The East Lyme Police Department partners with Nextdoor, the Private Social Network for Neighborhoods in an effort to increase safety and communications with residents.

This Partnership Will Enable East Lyme Police Department to Communicate with Residents and Facilitate Virtual Neighborhood Watch while giving Residents and the East Lyme Police Department an easy and efficient way to communicate online.

This integration with Nextdoor will enable the East Lyme Police Department to communicate online with neighborhoods. Residents and the East Lyme Police Officers will be able to work together to increase safety and strengthen virtual neighborhood watch.

“Having the ability to easily communicate with residents is extremely vital to not only maintaining, but also increasing safety and reducing crime within the East Lyme community, with Nextdoor, we can help empower neighbors to keep their communities safe and connected and give them the ability to collaborate on virtual neighborhood watch efforts” said Detective Mark Comeau.

Nextdoor has proven to be an essential and well-adopted tool, both locally in East Lyme as well as nationally, with more than 40% of neighborhoods using Nextdoor across the country.

With Nextdoor, East Lyme residents can create private neighborhood websites to share information, including neighborhood public safety issues, community events and activities, local services, and even lost pets.

The East Lyme Police Department will be able to share helpful information with Nextdoor members, such as important crime alerts, emergency notifications, safety precautions and tips, details for events and crime watch meeting, and updates on activity affecting the local area to Nextdoor websites within East Lyme. However, the East Lyme Police Department will not be able to access residents’ websites, contact information, or content.

Nextdoor is free for residents and the East Lyme Police Department. The Town has been broken down into nine zones and each neighborhood has its own private Nextdoor neighborhood website, accessible only to residents of that neighborhood. Neighborhoods establish and self-manage their own Nextdoor website. All members must verify that they live within the neighborhood before joining Nextdoor so they can be accepted into the zone appropriate to their residence. Information shared on Nextdoor is password protected and cannot be accessed by Google or other search engines.

As of October 31, 2019, there are 4,512 NextDoor members reaching 34% of the 10,118 East Lyme households. This neighborhood application has proven to be an asset to the residents and the new memberships speak for themselves.

Those interested in joining their neighborhood’s Nextdoor website can visit www.Nextdoor.com and enter their address. If residents have questions about their Nextdoor website, please visit help.Nextdoor.com.

As of October 31, 2019:

Area Members Households
Giants Neck 724 49%
Southern Niantic 735 34%
Western Flanders 708 42%
Eastern Flanders 549 35%
Eastern Niantic 557 23%
Northern Flanders 379 43%
Northern Niantic 374 32%
Western Niantic 349 25%
Oswegatchie Hills 136 36%