The Crossings: Not very far, but a world away.
Nicole Sack
DE Staff Reporter
Daily Egyptian
Do they call you the Bagel man?
"No. They call me 'the bitch.'"
Winston Mezo, Carbondale's legendary bagel man, said he got the nickname from neighbors after he complained about their loud music.
While Mezo is chatty with his late-night customers, he says little more than "Como estas?" to the neighbors in the mobile home park where he has lived for 15 years.
Mezo has been a part of Carbondale's identity for more than two decades with his bagel empire.
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The SIUC alumnus rides his Harley around Carbondale.
He keeps his money in Carbondale banks. He drinks coffee in Carbondale shops.
He works out at the SIUC recreation center.
But he does not live in Carbondale. He lives 15 blocks north of city hall at The Crossings, 1400 N. Illinois Ave.
"I just use it to eat and sleep," Mezo said. " I tolerate it."
On August 24, when he was at work under the umbrella of his bagel cart, his home was burglarized and ransacked.
"I'm not the first or the last," Mezo said.
The Crossings has the highest density of burglaries and thefts, 29 to 35 per square mile in Jackson County. Carbondale experiences fewer than seven burglaries and thefts per square mile.
"It hurt me that they broke in. It is like someone violating you. It is like having no privacy or security."
The Jackson County Sheriff's Department is still investigating the break-in. But the theft has not swayed Mezo to move.
"Unless I can find something more convenient or unless Hollywood calls to make me an offer, why would I want to leave this paradise? I love Carbondale," Mezo said.
Besides, no one bothers the bagel man when he is at home.
"I always keep a gun handy when I am there," Mezo said. "There is always one within arm's reach when I'm there."
The Crossings is a mobile home community encased in Carbondale.
Nestled in the northern part of the Capital of Southern Illinois is an area that the county left over. The Crossing, 1400 N. Illinois Ave, is surrounded by Carbondale, but is not incorporated into the city.
While it is in the township of Carbondale, law enforcement in the Crossings remains the primary responsibility of Jackson County-sheriff, that is.
The Crossings is composed of 225 mobile home units and houses approximately 600 people-a population larger than Makanda. The residents in The Crossings comprise 1 percent of the county's 59,627 population.
But that 1 percent of county residents makes 5 percent of all calls to the Jackson County Sheriffs office. One in 20 calls concern The Crossings, officials say.
Rachael Simmerman has been awake since 5 a.m.
Her three children have left for school-on three different buses, at three different times, to three different schools. Now at 8 a.m., she sits in the quiet of her singlewide trailer. "Good Morning America" is on the television, but she is watching the street outside through the glass door in her living room.
This is Simmerman's favorite time of day.
All her children are at school and she has three hours before she has to be at the Murdale McDonald's for work. Already, the idea of eating anything on the dollar menu makes her cringe.
She comments on the weather and the wind as she spots an ugly calico cat on her doorstep. Weather matters when you do not have a car. To get to work, she has to either walk the two and half miles-or take two rides on the Saluki Express.
"The Saluki Bus comes every hour, " Simmerman said.
Days before when she caught the bus, the driver was not going to let her ride without paying the fare.
"I didn't have the 75 cents-so I told him I left my student ID at home," she said.
The 31-year-old mother of three assured the driver that she would bring the ID card "next time."
No bus today.
She walks. She works, She walks home.
About 4 p.m., she is back in her trailer. She sits on the couch, relaxed and ready to eat. For the second day in a row, her first meal of the day will be a $1 chicken sandwich from work.
The children are back from school and in the street--the quiet of morning is gone.
The Crossings has its own sounds. Sounds Simmerman and her children have had to get use to.
"You can hear everything. The windows rattle when cars roll by. You can hear people walking around in the next trailer," Simmerman said. "I've never lived in a trailer before. When it rains, it sounds like the place is getting torn up."
She said that most nights, one of her twin daughters sleeps with the radio on.
"There is traffic 24/7," Simmerman said. "People run around here just like college kids-but they ain't college kids."
Simmerman does not know her neighbors-at least not the adults, but she knows all the children who play in the street.
While there are muddy fields left open from the extraction of dilapidated trailers, there are no parks in The Crossings. Speed bumps become jungle gym equipment. A mattress dug out of a dumpster becomes a trampoline. Bikes, balls and bats add to the homemade fun.
Simmerman moved into The Crossings in August 2003.
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"I have Section 8-I could have moved anywhere," she said. "They say they cleaned it up-but only what is in eyesight. You don't see what is further back."
Section 8 housing vouchers subsidize low-income families so they can afford decent and safe housing in the private market. The federal voucher program is an alternative to public housing.
Many of the park's residents are single mothers with Section 8 Housing, according to Crossings Manager Tom Harrison.
And where the mothers go, the children follow.
The children at The Crossings are the students of Carbondale schools. Yellow buses whisk students away to elementary schools and Carbondale Community High School, while white buses take them to the University.
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The Crossing, previously known as Carbondale Mobile Homes, was developed in 1968. For 33 years, Dan Parish owned and operated the area. In 2001, new owners took over the park.
The name is not the only thing that changed. Since the turn over, 125 dilapidated trailers were removed and replaced by 85 new models. Improvements to meters and electrical systems have been made.
About $150,000 worth of road repairs have been made, though Harrison said more work is needed.
Out of view from U.S. Hwy 51, the streets are deteriorating. When it rains the crater-like potholes fill up with water and a thousand muddy lakes appear in the streets.
Harrison said he approached the city of Carbondale in late 2001 to have the property annexed, but never moved beyond the initial contact.
Harrison is seeing more students living at the Crossings than in the past.
He said a lot of the people who cause problems in the park do not live there.
"This place has had a bad reputation for a long time-it's hard to shake," Harrison said. "When an incident occurs here, the news is quick to flash an image of The Crossings sign. But anywhere else it is just 'a local mobile home park.'
"It is better than it ever was."
The distinction is clear on city maps. Even maps in the Carbondale phonebook trace out the square county island within the city.
In Carbondale the streets are named after trees. In The Crossings the streets are named after the first six letters of the alphabet.
But the area is Carbondale-at least by the measure of its residents.
The population of The Crossings adds to the population of SIUC, Carbondale schools as well as Carbondale workers and shoppers.
When the residents of The Crossings are shopping in Carbondale, they are cloaked by the city's protective shield. But when they return home, they leave behind the law enforcement of the city.
Not to say a person cannot buy things inside The Crossings.
Inside one of The Crossing's mobile homes is the "candy store," an unlicensed business that sells, among other things, candy, blunts, individual shots of bourbon, half pints of gin and cigarettes for 25 cents each.
No ID required.
Since The Crossings is surrounded by Carbondale, undesirable activity spills over from county to city and back again.
On April 20, a collaboration of four law enforcement groups, including the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, executed Jackson County search warrants at Motel 6, 700 E. Main St.
As a result two men were arrested. One of the men, Ulysses Williams, who lived in trailer #198 of the Crossings, was arrested and charged with the manufacture and delivery of more than 15 grams of crack cocaine.
Williams, 43, was charged with five counts of manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance. He could face up to 15 years of prison sentences for each of the five charges if convicted.
When the Jackson County Board placed the public safety tax referendum question on the March 16 primary ballot, it asked voters in the county to adopt a .5 percent sales tax to increase funds for county law enforcement.
When the votes were counted, the tax was rejected by 68 percent of Jackson County residents. The rejection was consistent across the county.
If adopted, the tax would have generated an additional $2.77 million per year to fund law enforcement and relieve property tax in the county. Union and Saline counties approved similar public safety taxes in 2004.
However, in Jackson County distrust, name-calling and conflicting numbers overshadowed the need for additional funds.
The County Board did not convince Carbondale groups that the proposed tax was the best way to fund expenses.
Carbondale Mayor Brad Cole, the Chamber of Commerce and SIUC Undergraduate Student Government all made public statements opposing the tax increase.
Voters made their opposition to the tax public as well.
But before it all went down, the Sheriff's Department identified the need for seven additional law enforcement positions as one of the reasons to increase its $4.7 million yearly budget by nearly $1 million.
There are 22 sworn personnel assigned to law enforcement services. On a typical day shift, one sergeant and three deputies patrol 588 square miles of Jackson County.
Even if the sheriff did get to increase his numbers to 29 sworn personnel, it would still be half the size of Carbondale's police force. The city of Carbondale has 59 sworn officers. The SIUC Police Department employs 37 police officers, who also have jurisdiction in the city.
City Manager Jeff Doherty said while the city does have a larger force than the Sheriff's Department, that does not mean there are adequate patrols to handle the levels of calls in town.
"Even in Carbondale, we can't put a police officer on every corner," Doherty said
However, this force of 96 keepers of the peace is responsible to watch over the city over the city with a population of 26,000 people.
While all law enforcement departments cooperate and back each other up if necessary, The Crossings is the primary responsibility of the Jackson County Sheriff's Department.
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This leaves the County Board Chairman Gary Hartlieb to question why the city with so much law enforcement does not assume responsibility for the high crime area that is essentially within its boarders.
"Mayor Cole, although he has never been man enough to talk to the County Board, obviously in the background has made his feelings well known," Harlieb said.
"If he wants to be a gentleman and help the situation with the county, why doesn't he step up and annex The Crossings? He has 60 police officers. Why should we have to bear the load?"
"Well, because that is his job," Cole said. "I don't have a problem with The Crossings. If the County Board does, they need to come to me.
"Maybe the County Board chairman should give me a list of everywhere he has a problem and I'll go solve it for him. If the County Board chairman can't do his job, if he needs the mayor of Carbondale to do it for him, have him send me a list of what he needs done, and I'll try to do it for him."
The Carbondale mayor said he has considered annexing the area.
"The reason I was thinking about it is not to solve a crime issue for the county," Cole said. "It would be to expand our population base. "
He said if the county is aware of the high crime rate there, then maybe it should alter the approach to policing.
"If they have a problem area, maybe they should do more than just respond," Cole said. "Maybe that is where they should focus their patrols."
Jackson County Sheriff Robert Burns said while it is always better for his department to take a preventative approach to crime, Jackson County is a large geographical area to patrol.
Three to six deputies are responsible to patrol the 588-square miles of county. This number depends on the time of day. There are also sick days, vacations and unexpected events that limit the number further.
"What about those other people in the county? They are entitled to law enforcement as well," Burns said. "It would be unfair if we focused all efforts on that area. Other areas would feel deprived."
Even with bolstered patrols in The Crossings, the results would not necessarily stop crime.
"This is always a difficult location to patrol," Burns said. "People involved in criminal activity are well aware of when law enforcement is in the area-whether it is in marked vehicles or drug investigators."
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He said the Sheriff's Department is well informed of the problems at The Crossings. Burns said he receives tenant lists of suspected activities and individuals, and since the first of the year three locations were identified for drug activity.
"On a continual basis, we identify where drugs are being sold," Burns said.
But just a quickly as the trailers that dabble in drug distribution are shut down, others sprout up.
"Drug houses just pop open all around here," Simmerman said as she views the street from her living room.
She and her friend, Jackie Hull, watch the neighborhood children get out of the way of a slow moving car.
This is the third lap they have seen the car make today. This time the car makes a pit stop.
"Police know everything," Hull said. "They just don't want to deal with it, until someone gets hurt. Then they'll deal with it."
But for now their concern is focused on the chicken and dumplings they will make for dinner.
"I don't know why this isn't a part of Carbondale," Simmerman said. "That is my address, Carbondale, Ill., 62901...
"It is crazy, crazy," she said. "I can't wait to move."
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Daily Egyptian Spring 04 
