Penticton Western News, March 25, 2015

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NEWS PENTICTON WESTERN

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Jeff Symonds wins his first Ironman

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JAIL BRINGS RCMP CONCERNS Dale Boyd

NEWS Western News Staff

PENTICTON WESTERN

The Regional District Okanagan Similkameen is appealing to the province to add two RCMP officers to an already taxed police force in Oliver. The policing concerns are compounded by the extra population influx from the construction of the 378-cell Okanagan Correctional Centre expected to be complete in 2017. At a meeting on March 19, the RDOS protective services committee sent a request to the Attorney General asking that a study be conducted on the impact the facility will have on the area. “We’ve met with them (Attorney General’s office) and they are sympathetic, but of course it always comes down to money. We’re in competition with the rest of the province,” said Bill Newell, RDOS Chief Administrative Officer. “Everybody is asking for more policing. They haven’t increased police resources anywhere under the provincial contract for a long time.” The most recent response from the Ministry of Justice to the request reads “At this time, we do not anticipate increased pressure on local police resources; however, the RCMP will continue to monitor workload to ensure provincial policing is responsive to any arising issues or impacts of the Correctional Centre.” The Town of Oliver has requested additional police services in the past to no avail, and now the RDOS is asking the province to assess the impact the facility will have. The commanding officer of the Oliver RCMP has told the district in the past that they are already understaffed.

CONSTRUCTION WORKERS at the site of the Okanagan Correctional Centre which is estimated to boost population in the Oliver area and has the mayor concerned about the already taxed RCMP force.

Mark Brett/Penticton Western News

“They are completely busy right now. They are probably over and above their normal case load. With the increase that we know is going to be caused by the corrections facility, it would only make sense that there is going to be requirement for additional RCMP members,” Newell said. Municipalities with a population of under 5,000 are serviced through

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a contract with the province. As of yet there has been “no success” in talks with the Attorney General, according to Newell. There is also the concern that whatever additional policing costs that are associated with the correctional centre could fall on the taxpayers of Oliver. “They (correctional facilities) create their own number of files, so

our concern is if they create a substantive amount of files it’s going to fall on the backs of one of our local officers, or a couple of our local officers,” said Oliver Mayor Ron Hovanes. “We already have enough policing concerns of our own.” Oliver does not currently have 24-hour policing due to a lack of resources. There are currently no

patrolling officers from midnight to the early morning hours, however, there is always an officer on call. “We really don’t want to have our police services watered down because they are taking on an additional role,” Hovanes said. On top of the extra case files that the correctional centre will bring, there will be a spike in Oliver’s population to the contractors, construction workers and the eventual jobs that the facility will bring. During the second quarter of 2014, Oliver RCMP responded to a 12 per cent increase in service calls compared to the same quarter in 2013. “With the addition of close to 300 jobs in the South Okanagan our population, if you take in those jobs times a family, there is probably going to be another 1,000 people immediately that will be living in the South Okanagan,” Hovanes said. On top of the current policing concerns is the fact that if the Town of Oliver’s population exceeds 5,000 people in the next census, the municipality will be responsible for 70 per cent of the burden. “We’re going to have to bear that like every other community that has gone over 5,000 in the province,” Hovanes said. “It would be a huge hit. The last time we looked at the numbers it was close to $800,000, a one-time and then an ongoing hit to take on our share of the responsibility.” Hovanes said both Oliver and Osoyoos were going to go over 5,000-person population threshold during the last census in 2011, with the town coming in 180 people under that threshold. The next census report is expected in 2017. Hovanes said that is a separate issue which will be discussed further during budget talks in the fall.

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