NEW POLICE MUST COUNT

Facing a massive city hall agenda before summer break, councillors had myriad topics to wade through Monday, such as the never-ending secondary suite issue, transit passes and the ethics report into the mayor’s comments on Uber.

But one item that took no time at all was the Calgary Police Service’s request for 50 more officers at a cost of $7.5 million.

The manpower was proposed to be funded by the increase in revenue that has occurred since the provincial government raised fines for speeding, running red lights and other offences in the spring of 2015.

With soaring city crime figures, which coincidentally came out last week, it was a hard argument to reject. And council didn’t, voting unanimously to hire the crimefighters.

And that’s what we hope they will be — officers assigned to tackle the burgeoning thefts and robberies and break and enters afflicting our city. We expect they won’t be out en masse nabbing speeders to generate more revenue to pay for even more police in a self-fulfilling scenario.

We expect these additional officers on the street will make a difference in the numbers and types of crime being committed in our city.

Statistics Canada numbers released July 20 show that a growing number of thefts — including robberies and stolen cars — has pushed the city’s Crime Severity Index (or CSI), to its highest level since 2009. That increase, at 29 per cent, is the largest of any municipality across the country. Crime in Calgary had dropped for 11 consecutive years before 2015.

The police attributed the numbers to a struggling provincial economy and the prevalence of highly addictive drugs such as fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Whether it’s due to addicts needing to feed their addiction or homeless individuals needing to feed themselves, the crimes on the rise affect us all. Police Chief Roger Chaffin is correct in saying, “These are the crime trends that tend to affect public confidence.”

It should be noted that there have been no new officers since 2015, when 10 were added.

The 50 new officers will now bring the citizen-to-officer ratio in Calgary to around 613, a number that sat at 600 in 2014.

These 50 officers will be more eyes, more feet, on the street.

And this time next year, community confidence should reflect this boost in policing.

If there’s no difference in the number of property crimes and thefts but there’s a jump in speeders nabbed and cash earned, we’ll know where all the manpower went. Council might not be in a hurry to grant the request next time.