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Issue 16
SERVING THE ENERGY CITY SINCE 1903
Mailing No. 10769 | Publication No. 40069240
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
ESTEVAN’S
SOURCE FOR LOCAL & REGIONAL NEWS
City to expand school zone By Brian Zinchuk brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net
A presentation by 10-year-old Boston Tait in the spring has paid dividends, with Estevan city council agreeing to his request to lower the speed limit on his street, near Pleasantdale School. Tait lives on Victory Road, a few doors down from the school, but far enough that the school zone does not extend to his part of the street. It includes the one-block-long Cardinal Avenue, but not Victory Road. As a result, on May 29 Tait asked the Estevan police board to consider decreasing the speed limit on Victory Road and expand the Pleasantdale school zone to include that street. That would result in a speed limit of 30 kilometres per hour instead of the current 50 kilometres per hour. “It took a lot of courage for a young lad like that to come before the board,” Estevan Police Chief Paul Ladouceur told city council on Monday. Tait’s request went from the police board to the traffic control committee on June 6, where it got unanimous support. It then went back to the police board on June 20 before coming before city council on Aug. 12. In his initial presentation in May, Tait said, “I love playing basketball and hockey on my driveway with my friends. Sometimes the ball goes on the road and it is unsafe. People are going like 50 (kilometres per hour), which is the speed limit, but it’s too fast.” He explained that his house is just two buildings away from the school, and that’s where people don’t even start to slow down for the school zone yet. Tait also noted that there are a lot of children living on that street and he started a petition, which a lot of people already signed. He forwarded the collected letters to the city clerk Judy Pilloud. Tait also suggested some possible measures that can be taken. “All school zones in Estevan should be expanded. People are going 60, then getting to the school zone and then slowing down to 30. So at the beginning of the school zone, they are going 40. There should be licence plate readers at the edge of the Estevan school zones. This will help, because people are not wanting to pay a fine, so they will start going slow in school zones,” said Tait in May to the police board. There was no discussion by council, which unanimously supported the measure. After the council meeting, Mayor Roy Ludwig said he expected the new speed limit to be in place before the start of the new school year.
EPS the first municipal policing agency to join Saskatchewan Crime Watch Network
From left, Deputy Police Chief Murray Cowan, Police Chief Paul Ladouceur and Estevan RCMP Sgt. Jeff Clarke have announced that Estevan has joined the Saskatchewan Crime Watch Advisory Network. ister to receive the advisories through the EPS. “We’re certainly happy to be the first municipal service to pilot it out, and I think the reason for that is the local RCMP had such good success with it here that it was a natural step,” said Ladouceur. Ladouceur called the crime watch network a fantastic idea. “From my view, it’s something that seemed so simple, but was never thought of,” he said. “Everbridge has been used by municipalities for a long time to report on things like tornadoes and serious weather alerts, and things like that, so when you see those emergency alerts, a lot of that comes through Everbridge.” This is a pilot project, and Ladouceur said if it’s successful in Estevan, it could be expanded to the other municipal policing agencies in Saskatchewan. “That will be for others to decide, not at our level and not for the Estevan police to make those decisions, that will be a provincial decision,” said Ladouceur. Sgt. Jeff Clarke said there
By David Willberg dwillberg@estevanmercury.ca
The Saskatchewan RCMP has received praise since it launched the Saskatchewan Crime Watch Advisory Network earlier this year, which informs people through text and/or email message when a crime has been committed in a detachment area. Now it’s being expanded into municipal police services, and the Estevan Police Service (EPS) is the first in the province to have this service. An announcement was made in a government news release on Aug. 6. Police Chief Paul Ladouceur said the network has been very successful with the RCMP, and he believes it could also have an impact with municipal policing agencies. The system is through Everbridge, which handles notifications for disasters, severe weather and other situations. Ladouceur noted it’s something people can choose to sign up for, and that the general public won’t be inundated with alerts. He hopes people will reg-
are 11,869 subscribers to the crime advisory network in Saskatchewan, and of those, 2,469 opted to receive to notifications from the Estevan RCMP. Not all of their subscribers live in the towns and villages within the six rural municipalities that the Estevan RCMP patrols; some of them live in communities well outside of the local RCMP’s jurisdiction. People can select which policing agencies they want to follow, whether it be just the area where they live. They could follow all of the RCMP detachments in the province if they so choose. “When we first started out, I got a call from a guy from the Regina-Fort Qu’Appelle area,” recalled Clarke. “He was on ours, but he contacted me directly and wanted to talk about one of the releases we put out.” He’s not surprised with how many people are subscribing, even though the concept is relatively new. “The number of eyes and ears we have out there to help us gather information and prevent crime or reduce crime, the bet-
GEORGE C.
ter,” Clarke said. The RCMP can also attach photos, allowing people to see the description of a stolen item or a suspicious vehicle. Clarke noted the RCMP has had success with the Crime Watch Advisory Network. They were able to recover a couple of stolen flat-deck trailers because people received a notification and saw the trailers. And they were able to make an arrest in an oilfield equipment theft. He added that the Carlyle RCMP also had success with a suspicious person case, which proved to not be suspicious at all. “They’re looking for advisories to notify people of criminal activity, or crimes that have recently occurred, or advisories warning regarding notable crime trends in a specific area,” said Clarke. He also cited the example of how the RCMP sent out some information about a series of thefts that occurred in the Benson, Hitchcock and Macoun areas. When a crime happens, A2 » CRIME
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