RCMP Budget Cleared

By 250 News

 Prince George,B.C.-  Before the RCMP  could make their pitch for their budget to Prince George City Council,  one resident  stepped forward to update Council on the efforts of police in her neighbourhood.

Katherine Meuller lives in the VLA, a neighbourhood she begged people to stop referring to as “the hood”.  Meuller had appeared last year and this time ‘round was offering an update.  She says since last year, the sound of gunfire has been replaced by the sound of hammers and saws, “I believe I am witnessing the re-birth of our neighbourhood, but it will take a lot of work by a lot of people to complete the work.”  She offered praise to Council for approving the addition of four more officers last year. “It is making a difference, and they could use more.”

As Superintendent Dahl Chambers began his presentation on the successes of the past year and said he realizes organized crime is on “everybody’s radar”.   Chambers says those issues are also high on the RCMP radar “if not the highest on our radar and we are utilizing all our resources to deal with that.”

“We have probably done in excess of 40 search warrants this past year in the VLA  searching for crack shacks, so we really try to put a lot of heat  in the that part of town to try and curtail folks from doing business.  We have also used undercover operations and some 20 individuals are now before the courts.”

Chambers says there has been an 18 to 20 %  reduction in break and enters.

The sex trade is still prevalent in our community, says Chambers, “Over the past year, we have arrested more than 20 women from the trade, and 17 males.” Chambers says the women who have been arrested have been steered towards help groups rather than the courts as he says there is no good done in slapping down a fine when the women will have to turn tricks to pay the fine, or end up on the court ledgers for failing to appear in court. “We are trying to do the right thing for these folks who have a lot of difficulty in their lives.  Sometimes you have to lead the horse to water many times before you can get them to drink, we are not trying to be social workers, we are just trying to give these people an option”

Chambers says there are 12 men registered for the “john” school and the calls about complaints of street prostitution are falling off, as the number of calls has dropped from a high of 1300 to 350.

Traffic enforcement has been successful as there has been a 10% reduction in crashes in the highway 16 corridor, one of the most crash prone stretches in the region.

As for PRIME (Police Record Information Management Environment) Chambers says the system came on line late last fall, but there is a need for a person to be dedicated to dealing with that data.  He is optimistic that position will be filled by a civilian rather than by taking an officer off the street.

When asked if there needs to be more police presence in the downtown, Chambers said no.  “Downtown Prince George is NOT unsafe” says Chambers “I have said that a hundred times, late at night when the cabarets are operating, there is a lot of police presence, more than there should be.  If you asked me where I would like to see my resources, it would be the VLA dealing with drug use, gangs and crack shacks.  I know this is a recurring theme that the perception of downtown is that it is unsafe, and frankly that is false.”

The general budget is $17,847,920 from the City plus $212,911 in revenue from other services such as prisoner custody, victim services and CPAC.

That budget is up about $280 thousand over last year because of a 2% increase in wages, and an increase in pensions. 

The budget is based on 119 members.

The operating budget as presented has been approved.

The request to add another $128,809 to the budget for 2008 to hire a person to staff the PRIME system has been tabled until the end of the month.

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