Kenora councillor Bob Bernie has put forward a Notice of Motion, looking for the city to examine setting up a Community Safety Officer Program.
Bernie says this would be a stand-alone program, outside of the operations of the OPP.
“It don’t want us to be thinking about developing a Community Safety Officer program, I want us to develop one,” Bernie told council at it’s open meeting Tuesday night.
“Again, after a great deal of thought, I want to explore the opportunity to develop this plan internally. I believe that we, within the city, have the knowledge, skills and ability to be able to develop a business case for a program.”
Councillor Graham Chaze says he fully endorses the proposal.
“I think this position is a bit of a missing piece…or missing link, in that whole spectrum of community safety and wellbeing that we are missing. There’s a lot of opportunity here. There’s a lot of opportunity to reduce our policing costs.”
Council unanimously endorsed Bernie’s Notice of Motion.
Bernie says the idea would not only improve safety in the city, but also cut down on the number of calls for service for the OPP, potentially saving money.
