SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — The City of Summerside is looking into establishing a bylaw enforcement officer position.
At Tuesday night’s committee of council meeting, city councillors discussed a number of concerns from residents and councillors alike about the time frame in which bylaw complaints and infractions are dealt with and whether Summerside Police Services is the right department to handle the complaints.
Coun. Cory Snow feels the current way things are dealt with is not the best way —highly trained police officers who are also tasked with dealing with bylaw complaints.
“We’re using our police services department to handle bylaw infractions currently, whether I take the calls myself or a resident contacts the city they are directed to the police department… It’s time to have a discussion about a bylaw officer,” said Snow following the meeting.
“Talking with the residents… they feel it’s a little silly, that it doesn’t make sense to be calling the police department. They’re busy and there are other concerns they need to deal with policing wise as well.
Council needs to work at better ways to address the concerns, complaints and infractions, said Snow.
“Up until this point, many of the people who have been talking to me have said it’s been going on for years, it’s not getting addressed in a timely manner. So, I’m hoping if we could implement a new officer, we could free up some police resources as well and give them more time to do their day-to-day policing and allow the new officer to respond quicker and more effectively to bylaw concerns.”
During the meeting’s discussions, Coun. Bruce MacDougall said he had “no problem supporting the motion if he knew it was going to help.”
In 2018, there were 324 bylaw complaints received by the city, none of which had prosecution action taken against them.
The possibility of a bylaw officer opened the floor to discussion of giving bylaws some “teeth.”
CAO Bob Ashley said whatever route council decides to go, it is looking at some kind of cost.
“There would be the cost of more staff (for a bylaw officer), legal costs if something were to be prosecuted, and more cost on the police department,” Ashely said.
