Meeting with representatives of other Manitoba cities continues to be a worthwhile exercise, says Dauphin mayor David Bosiak.
Bosiak was in Steinbach last week to attend a meeting of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM) Cities Caucus around shared challenges and priorities.
“Just about everybody to a man and woman in the room said we need to get together more as an urban caucus. Because at AMM (conventions) the discussion gets sort of watered down a little bit because you got over 150 municipalities. Big municipalities and others are small places,” Bosiak said.
“So it’s really nice to talk to like-minded municipalities with similar issues, concerns, and strategies on how we deal with it.”
One of the highlights for Bosiak was a presentation by the deputy-minister of Justice on a number of different files the province is working on around crime reduction, bail reform and homelessness.
“It was really well received and we were told that in the fall sitting of the legislature that they’re going to try and make them into law. Because they are a majority government that’s likely going to happen,” Bosiak said, adding while those are issues that all caucus members are dealing with, each has their own unique challenges.
For example, Bosiak said Steinbach city council contracted a private security firm to protect new developments as thieves were stealing tools and building material on a daily basis. Additionally, Bosiak said Portage la Prairie put in six community service officers to support RCMP around issues of crime and homelessness and addictions on their streets.
“We did the math and for us to hire four people was about $350,000 a year,” Bosiak said, adding the situation in those two cities is, admittedly, a little worse than Dauphin..
“We know we’ve got a really good situation right now, relatively speaking, with the RCMP, our component of officers, although it’s not full. So when compared to other municipalities, we’re not so bad. Yeah, we got issues. Absolutely. But not so bad.”
For the full story, read this week’s edition of the Dauphin Herald.
