A resident fears the loss of an integrated police unit that enforces driving laws will impact safety on city streets.
Deriek Read is upset the city declined to renew the lease for the Integrated Road Safety Unit’s headquarters at city hall.
“It’s a great service to New Westminster. It’s an asset to New Westminster and if it would potentially leave to another community, it would be a loss,” Read said.
The unit is made up of police officers from the RCMP and various local police departments, including New West, Port Moody, Delta and West Vancouver. Its mandate is to patrol driving-related offences such as speeding, failing to wear a seatbelt and distracted driving.
In June 2013, city staff informed the unit that its lease on the space would not be renewed and it would have to move out by the end of December 2014.
For Read, however, the unit is about more than just the added enforcement, it’s about losing the additional police vehicles seen on local streets.
“It’s the perception of an added service. They’re around so obviously you see more police cars, you don’t necessarily differentiate – when I look at a cop car I don’t differentiate between a New West police car and an RCMP,” he said.
But the local police department isn’t worried about the unit’s departure.
“We’ve had an added benefit of their presence here, a visual presence and obviously some enforcement, but their mandate is to conduct enforcement for all the regions that they’re responsible for,” New Westminster Police Department Chief Const. Dave Jones told The Record.
In addition to the day-to-day enforcement the unit provides municipalities, it also partners with the departments for special enforcement campaigns.
“A lot of their programs (require) working together with the local police agencies,” Jones added. “So (with) counterattack coming up, we’ll be teaming up with them.”
The unit has been in New West since its creation in 2007 – at the site of the old police station at city hall – but staff says it’s time is up.
“When they came to the city … it was always envisioned that the city would lease that space and use part of the proceeds of the lease to eventually help renovate city hall,” said Lisa Spitale, chief administration officer for New Westminster.
The space was leased to the integrated unit with the condition that it remain occupied for a minimum of five years but no more than eight, which would be this year or next. This is all part of a master plan that was outlined years ago, Spitale said.
“Some parts of city hall are crowded, we need more meeting rooms for committees, etcetera,” she added.
Once the unit moves out, city staff will begin planning the renovations, which will include new boardrooms and a front desk area that would serve residents.
“We’ve always wanted to incorporate a one-stop shop counter function for all the permits, so we know we need to do some fairly extensive renovations on the first floor so people can come in and get a lot of their planning and permit issues addressed at once,” she said.
Spitale added the city would be happy to see the unit relocate to another location within the city if there was something available.
It’s still unclear where the Integrated Road Safety Unit will be moving once the Dec. 31 deadline arrives. Sgt. Annie Linteau with the Lower Mainland District RCMP confirmed the unit will be leaving New Westminster but couldn’t provide any details on a new location.
“We’re just in the process of trying to find something at the moment,” she said.
