Kelowna city council close to unveiling three crime-fighting initiatives – Okanagan | 24CA News
Kelowna mayor Tom Dyas says he ran on a promise to cut back crime and he plans to meet it.
“Crime was a major election issue, you know, where Kelowna sat as number one statistically with regards to crime,” Dyas instructed Global News.
The mayor made the remark Monday afternoon simply forward of listening to the RCMP current the 2022 crime report to metropolis council.
Dyas stated council may be very near unveiling three crime-fighting initiatives which might be “all actionable items that will make a difference.”
While Dyas wasn’t able to share what these three initiatives are, he stated they are going to be made public someday subsequent month.
“The only reason why that is … is because tomorrow we have another meeting and we’re going to confirm that those are still our top three priorities that we’re going to address,” Dyas stated. “So I want to make certain that all of council, everyone is in agreement that those are our priorities and then by all means that will become a public document.”
The 2022 crime report was introduced to council by Kelowna RCMP Insp. Beth McAndie. She famous that common crime returned to pre-pandemic ranges final yr.
Overall requires service have been down six per cent, nonetheless, Kelowna’s downtown space skilled a 12.6 per cent uptick in requires service.
Robberies and business break-and-enters elevated from the 2021 baseline.
Robberies have been up 43 per cent in 2022 in comparison with the earlier yr whereas break-and-enters jumped by 26 per cent.
At the Oh child Consignment retailer on Ellis Street, house owners weren’t shocked on the rising numbers.
“Not at all,” stated retailer co-owner Carrie Fahlgren. “We have now been broken into twice in the year and a half we’ve been open.”
“The first time they just smashed the front window so it was a matter of replacing the front window and our door. The second time they did that, but also entered and took what they could.”
Fahlgren stated she’s needed to have bars put in to stop one other break-in.
“I don’t have an answer. I just hope that there is something in place to try and improve this,” Fahlgren stated.
The crime report additionally acknowledged that in response to the rising break-in numbers, RCMP started focused enforcement of precedence repeat offenders final August and that since then there was a discount in a majority of these crimes.
“‘I’m pleased to share that with additional data analyst resources and refined data-led strategy engaged in the last quarter of 2022, we were successful in driving down business breaking and enters,” McAndie instructed metropolis council. “Carrying into January 2023, we’re seeing some nice indicators from our response.
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