‘Coffee’ event in Elmwood Park a chance for resident to tell cops about speeding in alley near her home. Just like that, the issue will be addressed.

Half of the dining room at Panera Bread restaurant in Elmwood Park was filled recently with uniformed police officers and a rotating cast of dozens of locals eager to meet  officers to share concerns or just learn more about the men and women who protect and serve the community, all as part of the latest installment of “Coffee with a Cop.”

The Coffee with a Cop program has become a long-running national initiative intended to answer questions, address informal concerns and simply offer residents an opportunity to get to know the faces behind the badges.

Elmwood Park held its event Feb. 27.

First-time attendee Joanne Bieschke said she attended to mention speeding traffic through her back alley. Bieschke’s home is near a school, and she told officer Carlos Rodriguez she has to be extra careful just leaving her garage around student drop off and pick up hours because of the traffic.

“To be honest with you, it’s bad,” she told Rodriguez. “There’s been a couple of times I’ve been pulling out of my garage and … they’re flying.”

Alleys aren’t usually patrolled or marked with speed limit signage because the thoroughfares usually are quiet. But on school days, Rodriguez agreed, the main roads get clogged with slow-moving traffic.

“They pick up their child from school or after they drop them off they don’t have the patience to wait for the traffic on the streets so they go straight down the alley at a high rate of speed?” he asked the resident, who agreed the trouble seemed to be with impatient motorists ducking routine traffic congestion.

“I wonder if we can block that off,” Rodriguez said about the alley, mostly thinking out loud.

“We were wondering that,” Bieschke said.

Elmwood Park officials consider the town a close-knit one, where help is never too far away. In this case, Rodriguez said a police officer lives nearby.

“Our desk officer lives right across the street from you, so we’ll see what’s going on, on that block,” he said.

A sergeant chimed in and said the block also has a “constant problem” of illegal parking and speeding.

It was a casual, friendly sort of conversation, the kind common among longtime neighbors. Nobody seemed particularly angry at the nameless speeding drivers, just exasperated at the state of things and eager to share a common complaint. The tone was more Mayberry – the fictitious, sleepy town of the “Andy Griffith” TV show –  than metropolitan, and that’s the point.

Bieschke said later she and her husband have been retired for several years, but this was the first year she attended a Coffee with a Cop event. She just wanted to stop by to let the police know about traffic in her alley.

“We haven’t had any crime around our house, but it’s the speeders,” she said. “We are very concerned about that. But I’ve never said anything, so in fairness to the police, we’ll see how it goes.”

Rodriguez said he appreciates learning about the concerns, and he’s eager to hear more. He’s technically the special assistant to the chief of police, but most of his job is helming various community partnerships and outreach programs like Coffee with a Cop. He said about every other month he organizes some kind of outreach for residents.

Rodriguez said they’re valuable assets for community safety and security.

“It’s beneficial to the police department because it’s an opportunity to hear from residents about any type of complaint,” he said.

The complaints usually aren’t major ones — the forum isn’t a referendum on any single issue in any one place — and mostly residents ask about prevention. He said usually residents are like Bieschke in that they want basic things, like safer streets.

“Most of the complaints are traffic stop geared and people want more traffic enforcement,” he said.

Rodriguez said plenty of residents also show up with complements.

“We get a lot of those,” he said.

But whether it’s complaints or compliments, Rodriguez said the close relationship with the community is important to him.

“The Coffee with a Cop event is one of our positive engagements between the law enforcement and the community that enables us to build legitimacy and trust,” he said.

He said the relaxed interface helps the department to develop trust and a sense of community. Also, some residents aren’t aware of what non-policing public safety services may be available to them.

Rodriguez had a table set up with community watch signs for the public as well as information sheets on a security camera cost offsetting program for residents. Residents who invest in a home security system with a camera can apply to get money every year from the village to offset part of the cost. So far, about 300 people in Elmwood Park have signed up, according to officials, and Rodriguez said his department is always eager for more people to enroll.

About an hour into the Coffee with a Cop event, Village Manager Paul Volpe showed up at the restaurant to also visit with residents. He said Elmwood Park has been hosting a meet and greet for at least a decade, though the village put police community outreach front-and-center only a few years ago when Rodriguez was tasked with heading up that effort.

“This is just part of what we do,” Volpe said. “We also do things like have meetings with building owners on how to screen tenants. He (Rodriguez) conducts training for crime free housing, he conducts senior club. … It’s been a great partnership.”

Jesse Wright is a freelancer.