Despite more foot patrols and the presence of more community safety officers and RCMP, reports are still coming in of incidents of harassment and intoxication downtown.
Monday night’s planning committee meeting turned into a venting session on the issue, as councillors bemoaned the lack of noticeable improvement despite all enforcement attempts.
“It’s frustrating,” said Councillor Kevin Steinborn.
He was referring to an e-mail forwarded by Councillor Kelli Hawtin earlier that day about downtown incidents that had been happening.
“We spend a lot of money, a lot of time making downtown more beautiful and trying to be friendly to both consumers and business people, and when I hear stuff like this that [is] happening from individuals downtown, bullying, threatening citizens, it’s disheartening,” said Steinborn.
The issue has come to the News-Optimist’s attention in recent weeks. Our newsroom was tipped off recently about loitering and harassment by people sitting on a bench outside a business on 101st Street.
It has also been an ongoing concern for council, which has continued to hear feedback from residents about harassment, intoxication and aggressive panhandling in the downtown area.
Tough panhandling bylaw amendments were considered in response to the situation in 2017, but were ultimately voted down. At that time Councillor Len Taylor, who chaired Monday’s meeting, recounted being harassed himself near the liquor store.
The tipping-off point for councillors Monday came when community safety officer supervisor Ross MacAngus presented the monthly CSO numbers.
MacAngus said calls for service “are going through the roof, largely because of downtown.”
There were 1,055 calls for service in March alone, bringing the total for the year so far up to 2,392. March’s calls are about double last month’s.
MacAngus estimated about 15 per cent of the calls were for downtown. When Councillor Hawtin asked later on in the meeting how much actual time was spent by CSOs on those downtown calls, MacAngus could not get into specifics, but admitted it was “quite a bit.” Responses could be time consuming, he said, and varied from a couple of minutes to 30 minutes.
A total of 266 parking violations and 110 provincial tickets were issued during March. CSOs also conducted 65 foot patrols and 160 vehicle patrols, also up from last month, with downtown a particular focus.
“This month I’ve had two officers down there every day or every second day doing foot patrols in the whole downtown core, and still stopping in to the businesses, too,” MacAngus said.
It was after MacAngus’s initial report of the numbers that Steinborn vented his frustrations on the overall lack of progress. Steinborn also emphasized he did not know the answer.
“I appreciate the number of foot patrols and that downtown, but this isn’t going away. And I don’t know what the answer is, and it’s frustrating to get these emails and these phone calls and people talking about their discomfort about being downtown. I don’t know. It’s getting old. And I don’t know what the answer is.”
In general, council was at a loss for ideas to further address the problems. Steinborn suggested relocating the CSO office to downtown so that people could have a place to go to quickly to make a report.
But it was also noted at the meeting that the RCMP detachment was already there downtown accepting reports.
Greater RCMP enforcement didn’t seem a viable answer either. Councillor Greg Lightfoot pointed to the well-publicized and highly visible two-day traffic blitz by RCMP and other police last Thursday and Friday throughout the city, with downtown one of the focuses.
“I went down there around three o’clock Friday afternoon, and I must have seen six or eight police vehicles from Regina, Saskatoon, our own,” said Lightfoot.
“And there were still people standing by the Royal Bank that were intoxicated. So how much more presence do we have to do to get these people to move?”
If they weren’t moving and getting out of the way with that police presence there, Lightfoot said, “I don’t know what more we have to do to do it. I don’t think full-time patrol downtown is going to make a difference. They’re going to find a way to be there.”
Lightfoot also laid blame at the feet of the upper levels of government for not providing enough of the social services required.
“Unfortunately, we are not getting any help from the province or the feds with regards to helping these people who have these needs and these issues to get them off the streets or help them become in a better place to make this happen. I don’t know how city council can be tasked with this job any more than what we’re doing. Unfortunately, it’s a tough situation and we’re doing all we can.”
Lightfoot added he wasn’t hopeful, and noted other cities have had the same problems, pointing to Saskatoon, Regina and Prince Albert.
Lightfoot said he was intimidated walking in the St. Paul’s Hospital area in Saskatoon.
“I’ve never been intimidated in walking in North Battleford anywhere. In St. Paul’s Hospital area, I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t go there when it’s dusk. I’m sorry, it’s an unsafe area.”
On Lightfoot’s points about the need for social services, MacAngus responded that the “more things offered for these people the better it is.”
He pointed to the Lighthouse Serving the Battlefords as a positive, noting the number of break and enters into vacant houses has gone down since that facility opened.
“I feel council’s frustration,” was the reaction of Councillor Kent Lindgren.
Unfortunately, Lindgren said, it seems it’s the city that has to deal with mental health, addictions, poverty and homelessness.
“Those are big things that we can’t tackle on our own,” Lindgren said, who suggested people call their MLA and MP.
“You can’t arrest out of some of these problems, it’s never going to fix it. Until those [programs] are adequately funded and in place, some of these issues will continue to be faced.”
