Neighborly Conflict Resolution

My husband, yellow labrador retriever, Monte, and I have lived in East Bloomington for five years. Bloomington was not our first choice to purchase our first home, but we could not afford to live in South Minneapolis, which was our first choice. We have become close with most of our immediate neighbors and have met wonderful people on our dog walks around Valley View Park. We love that we have a large yard, giving us room to enjoy the outdoors in our own yard. We appreciate that Bloomington had housing prices that were affordable to make it possible for us to purchase our home.

The main thing that my family has NOT appreciated is that Bloomington Police Department responding to calls about my dog barking during daytime hours. Quiet hours in Bloomington are 10:00 PM - 7:00 AM. Police have shown up during the daytime, which were not during quiet hours. I do my best to keep my neighborhood quiet and free from noise, most of my neighbors have told me they do not hear him and are not bothered by him. We do, however, have one neighbor who has been calling the police to come tell me that Monte bothers her. Police responding to an annoyance my neighbor has with me makes me feel unsafe in my community because it shows me that people in Bloomington lack the ability to resolve petty conflicts with one another. I have spoken with my neighbor two times to try to figure out solutions to work together to create a community where we can live together.

A vibrant, healthy community to me looks like a community where neighbors can knock on my door to tell me if they have annoyances with me and I can trust my neighbors that I can do the same with them, where both parties would have mutual respect for one another. It is not the role of the police to resolve annoyances for residents; resolving interpersonal conflict is for neighbors to resolve with one another. Working through challenges and differences with one another creates a strong and safe community.

I found this infographic that was extremely impactful and how I envision Bloomington residents to use the police.