Re: Downloading, costs, top issues for mayors, Oak Bay News, March 13
So local mayors are wringing their hands about the spiralling cost of municipal policing and fire?
If they want to put public safety and the needs of residents first, they should look no further than the 2012 report Setting the Stage for Improved Efficiency and Effectiveness from the Centre for Public Safety and Criminal Justice Research, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of the Fraser Valley.
This study recommended the creation of a Greater Victoria regional police force, calling it “a no-brainer,” and went on conclude that “communities could achieve some significant economies of scale with great long term savings to taxpayers if they were to amalgamate local police departments into a single regional force.”
Numerous public safety officials, including former Solicitors-General Wally Oppal and Kash Heed, former police chief Jamie Graham, the BC Coroner and others have likewise criticized the fragmented patchwork of multiple municipal police forces as a major public safety hazard, and have called for a unified regional police force in Greater Victoria.
Until such time as local politicians put good public policy ahead of maintaining personal spheres of influence, we will continue to suffer from disjointed, uncoordinated, inefficient and costly police services.
Lesley Ewing
Oak Bay