In the Oread neighborhood, students mix with longtime home owners within earshot of Kansas University’s steam whistle.

This historic district isn’t always safe or quiet. Noisy students throw late-night parties. This fall, a string of vandalism and robberies left some residents missing car windows and DVD players.

A police officer with a steady neighborhood beat could help, said James Dunn, president of the Oread Neighborhood Association.

“That concept has not really happened in Lawrence,” Dunn said. “There are gaps, as far as enforcement.”

Lawrence police plan to try to fill that gap.

This week, department supervisors interviewed officers to work on a neighborhood beat to prevent small crimes that can plague residents but often miss the headlines.

“They’ll be a resource for citizens,” police spokesman Sgt. Dan Ward said.

The officers will be part of a new detail under the department’s Special Operations Unit starting next month. The department will assign two officers to the detail along with supervisors to manage the entire unit, which also includes school resource officers.

In a department strapped for resources and warm bodies, Ward said the two neighborhood officers are expected to have the time to address more neighborhood-specific issues: noise complaints, nuisance neighbors, car burglaries, etc. The real benefit will be their night availability, when thieves strike and partygoers ratchet up the decibels – and when department resources are often their lowest, Ward said.

The plan is still in the developmental stages, he said, but by the new year the details should be finalized.

,000 worth of electronics equipment was stolen in October from the home of Lawrence resident and Kansas University junior Mike Stornello, Prairie Village. Lawrence police plan to assign two officers to a neighborhood resources unit starting Jan. 1 in an effort to better communicate with residents and address neighborhood crime.

So far, the police department and the city agree that the officers will work in tandem with the city’s neighborhood resources department to address some difficult-to-enforce codes, such as nuisance homes and noise complaints.

In order for the city to enforce certain ordinances effectively, there has to be communication between the city and police, city attorney Scott Miller said.

For example, Miller said, for a property that might meet the city’s disorderly house ordinance, the neighborhood officer would have the ability to respond in person quickly and access the report database to know the home’s history.

“They’re supporting each other’s functions,” Miller said. “They overlap a lot.”

The detail should also help address minor crimes that can create headaches in neighborhoods.

“What really disturbs people is the car windows being broken out and the tires being slashed,” said former city manager Mike Wildgen, who is the president of the Old West Lawrence Association. “Those are the most difficult to solve sometimes.”

Wildgen and Lawrence Police Chief Ron Olin have talked at length over the years of steering the department toward “community policing,” dealing with people face-to-face so officers become more a part of people’s lives.

This new detail, Wildgen said, should bring officers closer to the people they protect.

“Anytime you can get more personal contact with residents, it’s a good thing,” he said.

Still, Dunn said he was skeptical of the plan. He said he wants to see a definitive plan once the project rolls out after Jan. 1.

But Ward said the new process has already shown signs of working. He said the number of noise complaints has fallen by 11 percent recently because of a new streamlined approach to handling those calls to allow for better communication between police and those making the complaints.