Butler Tarkington Neighborhood Association (BTNA)
The Butler Tarkington Neighborhood Association (BTNA) took bold and meaningful steps toward rallying neighbors and partners to fight crime, and take back their neighborhood, by hosting Study Circles focused on Public Safety. Callie Sanders, the president of BTNA stated, “The Public Safety Circles are geared toward improving the Quality of Life for all of our neighbors. We have to do something, and a strong focus on public safety is the right thing to do.”
Study Circles is only the beginning for the Butler Tarkington Neighborhood. At the end of the 6-week session, Circle participants, community partners, elected officials, neighbors and friends came together at an action forum to develop an action plan that transformed their outcomes into action items.

One achievement from the action forum was the formation of the Metro Safety Awareness Unit. This group includes liaisons from IMPD, Project Safe Neighborhoods, Operation My Town, INRC, Mayor’s Neighborhood Liaisons, Health and Hospital, Mid North Public Safety, the Prosecutor’s office, Marion County 911 and the Assistant Director of Public Safety.

Another group that emerged as a result of the Study Circle action items is a taskforce, Civic Revival. The Civic Revival includes Butler Tarkington, Crown Hill, and Meridian Kessler Neighborhood Associations, as well as state and local government stakeholders. Since its inception in late November 2006, Civic Revival has completed the 1st draft of the Civic Revival Detailed Plan, held a clergy breakfast with local faith-based organizations, a Gala for residents that highlighted the neighborhood history, began a youth group with the PAL Club, and started a local block club initiative with the support of the City Wide Crime Watch Coordinator. They currently hold in cue four other projects that will be completed by the end of 2007.
 

By the end of the day, the residents had identified eight neighborhood beautification efforts that they would like to undertake including: planting trees as sound barriers, establishing neighborhood gateways, and developing a play area for neighborhood children, as well as establishing resident work groups committed to seeing the projects become a reality. Over the next year, the neighborhood will work with Keep Indianapolis Beautiful and Indianapolis Neighborhood Resource Center to bring these beautification efforts to life.

Jane Lommel, BRAG President, says this is what motivated the neighborhood to come together. "BRAG is primarily dedicated to retaining the businesses in our area and to attracting new ones that reflect the demographics and buying power of its businesses and residents." The area that BRAG covers starts on Binford Boulevard, (State Road 37), north-northeast to East 82nd Street and Hague Road, south to Kessler Boulevard, and west to Allisonville Road.

Lommel said BRAG's initial action was a planting last fall. "(BRAG's) first major project took place on October 1, 2005, when 800 volunteers spent that Saturday planting hundreds of trees, perennials and bulbs along a one-mile stretch of Binford Boulevard, from East 75th St., down to East 65th St."
This project was in response to the aesthetic deterioration that was taking place; Lommel stated why the residents wanted to beautify the area, "The reason BRAG undertook this beautification effort as its first project was to demonstrate that there is considerable civic pride in the neighborhood, and to give a positive visual picture to residents, commuters, and current and future businesses that Binford Boulevard can and is an attractive gateway (to Indianapolis) and vibrant (area) in its own right."

Regarding the economic efforts of the organization, BRAG has received donations and established sponsor/partnerships with many of the businesses in the area, including Community Hospitals Foundation, Landmark Properties, Mark Holeman Landscaping, Mays Chemical and Stanley Security Solutions, Inc.

Other activities that BRAG will be undertaking are the continued beautification of the neighborhood; future road improvements, separate bike lanes, pedestrian access to the Monon Trail, as well as an expansion with the Fall Creek Trail, all with the collaboration of the City of Indianapolis; assistance in the construction effort of the Skiles Test Park Nature Center; and a variety of performing arts, cultural programs, upscale retail stores, independent restaurants, continuing education programs and a library branch in the community. For more information, go to BRAG's website at www.binford71.org.