Police budget cut responsible for issues impacting the city
By Lethbridge Herald on July 21, 2023.
Editor:
A recent letter to the editor of the Lethbridge Herald the person had complained of the lack of police presence in the downtown area of Lethbridge.
Do they not remember that a couple of years ago Lethbridge city councillors decided that the Lethbridge Police Service was being over funded and they cut their bueget by $1 million?
What do they think that happened to the LPS then as far a hiring new recruits for policing?
All aspects of the LPS then had to make do with fewer people to patrol the streets, respond to accidents, burglaries, break-ins, deal with domestic disputes, and ultimately deal with the homeless and the downtown drug addicts.
Did the residents and business people of the downtown complain that their taxes did not increase at the time? No.
But now that there has been an increase in the problems with the homeless and drug addicts downtown they all cry foul. Well, it takes time to train and then hire new police recruits after having not being able to due to the $1 millio cut to their budget previously.
The LPS is now in the process of training and will be hiring new police officers later this year.
But the process takes time. Had the city councillors who cut the LPS budget had given any real thought to their action the downtown businesses and residents may not be having the problems to the extent they are now with the homeless and the drug addicts.
The shortsighted councillors are the ones to blame for the shortage of police presence in the downtown. Definitely not the LPS for the shortage of police patrols. The LPS does a magnificent job with the staff that they presently have and it will get better in the future with the new recruits. Also the civilian staff taking over some of the administrative jobs that some officers are now doing will free up more police officers for out of the office duties.
Bernard Tichler
Lethbridge
13-12
While the city was in the middle of the crisis those cuts were made! There should be people fired for many of the bad decisions constantly made, including the $662,000 playground in Galt Gardens. They cut the budget by over $1million 2 years ago, but they burn up tax dollars by revitalization projects downtown which have been in the millions in the last few years.
If this were a public corporation, people would be fired! Some of those same councilors still sit on council, making bad decisions and I hope we remember them next election.
We need our police brought up to the national standards in this city due to the fact the we get hit hard by crime which put us #2 in the recent release.
It would be much higher, but people don’t bother calling in anymore, because they have to wait for hours for a police response due to staffing issues!
More needs to be done downtown to stop the madness!
More police, more fences …
We have already a police to citizen rating of almost 9 out if 10 (misreported by the Herald, below). Police services already consume a quarter of our municipal budget (those precious tax dollars we keep hearing harped about). We have been spending a million dollars a year to ‘Watch’ the homeless. Does anybody really believe more enforcement will have a impact?
https://lethbridgeherald.com/news/lethbridge-news/2023/07/18/lethbridge-ranked-among-safest-cities-to-live-in-canada/
Geez Sophie, a ratio of 1 to 9 would mean there were 1000 police on the streets in Lethbridge, Think you mean we have approximately one police position for every 1000 citizens. Second and I am going to do you, beat the messenger. The safest city info came from the rental home search engine Rentola, lol. Would love to see how our own collections of stats, police, fire, etc, stack up against a rental agency!!!!!
Have a look at the sources of information and their methodology.
https://rentola.ca/safest-cities-in-canada#campaign-table
I know it’s simple Common Sense that more police is always the answer.
We are a rental home search engine. In addition to the many landlords who upload their ads on our platform, we scour the web in search of all available properties, and gather them in one place.
So their statistics come from landlords and renters. No one actually involved in law enforcement. Hmmm. Self serving website for sure.
Yes there maybe a bit of a conflict of interest there, for the rental agency?
But as 95% of citizens cause no or little trouble for safety/crime and the cops,it shows that the other 5% are very busy indeed.
That rating was from a corporate rental business ‘Rentola’ and ignored the recent Canadian Crime Index stats.
I copied and pasted this from that same article you directed us to and this is truthful not lies.
“Lethbridge #2 of 8 most dangerous cities in Canada – May 7, 2023“
https://immigrationnewscanada.ca/most-dangerous-cities-in-canada/
You are misinformed!!
I understand why y’all want Lethbridge to be the second most dangerous city in the nation – it gives you something to be terrified and outraged about. It’s too bad your alarmist hyperventilating causes so much harm to our businesses and economy.
Perhaps a more common sense approach to judging our level of safety is to ask yourself: “Would I rather be stranded downtown at 2 a.m. in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton … or Lethbridge?”
Once we get real, and focus our resources on the problem of homelessness, mental illness and addiction, the sooner things will improve. More police is not a solution.
I know all of these cities quite well. About the same odds ,I”d say. Regardless that these cities are several times bigger than Lethbridge. Still wondering who let you out of your mostly white ,wealthy and sheltered neighborhood?
really?! you could compare montreal to toronto and edmonton? lethbridge to toronto and edmonton…come on!
i agree more policing is hardly the best response to drugs. it has been tried for decades and has proven a massive fail…but it sure does line pockets.
as for which city i would most prefer to be stranded in downtown in the wee hours: montreal safest, then lethbridge, vancouver, calgary, edmonton, toronto 🙂
I have seen figures in the past that showed the police budget was far higher than a quarter of our budget. Maybe it is now but it used to be over 60%. Wages,sick leave and other benefits consume a large piece of that too. Perhaps the police would be willing to cut back on wages etc. so we could afford to hire even more. Would that not cut back on the stress of the current police force?
The drug problem in Lethbridge would not be fixed nor abeited using more Police. More Police is not the answer, common sense is.
Let me help out those that can’t decipher a complex problem and break it down to the simplest form like Sophie.
Police + Drug Addicts= Conflict
Police – Drug Addicts = No Conflict
Solution 1
Move Police= woke Gen
Solution 2
Move Drug Addicts= Common Sense
Obviously we can not police our way of this. At least in the current ways of policing/laws. So why pay for many more police? Unless city council rezones or allows many more addiction services in town? Then all the police in the world won’t make a difference.
we cannot police our way out of this. moreover, policing needs to be freed up to focus on real criminal behaviour, not drug use per se. fact: far, far more use drugs/alcohol responsibly than not. drug and alcohol use does not preclude one’s ability to respect the rights of others. however, being all about oneself does indeed affect the rights of others.