When Trail Coun. Paul Butler was appointed to the Protective Services folio, he knew it would be a high profile undertaking in the coming months.
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So when the vote came up to keep the city’s police budget status-quo for 2019, Butler opposed the move, as did councillors Colleen Jones and Eleanor Gattafoni Robinson (with Coun. Sandy Santori away, the vote was a 3-3 tie thus the motion to keep it status quo was defeated).
To recap, a few weeks previous, Sgt. Mike Wicentowich had submitted a formal request to add two positions to the police staffing complement at the Trail and Greater District RCMP.
“Personally, for me, I wanted to keep the discussion door open and continuing,” Butler told the Trail Times, referring to his vote at the Feb. 11 governance meeting.
“I believe after meeting with Sergeant Wicentowich today (Feb. 14) we are on an active path of prioritizing needs for the city in regards to policing,” he said.
“And Sergeant Wicentowich is engaging with both the city and our neighbouring communities to look at policing as a whole, within our city (and) along with our regional partners.”
Butler says the RCMP leader has put forth several proposals, which are now under council review.
“The Community Safety Task Force is ready to launch in early March,” Butler explained. “And Sergeant Wicentowich has committed to returning with a comprehensive plan and continued discussion around proposals in a similar time frame.”
As far as policing costs, Trail is responsible to pay 70 per cent of the force’s budget because the city has a population exceeding 5,000 people.
Trail taxpayers contributed over $2 million to pay for policing last year. When millions of dollars are at stake, no matter where it is directed, a proposed budget increase is subject to considerable scrutiny by elected officials.
“Our policing budget is $2.2 million currently, which is a substantial budget apportionment for a municipality of our size,” Mayor Lisa Pasin told the Trail Times.
“The Sergeant put forward an initial proposal for increased resources for two additional officers,” she explained. “Further to this, additional funding for COPS (Citizens on Patrol) has been advanced.”
Since the original proposal has been received, a subsequent inquiry was advanced for funding a bike patrol in the downtown core with the associated training, overtime and equipment costs.
“The City of Trail has opened discussions with our regional district partners to see if there is any appetite to provide cost sharing for additional resources,” Pasin continued. “As crime itself has no boundaries across our municipal borders.”
Sgt. Wicentowich was asked to present to the city’s regional district partners, so that each council could consider the matter and decide if a financial contribution for an increased complement of police officers is possible for their respective municipalities.
“Considering the implications to the Trail taxpayers and the now diffuse nature of this funding request, council advanced a motion for the Sergeant to provide a more comprehensive plan for policing and the associated budgetary increase,” Pasin clarified.
“This issue is further complicated as the RCMP in our area is not operating at maximum resources as several officers are off work on ‘leaves,’” she added.
“From a city perspective, we need to understand the return to work plans for the RCMP members, the impact of having a full complement of officers on duty, and balance that against the substantial funding requests that are being advanced.”
newsroom@trailtimes.ca
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