Here is a rundown of highlights from the latest monitoring report of Community Safety Co-ordinator Herb Sutton to city council Monday.
CPTED Review Committee:
The block party initiative is coming back in 2019 and the city has agreed once again to waive the $25 fee, a decision they made later at Monday’s meeting.
Sutton reported that a big part of the CPTED committee’s work is building a strong sense of community at the local level.
He said CPTED, short for Crime Prevention through Environmental Design, is “not just about lighting and natural surveillance, it’s about the social environment and creating that sense of community and getting to know folks.” Much more promotion will be happening about the block party initiative in the coming weeks.
Also, May 16 is scheduled for a City Hall block party event in the early evening to kick off the season. More details will be coming closer to the date.
Sutton also reported back on the status of the community perception survey being conducted by Dr. Tarah Hodgkinson. She has arranged for additional data from the RCMP, the community safety officers and the Saskatchewan Health Authority that will help strengthen her analysis of the results and provide for a more detailed report.
This also means the first draft that was expected in March will be pushed back to the end of April, but Sutton said it will be “well worth spending the extra time” to prepare a high quality report.
Planet Youth Conference:
In March, Sutton and two other community members attended a three-day conference in Iceland focusing on that country’s approach to addressing teen substance abuse.
What the delegation from the Battlefords observed, Sutton said, was a “comprehensive community approach to creating a healthy environment for young people to grow up in.” A more formal presentation is coming to City Council soon to provide more details.
Housing:
The Battlefords Affordable Housing and Homelessness Committee is working to secure grant funding for a full-time housing coordinator to chair the committee, chair the development of a homelessness strategy, and assist with implementation of several recommendations from the North Battleford Housing Strategy and Action Plan completed in early 2018.
