In spite of all the recent budget cuts the city of North Battleford has been forced to deal with, one area that is largely being spared the knife is public safety initiatives.
The April 24 council meeting saw city council adopt city manager Jim Puffalt’s recommendations to pare down the 2017 operations and capital budget, in response to the loss of revenues from the provincial budget. The city had to address a $1.4 million shortfall through a combination of service cuts, capital project delays and a tax increase of three percent.
But as Puffalt indicated on Monday night, maintaining community safety initiatives was a top priority.
Puffalt noted community safety was the “number one strategic objective from council.” When going through the list of items, Puffalt explained that when they came across an item that had to do with a community safety issue, the reaction was “hands off - we can’t touch it, we have to carry forward.”
As a result, the final budget cuts that were made largely spared those initiatives, although there is one new enhanced-duties community safety officer position that is being put off to 2018.
On a related issue, the city is ready to go to war with the province on the issue of provincial prisoners. City administration is threatening to refuse to take on provincial prisoners that are remanded in city jails.
This has been a longstanding point of contention for the city. Puffalt explained that while six other municipalities are being paid by the province for the privilege, North Battleford is not one of them. The city is demanding a deal be in place by June 30; otherwise, the prisoners will have to go elsewhere.
While the budget dominated the council meeting, the ongoing community safety initiatives that were happening were items in the reports of both community safety coordinator Herb Sutton and RCMP inspector John Sutherland.
In his report Sutton said he was “really excited” about the increase in membership in Citizens on Patrol. They were now up to 13, just two short of achieving their target of 15 members.
Sutton also spoke of ongoing efforts towards the Phase 2 proposal for SAGE - Safety, Acceptance, Guidance, Empowerment.
That proposal included striking a steering committee that would include and bring together the four levels of government -- federal provincial municipal and First Nations.
It is currently being reviewed and potentially screened in under a new federal program: the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Collaborative Approach, a new model within Public Safety Canada.
Once given the green light, further resources would be provided to the SAGE group to move forward with Phase 2.
But that green light hasn’t happened yet. It was clear on Monday that Sutton is getting frustrated by a lack of progress.
“We may have to consider putting additional pressure on the federal government, and perhaps the provincial government to act on this,” said Sutton. Some further correspondence may be required.
The other report was from the RCMP which presented first-quarter statistics for for Battlefords City Detachment from January to March, and there was some good news to report.
Calls for service are down from 3,064 to 2,863 for that period, and decreases are being seen in most crime categories including property offences, criminal offences, business break and enters, drug offences, liquor acts, motor vehicle collisions, provincial traffic offences, impaired operation of a motor vehicle, municipal bylaws and false alarms. There is an increase in person offences (ie. assaults, robberies), and in residential break and enters.
Insp. Sutherland also indicated initiatives were continuing to implement and introduce crime reduction initiatives. They are developing Community Safety Committees with representation across the detachment area to provide input.
As well a rural planning session to address safety in the RM of Meota and resort villages was to happen April 29.
Mayor Ryan Bater also asked a question with respect to saliva testing to be used to test for driving while impaired by marijuana. North Battleford was one of ten communities selected to conduct those tests.
Sutherland said over 200 tests were conducted during the test and a final report with the results was sent back to Ottawa where final decisions will be made. He explained the initiative was done mainly to test the two instruments the force was planning to use.
