By meadowlakeNOW

Meadow Lake bylaw officer takes CSO training

Dec 22, 2016 | 6:00 PM

Meadow Lake’s bylaw enforcement is undergoing a couple of changes, with the city hiring a second officer and its current one recently finishing Community Safety Officer (CSO) training.

The CSO training allows current bylaw officer Joe Hallahan to enforce some provincial legislations, where before he could only enforce municipal.

A benefit to the training, city manager Diana Burton explained, is it takes some stress off the police department, allowing them to deal with higher risk calls.

Things Hallahan could be able to enforce include speeding, failing to yield properly, cell-phone use and seatbelt infractions.

“It hasn’t been finalized exactly what (Hallahan) will be allowed to do, but the training allows things like provisions in the Traffic Safety Act and the Transportation and Highways Act,” Burton said.

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She added conversations are being held with the province and local RCMP detachment in the coming weeks to finalize Hallahan’s enforcement authorities.

Looking at its neighbor city to the south, North Battleford, which has an RCMP detachment and multiple CSO’s, Burton said at this point there are no plans to mirror what they’re doing.

“We haven’t approved anyone beyond Joe doing (CSO training). We have approved a second bylaw officer, but that will be a bylaw officer for the time being,” she said. “Since we only have one person in the department, we figured we would start small and see how it goes. I’m not saying in the future we couldn’t move towards having multiple CSO’s, but that’s not the intention at this point.”

The second bylaw officer will be hired in the New Year. Burton said the job will be posted soon and hopes to have someone in the position by April.

The benefit of having a second bylaw officer, Burton said, will be more consistent enforcement. She added the two officers could do staggering shifts to make sure they’re not always working at the same time.

“In the past, it’s been an issue with only one bylaw enforcement officer. It could be predicted it’s kind of a Monday to Friday, nine to five position and it’s really not about generating revenue,” Burton added. “What we’re anticipating is it’s about education, about what the rules are and making sure they’re consistently enforced. “

Costing the city roughly $60,000 to hire the second bylaw officer, Burton said not all of it is salary as the city has to purchase computers and equipment to support the individual.

She added some of that would be off-set with more consistent enforcement leading to an increase in fine revenue.

“The reality is because we’re doubling the department capacity that will probably be the case but making money off bylaw enforcement is not what the city is looking at doing,” she said. “Yes, it’s probably a reality some of the revenue is going to increase but the general reality of a bylaw enforcement department is if it’s being effective and if the public is buying into and following the rules when they’re made aware of them you should actually over time see that decrease.”

The hiring of a second officer was approved by city council as part of its 2017 budget.

Colton Swiderski is meadowlakeNOW’s sports, municipal affairs, crime and court, health and education reporter. He is also the Sask. Rush beat reporter for the JPBG. He can be reached at cswiderski@jpbg.ca or tweet him @coltonswiderski.