Community Safety Co-ordinator Herb Sutton has presented his report to council for October.
His update, presented at Tuesday's council meeting, focused on his activities and actions as part of his contract with the city.
Among the activities so far has been working from the 2009 United Way community directory and updating it. Sutton said that rather than simply make contact with people over the phone, he met them "face to face and (had) a chance to have an in-depth conversation."
Christa Lessard of the RCMP is assisting him in this project. Sutton said the people he has contacted have been interested in talking with them and that people are pleased to see the city "taking community safety and crime reduction very seriously."
Other initiatives Sutton mentioned included working with the Hub table every Tuesday and Thursday and with the Hub steering committee every month. He noted a welcome addition to the latter committee the executive director of the Battle River Treaty 6 Health Center, adding the agency was a key player in social services provisions to First Nations.
"To have the executive director sit on the steering committee is a real positive," said Sutton.
He adds the Hub table and the steering committee were represented at training for Building Partnerships Reducing Crime in Saskatoon that week, and also said he met recently with the Prince Albert Community Mobilization, the first Hub in the province.
Sutton said he had a good meeting with the Prince Albert officials and said "they are aware of the work we are doing in North Battleford" and were interested in helping any way they could.
Other work Sutton mentioned included some initial efforts at gap analysis to identify programming opportunities, long-term goals and additional collaboration between agencies; creating a positive image of North Battleford and the work of the Hub; and other activities including regular meetings with the city manager, mayor and RCMP inspector and with various other officials.
He said he was impressed with the people he's met from the various agencies and called it "something we need to celebrate as a community - we have some really excellent folks in this community."
Sutton also noted the recent announcement of a new homeless shelter as well as a meeting arranged with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Next steps, according to Sutton's report, include continuing to work on connecting with agencies and organizations, creating of a database, creation of a website (directory of services) that can be maintained and updated, looking for ways to connect agencies and organizations doing similar work to make sure they are working in collaboration and working with RCMP statistics to dig deeper to see what the data tells about levels and types of criminal activity, areas of the city most affected and risk factors involved in the criminal activity.
Sutton's report was well received by council. One suggestion offered by Councillor Ryan Bater, however, was to see if there were some areas of duplication of services by various agencies that could be avoided.
"Maybe there are ways we can encourage an alignment," said Bater, so the "dollars that do come into the city from provincial and federal sources are being spent more wisely serving people in a better way."
Mayor Ian Hamilton also pledged to keep on lobbying the province for assistance to help make Sutton's current term position a full-time one, so that the "successes that are attained be maintained."
