It’s hard to find anyone in Johnson City who hasn’t met Jay Peets. Walking the beat as the newly created community engagement officer, Peets wants everyone to feel comfortable approaching the police.

Patrolling the business district now for one year, he’s looking to extend that reach even further.

"I get the opportunity to meet a lot of people and they come forward to me with questions. So now, being able to have these village meetings, we can get the community and our citizens to come in and have their own point of view and express a voice to the issues they're seeing in their neighborhoods," said Peets.

The open meetings will be held once a month, with the goal of building relationships between police and the community. At a time when the two can feel a bit divided nationwide, Peets hopes his daily walking patrol and events like these will make a change, at least locally.

"To be able to meet all these people and go to these events and show the youth and the adults, the parents, the businesses, Binghamton University students that we're here to help, to communicate, to make their lives easier is special," said Peets.

Peets can’t wait to begin the discussions, even the hard ones. Instead of the meetings being held at the police station, cops will bring many of their open forum discussions to the community, making sure to reach every part of the village.

"We wanted to make sure that the meetings were in a location that were convenient for each citizen in that area. So that's why we have one for the north side, south side, the business district, as well as the center village citizens," said Peets.

This might be just the beginning of a long process, but for Peets, it’s another line of communication with the people he serves.

Meetings will be held May 3 at the Johnson City Senior Center, May 10 at the police department and June 1 at Johnson City high school. All meetings begin at 6 p.m.