Downtown safety improvement strategy unveiled to local business owners

The DCSS is a team-up between multiple stakeholders, including the City of Lethbridge, the Downtown Lethbridge Revitalization Zone, the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce and the Lethbridge Police Service.

“We’re really excited about this collaboration…what we’re trying to do today (Tuesday) is the first of some education (seminars) that are going to be able to give people within the downtown some ideas about what’s happening with the 12-initiative program put in place by the city,” said Kristie Kruger, the President of the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce.

“Once a month from here on out, this same group is going to be having an education session that will, starting today (Tuesday), be streaming on Facebook Live and it will also have a video that we’ll record and have available for members.”

The goal with the educational aspect of the DCSS is to inform business owners on the status of issues like drug use in downtown Lethbridge.

“In terms of education our community, (residents) will actually get first-hand knowledge of what it is that we’re collectively trying to do to make our community more safe,” she added.

Lethbridge Police Service’s Chief Rob Davis was on hand for the seminar. He said talking about the improvements to downtown might actually attract future police officers and service workers.

“This is an opportunity to support the public’s perception of safety in downtown. But beyond that, it’s an opportunity for us to get people into our organizations that are pursuing a career so ideally, we’ll have people coming from the college or university that want to test drive a career, whether it be policing, the medical services, addictions counselling…this is really the beginning step to get some great exposure of what’s going on downtown and at the same time, help us create the perception of safety and address safety issues,” he said.

Davis said the police service is committed to working with all stakeholders and organizations to create a safe and healthy environment for everyone in Lethbridge.

Lethbridge City Manager Bramwell Strain said Tuesday’s session was also a way for business owners to ask questions in an open setting.

“The people who are most impacted or affected by the situation we have are the people in the room here,” Strain said.

“A lot of the initiatives we’re going to talk about, there’s 12 different initiatives (as part of the DCSS), a lot of them were put in place because of meetings with these people. It’s a dynamic situation, things are changing all the time, so we want to be able to have the right programs in place and be able to react as times change.”

Strain said another reason for holding the meeting was to dispel any rumors as to what’s happening within the walls of City Hall.

“That’s the key to having the police here. I can talk about what the Ambassador Watch program is going to do, but they can tell you what exactly it’s going to do. I think it is very important to have that (because) the rumor mill is very strong. People make assumptions with social media etcetera. It doesn’t take too long for something to get out there and be perceived as fact when perhaps it’s not one-hundred per cent accurate,” he said.

“As a community, we need to lead this. This is our issue, we need to own it and we need to move it forward, so to be able to have that interaction…nobody’s hiding from it.”

The strategy is broken down into 12 initiatives, divided into seven groups. These groups include:

Enforcement
Security
Outreach
Cleaning
Promotion
Education
Built Environment Improvements

Some of the initiatives, like the Needle Drug Debris Collection Program, are already underway while some new programs, such as Tuesday’s educational seminar, are just getting started.

A breakdown of the initiatives included in the Downtown Clean and Safe Strategy can be seen through the City of Lethbridge’s website.

by Justin Goulet (@JustinGoulet21)

Downtown safety improvement strategy unveiled to local business owners

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