No Sheriffs help for camps, but Lethbridge to get SCAN unit
By Lethbridge Herald on April 29, 2023.
Herald file photo -
Police watch as homeless people gather belongings at the Civic Centre field area last October.Al Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
The provincial government has denied a request by city council to have Sheriffs help deal with encampments here this summer.
But it will be putting in Lethbridge an office of the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods, which is a unit of the Alberta Sheriffs that deals with problem properties. Since its inception in 2008, SCAN has investigated about 7,000 problem properties in the province.
It keeps communities safe, says the Alberta.ca website, by dealing with properties that are used for specific activities such as drug trafficking, gang-related crime, prostitution and child exploitation.
Recently, city council voted by a 6-2 motion to seek help from the Sheriffs to assist in managing encampments this summer. Council authorized mayor Blaine Hyggen to write a letter on behalf of council and the City to Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis seeking that assistance on a six-month trial basis starting in May.
The motion stated that in much of 2022 Lethbridge was inundated with encampments with individual camp sites giving way to a massive encampment reaching more than 90 structures in and around Civic Park. “Efforts to provide services and dismantle this encampment took months to accomplish while adjacent neighbourhoods feared for their safety,” the motion added.
On Friday, Hyggen said at City Hall that he was told at this time the Sheriffs don’t have adequate resources to deploy staff here. The Sheriffs have been employed recently in Calgary and Edmonton to deal with crime reduction efforts in those cities.
“We have received communication back that at this time they did not have the adequate resources” to help with Lethbridge camp issues, said the mayor.
The Sheriffs also aren’t fully trained for the specific task of dealing with encampments, the mayor said.
“This is something we’ll be looking at in the future,” he said.
The SCAN unit is something the City has been looking at “for many years,” Hyggen said.
“What that does is that will help find those that are preying on the most vulnerable – drug dealers, drug houses et cetera. And there will be one of those units set up in Lethbridge. We have asked that for many years.”
SCAN presently brings Sheriffs here from Calgary, Edmonton and other areas.
“That’s extremely exciting news for us,” said the mayor.
The arrival of SCAN is scheduled tentatively for the next few months. But with the provincial election coming in May, Hyggen doesn’t know what could happen if the UCP doesn’t get re-elected.
He said with no locally-based SCAN present yet, the Sheriffs aren’t hearing the feedback that community members have.
“What this does is it will have them on the ground in Lethbridge at all times.”
18-17
If the NDP win the election the SCAN unit and any extra sheriffs will be deployed to help push the shopping carts and stolen bikes of the massive infux of humanity headed to the drug use resort they set up adjacent to the downtown core.
Our 2 NDP wannabees will never support any enforcement to safeguard the taxpaying citizens and businesses impacted by thier folly.
Keep that in mind when you decide how to vote on May 29th.
Scan was coming either way and although it will be positive, we need a plan, with a backup plan and this Council had over a year to come up with a plan and failed, with a weak last minute attempt which expected the province would magically find more Sheriffs for our city when they also are undermanned for the demands.
I know they knew because I personally made them aware of the issues, including the police commission.
Encampments are buildling in Galt Gardens, Civic Center track and in the coulees west of Galt Museum, where last fall a fire in that encampment took firefighters over 40 minutes to put out and the mess remained in that coulee, along with needles and other bio-hazards through winter until they returned to pitch their tent.
I deer carcass was found nearby , , , did it ingest some drugs that may have been stashed and lost?
A great site for tourists to see when they come to the Galt or for kids to fall into, possibly landing on one of the syringes or bio-hazards I witnessed if they wiped out on the trail beside while cycling . . . and one against the taxpayer pays for the clean-up just to have them litter again and leave their mess.
The Mayor has been busy going to other communities for various meetings, but has failed to focus on the issues in our own city . . . stating ” it’s happening in other communities so we have to accept it ” . . .
Can you imagine what kind of world it would be if Winston Churchill would have stated that Hitler has taken over most of Europe, so it is envitable he will take England? We would be living under fascist rule!
I used to have faith in this Mayor, and this Council but it appears they do not understand the word “pro-active” in dealing with the issues so we do not end up like Vancouver DTES, or other major BC cities that have allowed the issues to grow!
We were promised change, but instead we see that Council is now no different than the last one!
was kind of thinking it might be something that finally helps lethbridge to get some tourists beyond what costco has to offer: sheriffs of the marshall dillon type, and limpy sidekick festus, would indeed be a novel spectacle. when not keeping law and order downtown, they could have the odd duel at fort whoop up, and then the tourists could wash down the experience with some whisky.