Council to receive update on RCMP's work in the community

City Council will receive a report
on Policing in Prince Rupert at
tonight's Council session

Councillor Barry Cunningham will be pleased to see that there has been some progress on one of his long standing themes for city Council sessions, that of having more frequent public updates on civic departments and services provided to the City of Prince Rupert.

Cunningham brought that topic up once again a few months ago requesting that some time be set aside at Council sessions for a regular report on items of note, and tonight the first of those updates is set to take place as Blake Ward, the Detachment Commander for the Prince Rupert RCMP is scheduled to present a 2017 Interim Policing Report.

No details were outlined in tonight's Agenda package as to the themes from his report, but some areas of interest that may be addressed could be the ongoing issues surrounding the need for a new RCMP detachment, as well as a review of the recently released crime statistics from Stats Canada.

As we outlined in July, the results of the Crime Severity Index for Prince Rupert indicated some significant progress is being made in reducing the impact of crime on the community.

And while the North Coast numbers are still somewhat high compared to many other Canadian communities, in the Northwest, Prince Rupert no longer leads the region when it comes to the regional rankings.

The most recent report provides that title to Terrace which remains in the Top Twenty of Canadian communities that are dealing with both Violent Crime and Overall Crime Severity.

Knock one item off of
Councillor Barry Cunningham's
to do list, with an update from
the RCMP set for tonight at Council

Other areas where Council members may also wish to follow up on, include concerns from the McKay Street area over the summer, with a number of residents of that west side neighbourhood expressing their views when it comes to safety particularly in area of the overgrown baseball field in at Kootenay and McKay.

That abandoned ball field has been targeted for a major park development by Transition Prince Rupert, however the path towards remediation of the site is still in the planning stage.

As well, the topic of ongoing worries over vehicle/pedestrian incidents along the Second Avenue corridor through the city might also make for some observations from Council members.

The RCMP presentation to Council is part of the Regular Council session scheduled for 7 PM tonight.

You can hold your own review of some of the work of the RCMP on the North Coast through the files of our Emergency Services Archive page here.

More notes related to tonight's Council session can be found here.

Background information on City Council discussion topics is available on our archive page.