City community safety coordinator Herb Sutton had plenty of new news to share in his report to council Monday night, his first report since back in June.
In particular, Sutton updated councillors about some additional duties he has taken on recently: a role with the RCMP as their community program coordinator. He is now half-time with them and also half-time with the city.
Sutton assured council, “I will do my best to juggle both positions and the expectations related to both of them.”
He said he accepted the role with the RCMP for a couple of reasons. First, it was an opportunity to “solidify a good relationship between the RCMP and the city.”
The other reason, he said, was to work on building relationships with the First Nations in particular, and working with youth in the schools.
“We’ve been thinking regionally about community safety, obviously the RCMP is thinking regionally in terms of their detachment. So I thought it was a natural fit,” said Sutton.
Beyond that, Sutton also reported “growing momentum” for a few initiatives that they are working on.
One of them involved SAGE – Safety, Acceptance Guidance, Empowerment – and the efforts to move forward to stage two of that effort.
For months, SAGE had been seeking additional funding to put together a regional steering committee for the next phase of its community safety plan. The vision was for the committee to bring together four levels of government – federal, provincial, municipal and First Nations. However, obtaining federal funding money had proved a stumbling block.
The news from Sutton was that some federal funding had finally come through. North Battleford has been earmarked for $50,000 for each of the next five years in “Coalition Funding” from Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada.
Sutton explained that originally they were told only three communities in Saskatchewan would be eligible for this funding: Regina, Saskatoon and Prince Albert. But in mid-August they learned North Battleford was added to the list.
Sutton was pleased with the funding and pledged they would work with it as best as they can to develop their regional committee. However, he also noted that they had to scale back plans from their original proposal in which they requested $300,000.
Still, “it’s significant and it’s an important first step,” said Sutton.
The other federal agency they are working with is Public Safety Canada. Sutton reported that North Battleford has been selected as one of 10 communities across Canada to be part of a new model called the Federal, Provincial, Territorial Collaborative Approach.
Sutton said it’s designed to be used by communities across the country that use a “Moving Towards a Stronger Future” model to build a community development plan, which is what SAGE uses.
Sutton adds this model involves hosting a two-day forum that will be held in late January, 2018. It will bring together agencies and government departments to help implement the SAGE community safety plan.
Sutton also reported on the ongoing Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design efforts. Sutton went to Calgary along with two other city officials to the ICE International CPTED Conference in early August. Some 15 countries were represented at the conference.
What was reassuring to Sutton was the progress North Battleford was making on CPTED projects.
“We actually got a lot of praise from the experts about the programs we were involved in,” said Sutton. “We got very positive feedback.”
In particular, he noted others at the conference were impressed with the support mayor and council had provided.
“They assured us that doesn’t happen in every city,” Sutton said.
Sutton also is happy with the ongoing efforts towards creating formalized neighbourhoods, as well as community building initiatives that include painting murals at city intersections.
He noted the Fairview Heights street mural project saw over 30 neighbours from the area come out to assist with painting the mural on the street.
From Sutton’s view, this effort achieved two major objectives: “to build that sense of neighbourhood” as well as “create a mural that we were hoping would be a traffic calming measure in that neighbourhood.”
On the heels of that project, another street mural project is planned for Sept. 30 at 95th Street and Abbott Avenue in the city.
