Housing privatization experiences early success Published April 11, 2012 By Brett Long 81st Infrastructure Division housing flight KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- It has been six months since Keesler's traditional government family housing was privatized and the homes conveyed over to our partner, Forest City Military Communities. As we expected, there have been many successes. Routine maintenance response times have decreased from 30 days under a typical maintenance contract to 48 hours. On the management side, office hours have been extended to better serve residents and even include Saturdays. Construction of various amenities is progressing as planned. The security arm gates at Thrower Park and the Falcon Park will be operational around the beginning of May. Residents will have an opportunity to learn about the gates and get access cards during a neighborhood rally at the Bay Breeze Event Center scheduled for April 27. The times for the rally are broken out by neighborhood -- East Falcon is 8-11 a.m., West Falcon is 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Thrower Park is 1-3 p.m. If unable to attend your scheduled neighborhood time, please feel free to attend one of the other sessions, Forest City will be at the Bay Breeze from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. The community facility and pool area should be open in August, along with the other amenities, such as dog parks in West Falcon and Thrower Park. Also, mowing is getting into high gear and the "weed and feed" program will be kicking off soon. For the most up-to-date information on these and other topics, log onto the Forest City website at www.fckeeslerafb.com.