DATE: Friday, March 7, 1997                 TAG: 9703070708

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   82 lines

BERKLEY COMPLAINTS AT COMMUNITY FORUM DON'T FALL ON DEAF EARS POLICE SUPPORT, TUTORIAL PROGRAM IN THE WORKS FOR THAT PART OF NORFOLK.

Police Chief Melvin C. High was so moved by citizen comments in Berkley this week that he may bump the neighborhood higher on his list of priorities.

And it's already right up there.

``The chief is proposing to make sure that officers can't be pulled off'' duty in Berkley except in cases of dire emergency, Assistant Chief Shelton Darden said Thursday.

High was among a group of top city officials attending a Berkley community forum on Tuesday. On Thursday, he was among the first to respond publicly to the complaints.

Also on Thursday, Fred Oliver, assistant superintendent for the city's schools, said the system is planning to launch a program of church-based tutoring to help keep suspended students off the streets and on track academically.

The community awaited official response on other issues.

Berkley residents were out in force for Tuesday night's talk session with city officials, and they didn't mince words. Complaints centered on crime, truancy and the dearth of stores and recreational facilities in the community across the Elizabeth River from downtown.

Darden said the meeting also gave police a better handle on where to focus efforts to stem crime and motivated them to give truancy and prostitution higher priority.

``Vice and narcotics officers are already focusing on the locations pointed out to us,'' Darden said.

High asks citizens who call the police and don't get responses within 10 minutes to phone him at 441-2261. If he's not in, callers should detail the problem to the person answering the phone.

Last spring, police launched initiatives aimed at curtailing crime in Berkley, including putting a trailer there, and adding officers and bike patrols.

The efforts are paying off, said Darden, citing a 16 percent drop in crime in Berkley and Campostella between 1995 and 1996. And, he said, violent crime is already down 12 percent in the first two months of 1997.

With respect to providing tutoring, Oliver said educators hope to have in place by fall a church-based partnership program for suspended public school students. The programs would rely on retired teachers as volunteers.

``The reason a lot are on the street now is that the system is coming down hard on behavior problems,'' said Oliver, who also fielded questions from the public at Tuesday's meeting. Some fall behind and drop out, he acknowledged.

The project would be similar to ``Stay Up While You're Out,'' which is seeing success as a pilot effort in the Newport News school system, Oliver said.

Meanwhile, in Berkley Thursday, Overton's Market owner Hui O.K. Wright took issue with a statement made by a resident at Tuesday's meeting that folks can't buy hot dogs and ice cream in the neighborhood.

``Not a hot, hot dog, no,'' she said, ``but hot dogs, yes. We have everything in here.'' Wright, who lives in Virginia Beach, pointed to packages of weiners and a case with a wide variety of frozen confections, including ice cream by the half gallon.

Berkley residents learned Tuesday that Food Lion had decided to put a new supermarket in Chesapeake instead of Berkley. The neighborhood has been waiting for a promised shopping center, including a pharmacy and supermarket, for some years now. City officials said they had already launched efforts to entice another grocery chain to come to Berkley.

The windows on the front of the 6,000-square-foot Overton's market are covered by metal grills, and the cashier has a view of aisles on three monitors. Outside, youths congregated, and just up the street a block stood a police cruiser.

``It's a medium-sized market, medium prices, almost a supermarket,'' Wright said.

A customer can buy everything from oranges and sirloin steak to jewelry and nail polish. But there's no pharmacist on duty.

Two years ago, the 47-year-old market on South Main Street burned down. Wright, who had owned it for three years at the time, rebuilt, in response to petitions circulated in the neighborhood and given to her.

``It's not really a good area,'' she said. ``There are many low income people here - no jobs, no money - and the real problem is not many have cars. But they wanted it back.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Norfolk Police Chief Melvin C. High told citizens to call him

personally if police are slow to respond to their calls.

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