RAN 9/25
By KEVIN LANDRIGAN 
Telegraph Staff

 

MANCHESTER [MD] Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole came to town
Sunday looking for role models, not votes, as he toured a once drug-torn
block taken back by citizen activists.
   Dole appeared more intent on making a favorable impression than on 
making news with his visit to Cedar Street buildings that were infamous 
"crack houses" until a local-state-federal effort turned the tide. 
   "This may be a place you want to use as a model. We are looking for 
ways to do things with less cost and it can be done if the will is 
there," Dole said.
   The Cedar Street project will be a major focus of a U.S. House
subcommittee hearing today chaired by Rep. Bill Zeliff, R-N.H.  Zeliff
decided to bring law enforcement and family service advocates together
after several congressmen on his national security panel expressed the
same worry about drug problems getting out of hand in urban areas. 
   Tina Simpson lives across the street from the "crack house" 
bought and closed at the direction of Mayor Raymond Wieczorek and Police 
Chief Peter Fauver.  "We've got a lot of good people looking after each 
other and it's made the difference," she said. 
   Attorney General Jeffrey Howard directed $100,000 in federal drug 
enforcement money to purchase a local cruiser and bring community 
policing to this block of "tree streets" where drug dealers congregated.  
Police officers set up a bicycle patrol to become more mobile and less 
threatening and used federal seed money to level a dilapidated building 
around the corner that will become a police substation. 
   "I can remember it used to take 45 minutes to get the police down here.
Now you place the call and no sooner is your hand down on the headset that
they come," said neighborhood resident Bill Dixon. Dixon said he didn't
resent the political nature of Dole's trip, which the candidate claimed
was not meant to give him positive press but to salute the residents.  "I
think it's an advantage for him and it's an advantage for us," said Dixon,
who has lived in the neighborhood for years. 
   "Maybe more people who see this will come around and walk the
neighborhood at night so we really can bring it back to the way life used
to be," Dixon said. Gail Jones, public relations spokeswoman for TBONE
(Take Back Our Neighborhood), said the city has already rehabilitated
several multi-family buildings in the area and sold them to private
developers.  "The change has been positive and gradual so that people
living here could see it, every day," Jones said. 
   Among those testifying at the day-long hearing at the
Center of New Hampshire include Nashua Children's Association Executive
Director Michael Plourde, Wieczorek, Fauver and TBONE President Alice
Stuphan.
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The Telegraph               The daily newspaper for Nashua and
P.O. Box 1008               Southern New Hampshire since 1832.
Nashua, NH 03061            (603) 882-2741     Newsroom fax: (603) 882-2681
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