Northeast residents worry about safety
Candidates want more policing, but also believe area suffers from negative image
Northeast residents will often cite safety and crime as top concerns for their area, while in the same breath suggest what the northeast suffers from most is an image problem.
“When I was an engineer working downtown, people would want to come and visit me in this area and they would ask me if I could escort them,” says Marlborough Park resident Joseph Awodutire.
“The image of the area could be better.”
Countering negative stereotypes, while improving the safety and resilience of northeast neighbourhoods, are some of the key challenges in Ward 10, where nearly a dozen candidates are vying for the seat left open by outgoing councillor Andre Chabot.
Ward 10 shifted north with the recent boundary changes, with neighbourhoods that were formerly part of Ward 5 being absorbed into the new Ward 10.
Running for Ward 10, after representing Ward 5 since 1993, Ray Jones says it’s not the time to cut back on policing.
“We have to add some more police officers,” says Jones, citing an uptick in vehicle thefts.
“I think they’re overstressed and they have too much to do. They’re taking too many calls on, and it would be nice to get an extra 50 to 100 police officers on the street and in the cars.”
Among the 11 candidates running for Ward 10, a number echoed Jones’s thoughts on policing, including Najeeb Butt, Faith Greaves and Kamilla Prasad.
Candidate Michelle Robinson, a former president of the Aboriginal Peoples’ Commission of Alberta, says she’d like to see better diversity training for police, especially those working in the northeast.
“There is not a cultural filter when it comes to the Muslim community or the Indigenous community, and we see that reflected in the amount of carding that we have,” Robinson says. “We need to have funding for meaningful diversity training, including LGBTQ+, because that voice is missing as well.”
But the solutions for the problems in Ward 10 must go beyond policing, according to candidate Salimah Kassam. She says an infrastructure deficit in the ward has resulted in people feeling unsafe at bus stops, bus interchanges and CTrain stations.
“Especially the transit around commercial plazas, there is very little infrastructure. There really is just a pole and a bus stop and people who work in those areas in the evenings, or when it’s really cold, are really left vulnerable,” Kassam says, adding she’d like to see more bus shelters and better lighting.
Business owner and candidate David Winkler agrees improving transit infrastructure will improve safety and says he’s calling for a comprehensive study of the 36th Street LRT corridor — a stretch he calls “the worst piece of transportation infrastructure the City of Calgary has ever built.”
“We need to look at realignment of the LRT and investigating a lot of our taxpayer dollars in the northeast. We deserve it, we’ve had almost no money invested back into the northeast,” says Winkler, adding the LRT alignment, which splits 36th Street, has had detrimental impacts on pedestrians, crime and local business.
“Crime can be reduced through good planning and good design.”
Transit bus driver and candidate Hermann Muller says an increased police presence at the Whitehorn and Marlborough stations would also improve safety.
First-time candidate and former SAIT students’ association president Gar Gar says community beautification and investment in the 36th Street corridor will help improve the image of the northeast.
“We are facing the stigma that the northeast is not safe. That perception has always moved people away,” Gar Gar says. “It’s time for us to remove those issues and change the picture and perceptions of the community.”