Projects aimed at reducing crime and increasing community safety in the Cariboo Chilcotin are eligible for new funding announced last week.
Through the Integrated Community Safety Initiative (ICSI), grants of up to $10,000 may be awarded for First Nations or non First Nations community organization projects.
“The goal is intervention, prevention and collaboration,” said Vanessa Riplinger, who co-chairs the ICSI steering committee. “We wanted to prioritize and establish community safety goals and fund projects to help address those three goals.”
Co-chair RCMP Insp. Jeff Pelley said several members of the steering committee have received some inquiries since the grants were announced.
“This is an opportunity for any type of initiative that can be put forward that focuses on crime reduction and community safety,” Pelley said. “The three principle priorities are regional collaboration on public safety issues, training and capacity building to enhance front line response and enhancing programs and services or new programs and services to better respond to crime.”
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In June 2016, the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General provided Williams Lake and the Cariboo Chilcotin with civil forfeiture grant funding in the amount of $500,000 to support the ICSI.
Riplinger said the steering committee worked closely with the ministry at the beginning to establish its priorities for the region.
“I think if these grants come into play, we have a really good chance to make a difference in our communities,” she explained, noting the committee wanted to ensure it had a process in place to define the types of projects that would be eligible, rather than rushing to get the funding out the door.
“We also want to make sure we are inclusive of the Cariboo-Chilcotin and knew that we needed staff support to keep the committee and process on track so we hired Nation2Nation Consulting.”
The closing deadline for applying is Jan. 31, 2018 at 3 p.m.
Applications are available at http://www.tinyurl.com/ICSIapplication.
All applications will be reviewed by a steering committee and the successful applicants notified by Feb. 15.
It is expected the projects will be completed by Dec. 21, 2018.
Anyone with application or administrative questions is asked to contact Lisa Mueller of Nation2Nation Consulting at 250-631-3396, Pelley or Riplinger.
Crime stats for Williams Lake show downward trend in most areas
Crime stats for Williams Lake show downward trend in most areas
Crime stats prepared by the RCMP for 2017 show a decrease in most areas when compared to 2016’s statistics, except for break and enters which have increased.
In 2017, there were 65 theft of vehicles, compared to 69 in 2016 and 101 theft from vehicles compared to 164 in 2016.
There were 70 break and enter to residences in 2017, compared to 66 in 2016 and 49 break and enter to businesses in 2017 compared to 27 in 2016.
Spousal assaults were down in 2017 with 53, compared to 63 in 2016.
Assaults with a weapon or causing bodily harm were down in 2017 with 35 compared to 53 the year before.
There was one aggravated assault in 2017 compared to three in 2016, and a slight increase in common assaults with 156 in 2017 compared to 160 in 2016.
Mischief files went down, with 203 in 2017 compared to 300 in 2016 and robbery files totalled 16 in 2017 compared to 19 in 2016.
“Two of the robberies were in November,” Pelley said, referring to the two robberies at CIBC.
For the city of Williams Lake there were 7,786 calls for service, whereas in the previous year there were 8,500, while the complete calls for the service for the whole Williams Lake jurisdiction were 10,752 calls for service in 2017 compared to 11,205 in 2016.