Big changes could be coming to the work of community safety officers in the future after a wide-ranging presentation before the City of North Battleford鈥檚 Planning Committee on Monday.
At the meeting a draft levels of service statement was presented to council, covering the CSO program.
The idea behind the document is to make sure the level of service of the CSOs meets the expectations of the community at large. According to the memo from Director of Protective Services Lindsay Holm, the goal of this document is 鈥渢o summarize the types of services being provided by the CSOs, list any constraints, and determine the financial resources required to meet these service levels.鈥�
鈥淣ow we鈥檝e got something that sets the bar for our citizens and now we can measure against that, see if we鈥檙e meeting that,鈥� Holm said at the meeting.
The document was put together through interviews with staff, several meetings and ride-alongs. The draft statement is described as a 鈥渓iving document鈥� subject to change.
That draft statement follows up on Holm鈥檚 presentation to council during budget deliberations. At that time Holm indicated big changes were needed for the CSO program.
It was promised that a broader discussion of the CSO program would come up at Planning Committee in January. That was indeed the case Monday, as council heard from the city鈥檚 asset management coordinator, Karstin Mitchell, who outlined a full range of findings on levels of services provided by the force.
The findings, according to the presentation, include the following:
- The review noted the majority of the CSOs time is spent shuffling between incidents. 60 percent of their time deals with incidents that are bylaw-related with the remaining 40 percent being all other types of enforcement. As Mitchell mentioned, the point of creating the CSOs had been so they could pick up more enforcement of provincial and other initiatives, but they were still doing mostly bylaw.
- Increased communication between CSOs, fire services and other departments was identified as a major focus which will allow for fewer roadblocks. There has been some increased communication between the CSOs and fire department, and Mitchell said it has to keep up.
- An issue identified was a lack of officer visibility in the downtown core and other prime hotspot hotspot areas, as well as limited youth involvement. The need was identified to do more daily foot patrols and engagement with the public in schools and elsewhere.
- The CSO building itself on 110th Street is at the end of its life. It in a poor state of repair with high annual repair costs, and there was bad flooding to the building last year.
- A need was identified for a tiered policing system as the current structure is too broad. The tiers suggested would be, in order, RCMP for the high priority cases, the CSOs for lower priority, followed by bylaw and the commissionaires.
The Levels of Service statement itself included four resident values or customer values: officer visibility especially in the downtown; incident response time; incident resolution quality; and enforcement of the rules.
The potential improvements identified in the draft Levels of Service document include the following:
- A new updated building or location, though it was noted the replacement value would run at $1 million;
- Moving to two foot patrols in the downtown core and other hotspots per day, ranging from one to two hours each, as well as visits with business owners and the public as a proactive approach
- Local school involvement and programs or activities involving youth, multiple times per year;
- Departmental and human resource changes to facilitate a larger percent of provincial enforcement versus bylaw enforcement;
- Increasing education to residents on property maintenance bylaws;
- Having a dedicated commissionaire or bylaw officer for parking related tickets, and also for animal control calls;
- Increased visibility in downtown and other hotspots to address provincial alcohol and gaming act violations.
The discussion at the meeting identified a wide variety of issues with the way things are done currently. Al Manibal, the city鈥檚 CSO unit commander, also took part of the discussion.
The fact that the CSOs were still having to spend so much time on bylaw enforcement was one issue discussed. But there was also a desire expressed around the table to do a better job on bylaw enforcement.
Councillor Len Taylor made clear he believed they were falling behind on bylaw enforcement and pointed to the need to enforce bylaws such as clearing the snow from sidewalks. But the point was also made that such enforcement is in response to complaints and not necessarily proactive.
Taylor pointed to one day recently when he was walking four blocks around St. Mary School.
鈥淚 counted 15 bylaw infractions just as I walked,鈥� said Taylor, such as snow that had never been cleared, vehicles driven over sidewalks, unlicensed vehicles, and so on.
鈥淵ou鈥檙e 100 per cent correct,鈥� Holm responded, adding 鈥渢hat鈥檚 why we鈥檙e really taking a hard look at our whole process just because some of those things haven鈥檛 been able to be achieved.鈥�
Holm said that was another reason why they were looking at a four-tiered model with the RCMP handling the major crimes and the CSOs handling the 鈥渕iddle of the road鈥� situations. He also noted they were looking to utilize local contractors to do some snow removal and boarding up of derelict buildings and that has already started.
Councillor Kelli Hawtin liked the multi-tiered approach and also wanted to see more focus on bylaw enforcement. 鈥淧erhaps right now we鈥檝e tried to put our eggs into the CSO basket and we sort of neglected how important bylaw is for our community.鈥�
She suggested 鈥渕aybe we need to take a step back鈥� and perhaps use some staff for dedicated CSO duties and other staff specifically to bylaw.
There was also further discussion of the deputy commander position that had received budget approval in December. That additional position is being created to help address issues downtown, with a focus on building relationships with those stakeholders located downtown.
The indication from City Manager Randy Patrick is it will come back to council to formally approve the position next week.
As for building relationships downtown, Holm acknowledged it is going to take time to build those not only with business owners but other organizations there.
Once they get to that point, 鈥淚 think we鈥檙e going to hit the ground running in that area,鈥� said Holm.
The next step in the process is to refer the levels of service document back to administration for further changes, and eventually bring a finalized document to the full council.
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