The City of Penticton‘s mayor will table three notices of motion at Tuesday’s council meeting requesting a funding boost to hire more police and bylaw officers as the municipality grapples with ongoing community safety issues and a lack of policing resources.
The first motion, supported by Penticton RCMP Superintendent Brian Hunter, requests funding in the 2022 budget for three additional RCMP officers.
Penticton has the highest criminal caseload per officer among the 31 RCMP detachments in B.C. serving a population greater than 15,000, at 170. That is according to 2019 provincial government data referenced in a report to city council that will be reviewed on Oct. 5. The average caseload is 71 in B.C.
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Penticton RCMP officers also spend, on average, 12 per cent of their time dedicated to proactive police work, including surveillance of drug dealers, traffic stops, foot patrols, bike patrol, executing warrants and targeting prolific offenders.
“A healthy detachment should have approximately 35 per cent of the proactive policing time. Proactive policing is the primary way to reduce crime in the community,” the staff report said.
“The addition of three members to our detachment’s current strength would enhance our ability to proactively target the prolific offenders in our community.”
The city’s share of the cost for each police officer is $196,000. Adding a further three officers would cost the city $588,000 annually.
“We currently do not have enough police resources to effectively police our prolific offenders and hold them accountable,” the report stated.
City council will be asked for $358,000 per year to hire four additional bylaw enforcement officers.
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“The addition of four additional BEOs would allow for greater bylaw services coverage than currently provided. The addition of four BEOs would achieve complete coverage from 7 a.m.-7 p.m., seven days a week with additional hours added in the summer and the potential of coverage until 11 p.m. on some weekends,” a report to council said.
A request for two more community safety officers is also on the agenda to the tune of $116,832.
Some downtown business owners and area residents renewed calls on the City of Penticton to hire more RCMP officers and boost bylaw patrols after an elderly business owner was attacked with a hammer inside her ice cream shop.
In July, Penticton city council rejected mayor John Vassilaki’s proposal to request five more RCMP officers, due to cost pressures.
Instead, city council agreed to fund two additional police officers and hire a consultant to review how public safety can be improved in Penticton.
“It was very disappointing, but we live in a democratic society, and politicians all think differently,” Vassilaki said at the time.
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Hunter said his officers are stressed, overworked and under-resourced due to high call volumes.
“Penticton detachment members are severely overworked,” he said.
Hunter said it’s difficult to peg exactly how many more police officers Penticton needs to meet the demand.
“Calculating exactly how many police officers is a challenging question to answer and the reason is, if we just wanted to go the provincial average of caseloads, we would need 50-60 more police officers here, and that is unreasonable, we don’t need that many. What we need is to have a significant increase in our strength here — I would suggest five to ten [more officers],” he said.
The city’s top Mountie said he sympathizes with the community, but said the detachment is doing the best it can to respond to all calls for service.
“It’s stressful to be working out there, calls for service are ramping up in the queue, the members can’t get to them, our community members are getting upset, and we don’t blame them,” Hunter said.
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The Downtown Penticton Association (DPA) is asking for $40,000 to launch a pilot project called the Remote Guard Service.
The DPA said it would hire Bett’s Electric Security to install strobe lights and two-way voice activation on up to five commercial businesses to discourage trespassing.
The funding requests will be discussed at the next regular council meeting on Oct. 5 before budget deliberations begin.
According to the latest crime severity index released by Statistics Canada, the City of Penticton has the dubious distinction of being the most dangerous city in the Okanagan.