City Council to hear report on Policing from Detachment Inspector tonight

Inspector Blake Ward will be back at City Council tonight for the first time
in a fair bit of time, providing for an update on policing in Prince Rupert

The much sought after update from the city's RCMP detachment will finally be delivered at the final Regular Council session for 2019 tonight, with Inspector Blake Ward scheduled on the Agenda to provide a report for Council members.

The opportunity to receive a presentation from the Inspector is one that had been a topic of discussion for a pair of Council members over the last few months. With both Councillor Nick Adey and Councillor Barry Cunningham having asked for Council to invite the Inspector a number of times over the last few months, with Mr. Cunningham having made it a priority for council for over a year.

The appearance for the Inspector was confirmed in early November, though it was deferred from its original date of November 25th and rescheduled for tonight.

And it has been a while since Council has received an update, the last full presentation on policing from the Inspector came back in August of 2017.

That period of time between appearances does leave a pretty lengthy gap in time for Council to get caught up on and ask questions about, that is if they have any to ask of the Inspector.

Prince Rupert seems to have a much more relaxed approach to receiving public updates from the local RCMP.

With the schedule of appearances somewhat of a scattered thing, something that is not the case in other communities, with towns and cities such as Smithers, Terrace and Kitimat featuring regular reports on policing.

Something that allows for council members to also raise concerns that they have heard from the public with their respective detachment chiefs.

We observed as to how some of the other communities approach engagement with their police forces back in October.

Of note from our archives, is how Kitimat handles the need for updates from their Police and Fire Departments which we took note of back in November of 2017.

In addition to receiving the report on the range of items of note from the detachment, Council members could look to hear some feedback on some high profile issues of concern that have been raised in the community of late.

As well as to inquire about the local detachment's view of the recent Maclean's Survey which placed Prince Rupert in 11th spot as a dangerous community in Canada.

Other areas the Council members may wish to make note of for the public could be the status of a new detachment building for the community, the challenges that providing the requested security service for the Alaska Ferry terminal provided for the local members and what resources, if any that the city could provide to the RCMP to help towards their work in keeping the community safe.

For a look at some of the case files of Emergency Responders in the Northwest see our archive page here.

An overview of tonight's City Council session can be explored here.

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