Oh, and this townIs my town — alright?Love or hate it — it don’t matter’cause I’m gonna stand and fightThis town — is my townShe’s got her ups and downsBut love or hate it — it don’t matter’cause this is my town.— Michael Stanley BandOver the past two years we’ve had plenty of awareness sessions and informational meetings about the dangers of opioids in our community. It’s time now to organize and mobilize.The inaugural public meeting of the Butler Neighborhood Drug Watch is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the city’s Public Safety Building, 110 N. Washington St.It’s time to put up or shut up — to become part of solution or remain part of the problem. There may be a gentler or more polite way to say it, but we are beyond the time of gentle persuasion.Information is power. Information about drug dealers is power for law enforcement.Bearing in mind this one principle, a community watch empowers its community when a network of volunteers arms its law enforcement with information.To do that, volunteers must become expert observers. They make note of who, what where and when things appear out of the ordinary. About a year ago, Butler police Lt. Chad Rensel told a group of about a dozen organizers that law enforcement would like to see it appoint a liaison to the department for each of the four city quadrants: the northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest.The liaisons would meet or correspond with a city officer on a regular basis to give information about suspicious activities in their neighborhoods. This might include vehicles with illegal tinted windows, out-of-state license plates or an unusual number of people coming or going from a house or parking lot.Police stress the point that a drug watch — just like any other neighborhood crime watch — is not a vigilante group. No deputy heroes need apply. There should be no confrontations, no engagement.There was an active and vibrant neighborhood watch in Butler during the administration of Mayor Richard Schontz. There were three neighborhood chapters — the Island, South Side and Institute Hill — each with elected officers and monthly meetings with the police and mayor. The Butler watch never officially disbanded; it slipped from sight after the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Treyvon Martin by a neighborhood watch captain in Sanford, Fla., in 2012.Now, the severity of this drug-abuse plague is calling for desperate measures. It’s time to restart the neighborhood watch program.Chief Ron Brown said volunteers calling 911 or making notes about suspicious activities is helpful, but attempting to enforce the law should be left to the police. Neighborhood watch groups should function anonymously with participants making observations from their homes or as they go about their day.“We don’t want someone out patrolling. Your safety is important to us,” Brown told the organizers in January 2017.That’s prudent advice. So is the concept of a volunteer network, punctuated by quadrant liaisons keeping regular contact with officers. As much as anything else, community is defined by the organized flow and dissemination of information from one individual to another.Information is power. Let’s focus some of that power on a chronic problem in Butler, and cooperate to clean it up.