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CANADA’S ONLY DAILY STUDENT NEWSPAPER • FOUNDED 1906
VOLUME 107, ISSUE 27
Break-ins bad this time of year: police Megan Devlin NEWS EDITOR The London Police Service is urging students to lock their doors and windows at all times after a high number of break-ins in and around the university area in recent weeks. Break-ins don’t only occur when students aren’t home. “There have even been incidents when residents are home […] say in the back or the front of the house, and rooms wherever they’re not are getting broken in,” constable Jennifer Hodgert, a media relations officer with the London Police Service, said. Hodgert said the LPS just wanted to encourage students to take proactive measures to prevent break-ins — such as locking exterior doors, bedroom doors, and windows. Jeff Hendler, a recent Ivey graduate, had his house broken into last year while he was taking an afternoon nap. Hendler, who lived in the basement of his home, admitted to not remembering whether he locked the door or not when he came home from class on the day of the break-in. Upon waking late in the afternoon, Hendler and his roommates discovered their Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 were missing from the living room. “The person must have been in a bit of a rush, because he left the power cord for the PS3,” Hendler said. Hodgert stressed that students should keep their doors locked at
Water and sewage rate to go up Richard Raycraft NEWS EDITOR
Kelly Samuel GAZETTE
all times, even when they are home, and to ensure that all residents have keys. She also encouraged students to call the police to report any suspicious activities they see, such as a person in the neighbourhood or outside their home they feel doesn’t belong. “We’d rather come to investigate than to come a couple hours later when the homeowner calls because they’ve found out their home has been broken into,” Hodgert said. Since multiple students often live together in a single house, thieves get more reward for their effort. “It’s just a greater area for a
person to break in and steal things like laptops because there are multiple opportunities within one residence to do so,” Hodgert said. She also told students not to leave accessories leading to entry lying around the property, advising against leaving keys under mats or notes on bedroom doors saying when a resident will be back. However, sometimes locking your door isn’t enough to prevent a break-in. Nicole Marcotte, a third-year science student, had her home broken into over the winter break last year. Intruders broke into her home through a window and knocked
down two of the residents’ bedroom doors. Marcotte’s Fossil watch as well as some money was stolen, but she said she was lucky since she had taken most of her valuables home for the break. However, what she found most irksome was that her landlord demanded the girls pay upwards of $400 in damages for the break-in. Marcotte refused, and gave her landlord the number of the police officer in charge of the case. “It was quite scary living there afterwards,” Marcotte said. “Now I live in an apartment.”
If you want to ensure you’re drinking quality water, be prepared to pay for it. On Monday, London’s Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee reviewed a report that recommended a hike in water rates and a hike for the city’s wastewater budget for 2014. Water rates are expected to climb eight per cent this year, while the wastewater budget is expected to increase by seven per cent. Harold Usher, London city councillor for Ward 12, summarized the content of the report. “It says that we are proposing to continue our strategic plan, with respect to hydro and water rates, and the development of the hydro and water with respect to meeting the standards that the provincial government set for us, and to meet all the operating costs that we need,” he explained. “We’re increasing the water rate by eight per cent and the sewer rate by seven per cent for another two years.” “We’ve been doing that for a few years now, it’s a plan that we have — it’s not anything new,” he continued. Usher explained that the increase was necessary in order to cap the annual increases at three per cent starting in 2016, which is a city goal. In addition, the added funds >> see HIKE pg.3
USC meets with police over Project LEARN concerns Iain Boekhoff NEWS EDITOR USC officials met with the police yesterday to discuss student concerns with Project LEARN. Amir Eftekarpour, vice-president external for the USC, and Pat Whelan, president of the USC, said the meeting with police chief Brad Duncan to discuss the police’s annual anti-party crackdown was very productive, lasting over an hour and a half. According to Eftekarpour, the London Police Service has acknowledged that Project LEARN does not work, and are going to work with the University Students’ Council to build a better relationship between the police and students.
“We went into the meeting wanting to raise the perspective of students, both specifically and at large about Project LEARN — both those that have been affected by it and the general principle of it and the engagement aspect of it, to those who were directly responsible for it.” Eftekarpour explained the USC had many problems with Project LEARN, including enforcement tactics and the perception it creates among students of the police targeting them. “If a student, for example, is having a noisy party, the protocol for the police is to give them a ticket right away, whereas a 40-year-old who has a noisy party with other 40-yearolds would get a warning,” he said. The police declined to comment
on this story, though Duncan has scheduled a press conference to discuss Project LEARN tomorrow. The police, after holding fast on their enforcement practices, including canvassing student neighbourhoods for students’ personal information, finally conceded that work can be done to improve the student-police relationship, according to Eftekarpour. “After some discussion, the chief acknowledged that Project LEARN practices — like zero tolerance, strict enforcement, canvassing — don’t work,” he said. Eftekarpour said the USC will be involved in the community process to find a solution to dealing with student behaviour in London. That will start with the next Town and Gown
committee meeting. “In the next couple of months we’re going to be working very hard to get the student voice at these events — like Town and Gown — and before the next major police presence, which is really St. Patrick’s Day, I really want for the community to come up with a solution to this.” The USC is going to continue the Good Neighbour campaign, and the police and the USC agreed that students need to take a larger role in engaging the community. Some of the proposals the USC brought to the police were the shutdown of police canvassing for students’ personal information, and changes to the operations of Project LEARN — going from targeted patrols and zero-tolerance with
large fines, to community service and apology letters as punishment. A proposal is also being considered to mimic what police do in Hamilton, where students get a 30 minute warning before a party is shut down and students are fined. The student union at McMaster University, located in Hamilton, has said that policy is very effective. Eftekarpour said the USC is working hard to get students to have a relationship with their neighbours. Police agreed that the best solution would be to have neighbours have a relationship where police would not need to be involved at all. He added that he is increasing the relationship the university has with the off-campus advisors.