Pubdate: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 Source: Kamloops Daily News (CN BC) Copyright: 2006 Kamloops Daily News Contact: http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/679 POLICE EYE GAME PLAN TO TACKLE TOP PRIORITIES Drugs, crime prevention, youth issues, communication with the community and police visibility were among the high priorities set out by city council during a strategic planning session with RCMP members Thursday. Now it's up to the police to come up with strategies to deal with those issues. City council met with Supt. Jim Begley and other RCMP officers for two and a half hours Thursday to talk about creating a five-year vision for policing in Kamloops. What they came up with was a loose list of priorities, which Begley said he'll take and incorporate with comments from a public forum held last spring along with points raised at focus groups last month. The end result, he said, should be a draft strategic plan that will go back to city council via the police committee. Specific action plans will also follow, but some of them won't be released publicly because they will involve police investigations. "It's realigning the priorities," he said. Mayor Terry Lake said the strategic planning exercise is also about building relationships between the city and the RCMP. "The solution is working together, engaging the community and working with the resources we have," he said. "I didn't expect to come out of here with a magic bullet." And there was no magic bullet. But there was a list of council's general priorities and an idea that Begley would be able to use that to set direction for his detachment. "For me, it's about setting a five-year course," Begley said. RCMP statistician Cpl. Sharon McWilliam outlined crime trends in the city. In the past five years, there have been rises in violent crimes - -- assaults, robberies, sexual assaults; and in disturbances (often involving alcohol or drugs), and in drug-related busts. In fact, she said, Kamloops saw more seizures in cocaine in 2005 than Prince George or the North Okanagan. Organized crime has also arisen in the city, even resulting in one auto-theft investigation that went national, she said. "None of this is to alarm anybody," Begley cautioned, noting the information and numbers that McWilliam gave out were to paint a picture of what's going on in the community. "This is not about resourcing. This is about making the most of what we've got." Coun. Tina Lange said as a downtown business owner, she has seen how safety is a perception. People walking along Victoria Street don't feel safe when they see panhandlers and riff raff, but they are reassured when they see an officer on foot patrol. Coun. Pat Wallace said while it would be nice to have more officers out on foot patrols and responding to stolen bike calls, it isn't realistic given the number of RCMP members here. "We have to take responsibility for ourselves," she said. "If it comes to looking after serious crime and visibility, I'll take the serious crime." McWilliam said a lot of property crime is preventable, and a partnership with community policing and the media could help get the word out on ways to be less vulnerable. While several people mentioned youth as a priority, defining what the police could do was tougher to pin down. Lange suggested the police, city, schools, health and other departments get together to come up with a way of making Kamloops a leader in helping youth. "Let's be the benchmark in Canada for drug prevention for kids," she said. Lake said he was initially excited about Lange's idea, but after some discussion wondered if it might be too big an issue to tackle at the local level. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman