provide you with a grid map. You can track crime in your area by grid. Get to know your grid and know what is happening around you. Crime reports are posted online and you can track activities in that way. Crime reports also appear weekly in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and East Side Review. Another building block is block clubs. We have many existing block clubs in  Payne-Phalen but would always welcome more members in existing clubs and new clubs in areas where none exist.

The Neighborhood Leadership Network will connect the block clubs in a grid, as a way of getting crime prevention information out to the community. We would like to establish grid captains who would help systematically get information out to each grid and block club. Block clubs can be a very effective resource and a great way to organize around issues. Block clubs can help you get to know your neighbors. But block clubs working in isolation are not as effective as groups working together for the common goal of a better neighborhood. The Neighborhood Leadership Network is not a one-way street. We’d like to use it to help citizens report crime and ask questions, as well as use it to distribute information. This is limited to crime prevention information and crime alerts. We’d also like to use this system for land use, zoning and licensing information, so you have a better idea of what is going on in your community. Through email and our telephone volunteers, the Neighborhood Leadership Network can help you stay informed and involved.

Part of the Neighborhood Leadership Network involves the Neighborhood Action Meetings, which will be held on the third Thursday evening of each month. These meetings will involve a different resource person. Come and learn about issues in your community. Hear reports from each grid and learn about programs and services you and your neighbors can take advantage of.

The Neighborhood Leadership Network will also be involved with the East District Police Department, and will have a presence at its monthly community meetings. Two meetings are open to the public and are held at 6:30 p.m on the 3^rd Wednesday and at 9:30 a.m. on the 3^rd Friday. Both are held at the SPPDEast District headquarters at Payne and Minnehaha avenues.

Payne Phalen District Five Planning Council
Organizing Strong, Safe, Welcoming and Connected Neighborhoods

506 Kenny Road, Saint Paul MN 55130 
Call 651-774-5234 for more information
or e-mail us at
D5-director@paynephalen.org