By Shannon Montgomery
With its short hours and small staff, Centretown’s Community Police Centre won’t be missed if it’s cut from next year’s budget, some local business owners and residents say.
The city’s 22 community police centres, which cost around $2 million a year, may be among the first services cut as the new municipal government tries to dig its way out of a $120-million debt, police chief Vince Bevan said earlier this month.
“I’m not surprised, considering the vacillating the police have done with police services over the last 10 years,” says Gerry LePage, executive director of the Bank Street Improvement Area.
“The centres here have never been consistent with the needs of the community,” he says, adding they need longer operating hours and more staff to be successful.
“Without these things, you can still have a sign up that says Ottawa police, but at that point it’s nothing but a waste of electricity.”
The community police centres are staffed by one police officer and volunteers, and the Centretown branch at Bank and Somerset streets is open from noon to 4 p.m. on weekdays.
The centres are designed to act as the first point of contact in the community, with a focus mainly on crime prevention programs like Neighbourhood Watch and home safety inspections.
But critics say the centres’ daytime hours and negligible staff make them a waste of money. Last spring, the Winnipeg-based consulting firm Prairie Research Associates was hired by the Ottawa police to investigate whether the centres were adding value to public safety, says project sponsor Peter Crosby.
The firm held meetings and focus groups with staff, business leaders and community groups. They also conducted several surveys.
The police received the first draft of the review several weeks ago, and it will go to the city executive in December. Crosby says he hasn’t heard anything about the centres’ future from the city, but adds “the city is in quite a situation, and I’d say there is probably nothing sacred.”
Tim Senack, a constable at the Centretown location, says it’s hard to measure the benefits of the stations in terms of making the neighbourhood safer.
“With crime prevention stuff, it’s hard to measure the benefits,” he says. “It’s more the feeling the people you served get by you being around.”
But he says he hasn’t been warned of any imminent departure.
“This particular centre here, we just renewed the lease for another five years.” he says.
Farhad Shadzik, owner of the Royal Variety Convenience Store at Bank and Cooper streets, says he’s never spoken to anyone from the community police centre, although he has received flyers from them periodically. He adds the times his business may need help cannot be contained within four hours.
“The problems can happen anytime. Usually it’s in the late afternoon or the evening.”
Michael Stevenson, who works at Hartman’s grocery store, across from the Somerset police centre, says he has seen little benefit from the centres either as a resident or as part of a business.
“Overall, we just find it kind of useless,” he says. “They don’t really do much.”
He says in an area with high crime, people in trouble might not get the help they need.
“It’s ridiculous. They have signs everywhere saying ‘help here,’ and if you went running to them if you were in trouble, it would be pointless, just locked doors.”
But some residents say the centres are essential to the community.
“(Closing the centres) would be a terrible, terrible thing. We need them,” says Loraine Redford, a member of the Centretown Action Committee.
She says she is currently working with community police officers to help homeless people who are mentally ill.
“I feel police presence absolutely cuts down on any thought of crime,” she says.
And although she acknowledged the centres have limits, she says getting rid of them isn’t the best plan.
“Longer (hours) would be nicer, but we’ll take whatever they can give us.”
Diane Holmes, the councillor-elect for Somerset ward, says the centres should stay but must be changed to meet the needs of the community.
“It was never used to the extent that I thought it should have been,” she says of the Centretown police centre.
She says more community involvement is needed and the centres should be a way for the police to get to know the community. The police officer should sit down with members and work out strategies for preventing crime.
“I don’t think any of that has happened,” she says.
She says if the centres make it through the budget she will work to have the centres open in the hours they are needed and to make them more accessible to the community.
“They should be working with the community to decide how the community wants to be policed,” she says.