(file/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Regional input

City awarded funding for Community Safety and Well-Being Plan

Apr 5, 2023 | 5:17 PM

The City of North Battleford was recently approved for funding to complete its new Community Safety and Well-Being Plan.

The city previously sent out a Request for Proposals from qualified consulting teams to provide a new community safety and well-being plan. This plan will involve the City of North Battleford, surrounding municipalities and area First Nations. April 14 is the new deadline for submissions.

“[It’s] to update the last community safety plan we had approved by council in 2014,” City public and intergovernmental relations coordinator Candace Toma said in an interview with battlefordsNOW.

Some initiatives that came out of the 2014 Community Safety Strategy include the outdoor Security Camera Registry program, the Eyes that Care neighbourhood-watch-type program, and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED).

“[The new plan] will build on that and improve it, based on the current landscape of what we have available to us in terms of organizations in the community, and how we engage with different community groups,” Toma said.

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The city received a grant for close to $50,000 through the Saskatchewan Ministry of Corrections, Policing and Public Safety for the cost of the initiative.

“We’re certainly grateful to the province for that because obviously having the community safety and well-being plan updated is important to the city, as we do lots of work to try to improve our public safety here in the community,” Toma said.

She added that it will be a positive step for the city to embark on a new plan with plenty of regional input involved.

“We’ll be working with the RMs in the area, the Town of Battleford, and also with our local First Nations partners,” Toma said. “We recognize that community safety is an issue of importance to everyone in the Battlefords region. We’re excited to be able to include them in the concept and development of the well-being and safety plan.”

The new plan will help guide the City in its strategic planning work ahead.

“Once the plan is done, it will be presented by the consultant to the city for approval at council,” Toma said. “Then, we will present it to the Government of Saskatchewan so they can have it as well.”

The preliminary deadlines for the completed project to come back to city council are June 15 for the draft report, and July 10 for the final report.

“The beauty of working with it regionally is that this is something that we can then share with our regional partners and other communities in the area, First Nations partners, to provide them with a little bit of a road map to also put in measures to enhance their community safety and well-being too,” Toma said.

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow