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The City of North Battleford has given its approval to a new deputy unit commander position with the Community Safety Officer program.

This was the position approved for funding during the budget process in December, but city council still had to go through the formality of creating the position. That was approved Monday.

Director of Protective Services/Fire Chief Lindsay Holm had recommended adding the position as part of sweeping changes to the CSO program, one that would see community policing in the city take on a four-tiered approach with the RCMP, the CSOs, bylaw and commissionaires.

鈥淭his is part and parcel of the whole asset management strategy that we鈥檙e trying to implement to optimize the efficiencies of our CSOs, and trying to initiate that downtown core initiative with having our CSOs patrolling down in that area to try and create a better environment,鈥� Holm said at the meeting.

The new CSO deputy commander position would assist with downtown stakeholder engagement and operational effectiveness, according to administration.

The discussion Monday at council was relatively short. The issue had already come up during budget deliberations, and Holm had already presented his extensive plans to revamp the force during the Planning Committee meeting a week earlier.

At council Monday, Holm expressed his desire to make sure they move slowly with the changes, so that 鈥渨hatever we do, we鈥檙e doing right this time so we don鈥檛 have to come back and address problems in the future.鈥�

The need to build relationships with the RCMP was also cited. Earlier at council, Councillor Len Taylor had asked RCMP Insp. Tom Beck about the relationship with the CSO program and Beck described the work relationship with Fire Chief Holm as 鈥渆xcellent.鈥�

The RCMP are also working on developing a relationship where the CSO program is able to take the RCMP鈥檚 calls for service, and that was something Beck and Holm met to discuss the previous week.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 one of the things we鈥檙e working hard at,鈥� said Holm of the relationship with the RCMP.

He agreed that those relationships 鈥渞eally need to be tight if we鈥檙e going to succeed with this,鈥� and expressed confidence in the relationships they had with Insp. Beck as well as with his CSO unit commander Al Manibal, saying they have a good framework going.

The council approval of the new CSO position was unanimous.