Satisfied citizens

A survey on city police shows most residents feel safe to walk the streets, but highlights that traffic, petty theft and vandalism are still people’s biggest problem.

Thunder Bay’s Police Services Board met Tuesday morning and reviewed the results of the 2010 Citizen Satisfaction Survey. Police mailed out 1,000 questionnaires to random residents with 178 who completed the survey. Residents could also access the questionnaire online.

More than 55 per cent of respondents said they felt very safe walking the streets during the daytime while another 35 per cent said they felt reasonably safe. More than 50 per cent said they felt reasonably safe walking the streets at night, while 30 per cent said they didn’t feel safe at all.

Residents gave police a good grade for their services, response to call times and courtesy.

Survey participants also said they believed police should focus more on crime prevention, criminal activity and traffic issues. Specifically, resident said careless driving, speeding, theft from yards and vandalism were among their highest concerns.

"We see a lot of the same things from year to year," Thunder Bay Police Deputy Chief J.P. Levesque said. "Through our crime mapping, we can see where we’re getting hit the hardest. We will send in special units, do some surveillance and we`ll get on top of (those crimes)."

With the warmer weather coming, Levesque said police expect theft from vehicles and yards to increase, but he added that the force already has plans in place to ensure it doesn’t get out of control.

Survey participants also wanted a more visible police force with an emphasis on crime prevention.  

As for crime prevention, police could always do more, he said.

"Crime prevention is a hot-button topic with the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police," he said. "There’s not a lot of training available for it. It is something that we would like to see improved upon and it is something that we would like to see improved on at the provincial level."

He said it was nice to see how satisfied the public was with the police were doing but felt there needed to be more input for next year’s survey.

"It certainly gives us a good idea of what people are looking for in areas that we can improve upon," he said. "We sent out a 1,000 surveys and we don’t even get 200 back. I think in the coming years what we`ll do is ramp it up a little bit with media awareness."

Police spokesman Chris Adams said residents had about four weeks to complete the survey and that may not have been enough time for them to complete the questionnaire and submit it back to police.

"We’re going to widen the window (For the 2011 survey),” he said.  “We`ll make it six weeks in length."

Adams added that he hoped the online option would also help increase the number of participants for next year’s survey.

Also discussed during Tuesday’s board meeting was the 2010 operation budget. Council approved the budget at $31, 656, 700, but it went over by $464, 595.

Police board chair Joe Virdiramo said one of the main reasons why they went over budget was because of overtime. Police do not stop their shifts when they get back to the office, but continue to write reports and work their cases, he said.

"It is expected that there would be some variance in the negative," Virdiramo said. "We can’t predict what is going to happen within the community over a year. I think $400,000, even though it is a good sum of money, is reasonable for the budget that we have."

Virdiramo added that the new 10-hour shift has helped decrease overtime.

Tuesday’s meeting was also the first that took place without Thunder Bay Mayor Keith Hobbs.

Hobbs stepped down from the Thunder Bay Police Services board over allegations of breach of confidentiality.

Virdiramo said the mayor’s absence wouldn’t impact the board’s business.

"I feel as a board, we are a good, cohesive board and when a member is away we will carry on the business of the police service and policing in the community as usual," he said.