Anaheim OKs Police Center in Disneyland Area

The Anaheim City Council on Wednesday voted to spend $68,000 to establish a mini-neighborhood police center in an area near Disneyland that has been plagued by drug and crime problems.

Father John Lenihan of St. Boniface Catholic Church, whose parish includes the eight-block area around Jeffrey Drive and Lynne Avenue, praised the council’s unanimous vote but expressed frustration that the decision took so long. The St. Boniface Organizing Committee has been pushing for such a center for more than a year, but the council delayed action until a $50,000-study of the area was completed this summer.

“We opposed the idea for a study,” Lenihan said. “We felt that we already knew what the needs were.”

The creation of a neighborhood center was just one of a list of recommendations that emerged from the study conducted by the Orange County Community Consortium Inc. In addition to the $68,000, the City Council also agreed to set aside another $100,000 to carry out the study’s recommendations, should the money be needed.

The study, based on interviews with 100 households in the area, concluded that the top priority for the residents is increased police protection.

The Anaheim Police Department recently has stepped up its enforcement in the Jeffrey-Lynne district, including a drug sweep that resulted in more than 100 arrests in three Disneyland-area neighborhoods. The study also recommended that bilingual police officers be assigned to the area, since Spanish was the primary language in 83% of the households surveyed.

Another area of need for Jeffrey-Lynne residents is community services, the study showed. Residents need information in Spanish about health care, social services, health-care benefits available from employers, amnesty classes and employment referral.