The Broad Ripple Village Association (BRVA) held their monthly meeting on January 15, 2008, at the Indianapolis Art Center. The main topic of discussion for the night revolved around the need to find a new board member after the departure of a recently elected one.

A new meeting attendee was also introduced-Officer Kelly Jessa, who will be the new IMPD community liaison for Broad Ripple. Sergeant George Burge, the former community liaison retired. The BRVA wished him the best of luck and welcomed Officer Jessa, as well as Catherine Moore, the Crime Watch Specialist for the north district. The ladies spoke about vehicle larcenies-which is currently the main problems that the northern district is dealing with.

"Catalytic converters are currently the hot item," Officer Jessa said. "They are extremely easy to take off cars and are worth a lot of money, due to the precious metals inside them."

She continued by saying the SUVs are one of the main targets, mainly because they are so high off the ground that the converters are very easy to reach.

The officer was also questioned about the homicide of Jane Pepper, and she apologized, they still have no actual leads.

"What we really need right now is any sort of help from the community that we can get," she said.

Officer Jessa finished by noting that there has also been an increase in the number of home thefts and robberies in the area.

"The best thing that everyone can do beyond keeping some sort of light on or getting a big dog, is to write down the serial numbers of everything valuable they have," she said. "That way, if it shows up at a pawn shop in the city, there is the possibility that we can track it and get it back to you."

After Officer Jessa was done speaking, BRVA president, Ellen Morley Matthews, spoke about the focus of the evening-the open slot on the BRVA board.

"We have contacted all those who ran in the past election to let them know," she said.

She continued by speaking about the upcoming town hall meetings this year. She noted that even though the BRVA is still not sure what they will focus on, she would eventually like to speak about the "Broad Ripple Plan," which was developed in 1997. If anybody has ideas for topics of the meetings, she asked that they contact Peter Dean or Sharon Butsch Freeland.

After some discussion, the sub committees of the BRVA made their monthly reports, beginning with Rich Bees, the head of the Beautification Committee.

He talked about the scheduled clean-ups that will begin in April.

"They are generally on the first Saturday of every month and go all the way through December," he said.

Bees also spoke a bit on the cleaning contract that has been in the works between the merchants in the area.

"So far we have 26 merchants who have signed up, but we are working towards 100 percent participation," he said. "It's great to see so many people taking pride in their ownership and working to keep bringing people into the village."

Diane Seybert then presented the communication committee updates.

"We are approaching the one-year anniversary of our centerfold in the Broad Ripple Gazette," she said. "However, we could use some volunteer help with putting the finishing touches on it."

She asked that anyone who had an interest in writing or reporting contact her for more information if they can help.

Carolyn Savill spoke about the next season of the Farmer's Market in Broad Ripple.

"We will have our first market on May 3rd," she said. "We are trying our best to bring more activity to the market this year."

She also commented that L'explorateur is working on the next harvest dinner, which is rumored to be a meal made out of nothing but asparagus (Author's note: Really??).

The next two committees, Land Use and Development as well as Public Safety had nothing to report because they had not met in January prior to the meeting. However, Peter Dean mentioned that there will be many changes coming to the village that the zoning committee would be discussing, and Public Safety chair Mike Seufert noted that his committee had doubled in size.

The next BRVA meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 19, 2008, at 7 p.m. It will also take place at the Indianapolis Art Center.