Budget breakdown Municipal tax increase sits at 2.2 per cent. PaGe 11 Grim story Play tackles tough issues in fun, humourous way. PaGe 30 Goal getters Curlers head off to masters’ competition in Alberta.
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TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 2014
www.nanaimobulletin.com
VOL. 25, NO. 102
Council choses more expensive 911 contract I ServiCeS wiLL cost Nanaimo $335,250.
By Tamara CunninGham THE NEwS BULLETiN
CHRIS BUSH/THe NewS BUlleTIN
morning music
Pinky Love, visiting from Toronto, takes advantage of a sunny morning recently to fill the air with sound of her guitar and drum up spare change on Commercial Street.
Teens arrested after victim found with stab wounds By Chris Bush THE NEwS BULLETiN
Nanaimo RCMP are investigating a stabbing early Sunday in the 200 block of Craig Street. Emergency services received a 911 call shortly after 7 a.m. about a male who had been stabbed multiple times. When police arrived they found a 19-year-old man in an alley with life threatening injuries. He was treated at the scene by paramedics and rushed to Nanaimo
Regional General Hospital. The victim will remain in hospital several days, but is expected to recover. Mounties found one female and three males, age 13 to 19, in a nearby residence and took them into custody. “It appears an altercation ensued in one of the units of the apartment block,” said Const. Gary O’Brien, Nanaimo RCMP spokesman. The apartment was secured by officers until a search warrant
was granted so the unit could be entered and searched. The investigation is continuing and charges are being considered. O’Brien said one of the suspects was scheduled to appear in Nanaimo Provincial Court Monday. Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call Nanaimo RCMP at 250-754-2345 or contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at www. nanaimocrimestoppers.com. photos@nanaimobulletin.com
The City of Nanaimo will contract 911 services to the RCMP, despite a muchcheaper alternative. Nanaimo city councillors voted 7-2 in February to sign a five-year memorandum of understanding with the RCMP to provide 911 services, according to recently released in-camera documents. The contract will cost the Central Island 911 partnership, which includes Nanaimo, Cowichan Valley Regional District and Nanaimo Regional District, $745,000. Nanaimo’s share will be $335,250, with the potential for additional costs if the RCMP needs to upgrade software – a move that could cost up to a halfmillion dollars. According to city staff, Nanaimo had to reconsider how 911 service is provided after the RCMP advised in September the function is no longer part of its core business and would be terminated without a five-year
contract and payment of a new management fee. The RCMP had been providing the service since 1994. The ultimatum had the city – and other B.C. communities whose 911 was handled by the RCMP – mulling alternatives like Vancouver-based E-Comm 911. The call answer service has already been picked up by regional districts like Fraser-Fort George, Cariboo and Kitimat-Stikine as an alternative to the provincial operational communications centre. It takes the initial call before sending it to local dispatch and is considerably cheaper, according to staff members who favoured the shift to the company. E-Comm would have cost the partnership $280,000 and the city $126,000, without future software costs or losses to local jobs. Positions would have been cut through attrition. C o u n c i l l o r s G e o rg e Anderson and Bill McKay, who both voted against going with the RCMP, said the option meant cost savings without risks to service. Money saved could have gone toward other expenses.
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