Rural Mayors in the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) want nothing to do with a hypothetical “police hub” that would centralize police services for the entire region out of the Penticton RCMP detachment.
During a presentation to the RDOS Board Thursday morning, Supt. Ted De Jager, the commander for RCMP services in Penticton as well as the South Okanagan and Similkameen, admitted there have been preliminary discussions about centralizing police services from Penticton, but nothing concrete.
Keremeos Mayor Manfred Bauer told the Board that his community, which currently has a fully-staffed contingent of five RCMP officers, wants nothing to do with any proposed plan to operate a policing hub out of Penticton.
“Obviously I’m very concerned that a primary driver for these kinds of decisions would be budgeting, rather than community safety,” he said. “I feel personally that Keremeos is a hub already. We have highways there, we have a large area to deal with, so I’m hoping if there’s any beginning of even planning anything like this that we are consulted.”
Many decisions about important issues like this are made strictly due to financing and there’s much more to be considered when it comes to community policing, said Bauer.
“Often those decisions, are unfortunately made in the minds of the echelons that don’t know the area and they go by logistics, money and streamlining, rather than having community safety at heart,” he said.
De Jager said the centralized hub concept has only been discussed and there would not be any significant moves made without consulting community partners, including municipal leaders.
“None of this would ever happen without significant consultation not just with the mayor and council of the affected communities, but with the area directors as well and the Province,” he said.
If a centralized model were ever adopted, it means officers assigned to Keremeos would be assigned from Penticton.
If it was to be run out of Penticton, Keremeos’ policing model would go to a 24-hour model, said De Jager.
The shift commander would tell which officers where they are being deployed.
The advantage of such a system is 24-hour police service, but the disadvantage is assigning different officers each shift.
“You don’t have that consistency, which is what you enjoy and is what, from a community perspective, is what you want,” he said.
Summerland would run on a similar model, he said, reiterating he hasn’t engaged in any concrete discussions thus far.
“There’s no discussions right now of hubbing either community,” said De Jager.
District of Summerland Mayor Peter Waterman echoed similar concerns about any centralized hub police.
Waterman said he’s in favour of “specialized units” being deployed in small communities outside of Penticton, but he would never support a centralized hub model.
Summerland recently opened a new RCMP detachment and local residents are very pleased with the policing service they are now receiving, he said.
“I know it would not go down well with the community if appears as though this brand new building has been put in place, then we have an obvious reduction in the type of coverage that we have,” he said.
If a centralized model is approved “it’s going to be a tough one for our community to swallow, particularly when there was so much controversy around putting that building in place in the first place.”
Summerland is a medium-sized community with more than 12,000 residents and he and other residents would be concerned if there was significant change to the current policing model, he said.
De Jager the “actual driver behind hubbing … is efficiency” designed to serve rural communities that often suffer from understaffing of front-line officers.
There has been problems recruiting police officers across Canada, but the number of vacancies at detachments across the region is quite low, which is encouraging, he said.
“Really it’s about efficiencies and member wellness,” he said. “In other communities, in very rural areas, where we simply cannot staff them, that community can very well get a much better policing support by hubbing to a larger centre nearby.”
In the South Okanagan region, “no such discussion is underway” with the exception of possibly sharing support services, he said.
