For the last couple of years, the Lower Burns Park Neighborhood Association has put together a block party and invited people from the neighborhood to enjoy end of summer weather, invite the kids to ride bikes in the middle of the street, and talk about whatever is going on. Here's a few notes I took, mostly reminders for next year what to expect and to think about what we can build on year to year.

The neighborhood boundaries for this association are Packard, Stadium, State and Dewey. This encompasses quiet blocks like Sycamore which have no through traffic, busy and sometimes noisy parts of State Street, with lots of variation in between. Most of the people at the party were homeowners; those who were renting, if they were younger, were graduate students and not undergraduates. I'm not sure that anyone from Dewey was there at all.

The issues that prompted people to set up tables included efforts to deal with a round of property crimes, with a number of people having reported things stolen from their houses. A typical theft would be a bicycle stolen from a back yard, a screen cut and cash stolen, or other small but still worrisome break-ins. There was talk of the burglary on Shadford, which is far enough away to be some other neighborhood but close enough to be right nearby. Neighborhood watch block captains were being recruited, and there was a nice map (with pins on it) showing where people had signed up.

Another interesting conversation in parallel with neighborhood watch was a discussion with a nurse who was looking at the watch program as also a good parallel organization of people to deal with any flu outbreaks. The thought was that if you knew your neighbors well enough, and you got sick enough to be asked to stay home, that there would be someone nearby who could help.

We were visited by two patrol cars, including one carrying K-9 Czar, an explosives tracking dog whose name is short for "Pfizer", the company that paid for his training.

With any good block party you expect to see a few people in politics, and this one was no exception. City Council Fourth Ward representative Margie Teall was there, as was potential 53rd District State Rep. candidate Ned Staebler, both of whom live in the neighborhood. There were also a few babies in attendance, kids with faces painted with Harry Potter glasses and cat whiskers, a crowd of unruly boys (including my boys), and enough responsible adults nearby that nothing happened worse than a few skinned knees.

All in all a lot of fun. Note to self for next year: bring something more substantial to eat, not just chips and salsa - there was lots of that, but the fried chicken went fast.

Lead Blogger Edward Vielmetti is a resident of Lower Burns Park. He wrote the How to host a block party story for AnnArbor.com back in July, which Metro Times columnist Jack Lessenberry referred to in his column as an insult to the intelligence of any functioning adult.