Keeping an Eye on Our Neighborhood: Why I Started Santa Fe Hot Sheets

We live right near Herb Martinez Park, and in the summertime, the energy there is undeniable. On a typical morning dog walk, you might see neighbors crossing paths or folks emerging from the arroyo near Kearny Elementary. I recently saw a fellow who seemed to be having a particularly "interesting" morning. He was moving in a way that was somewhere between a stumble and a dance, happily trying to find his bearings on Avenida de las Campanas.

During the day, the park is a gem. Between the tennis matches, basketball games, and even the occasional bike polo tournament, it is a lively and genuinely nice place to be. However, as the sun goes down, especially in the warmer months, the atmosphere changes.

A Shift in Perspective

My relationship with the park changed once I became a father. Back in 2020, when my son was two and my daughter was just an infant, we headed over to the playground. While I had seen remnants of drug use in public spaces before, seeing foil and a spoon directly on the play structure hit differently as a parent. I felt a confusing mix of anger, paranoia, and eventually, a deep sense of sadness for the state of our shared spaces.

The safety concerns are not just theoretical. A couple of years ago, a quick evening dog walk was cut short when someone in a passing car shouted a threat toward me. More recently, a neighbor whose home borders the park dealt with the terrifying reality of a stray bullet lodging in their stucco.

From Frustration to Innovation

Every morning, the parking lot tells a story of the night before through a trail of litter like fast food wrappers and beer cans. It is frustrating to see things like drug use and gang activity become part of the local vocabulary for a neighborhood park.

Instead of just staying frustrated, I wanted to find a way to help our community stay informed. I started looking into the Santa Fe Police Hot Sheets, but I found that the raw PDFs were incredibly difficult to navigate if you actually wanted to track trends or find specific information.

To fix that, I built a data pipeline to ingest those PDFs into a searchable database. That is how SantaFeHotSheets.com was born.

Building Locally Sourced Tech

The project is still in its early stages, and there is a lot more to do to make it a truly useful tool for the community. I would love for you to take a look and send me your first impressions or ideas for improvement.

I am passionate about providing Locally Sourced Tech. I believe we need apps built by people who actually live here and care about the neighborhood. If you have an idea for a community-based app floating around in your head, reach out and let's see if we can work together!