I am writing this letter to congratulate the mayor and council on their decision to hire six more RCMP officers. This is long overdue and will be a great addition to maintaining our way of life.
I have been a resident of Vernon since 2000 and in that time I think we have only hired ten to 13 new officers. It would be interesting to know if the staff increases are in line with the population and crime growth of this community.
I think it is time for council to sit down and seriously think about building a new office to allow the detachment to do the job required of them with all tools available to them to be able to serve this community.
First, the police force has no secure place to park their vehicles when not in use, and in my view it is a disgrace that these vehicles are all parked out on the public street, where they can be damaged if people were to try and this could slow down response times.
I have only seen the inside of the building once and that was to bring a witness down six years ago. The front desk at that time took up a very small area. When were the holding cells last updated, when was the last time the interrogation room was updated, when was the last time the interview rooms for witness updated, when was the last time that all shift officers had their work place updated and maybe enlarged, when was the last time the break room was updated and when was the last time the station commander’s office was updated.
If we want and expect these officers to perform at their very best then it is time we give them the work place to complete this task.
If we do this then we can give the mayor, council and staff at city hall a new bigger hall. This will bring all the outlying departments to one area, think of the ease to manage and the savings. To do this they will have to make a big choice, put all non-priority projects, such as museum and art gallery buildings, on hold.
I can talk about the police issue as I am a qualified police officer from a major prairie city and so I do realize what good policing requires and what police officers appreciate.
As for city hall, the area is lovely and I enjoy walking and sitting in the area but sorry the inside is small and dark and I think that our elected officials and staff deserve to work in a building that they can take pride in.
Garry Haas