Do we have to wait a year to hear the solution to downtown lawlessness?

Editor:

On October 18,2023 city council unanimously approved the creation of a task force to look into lawlessness, primarily downtown, as a result of a motion presented by Mayor Blaine Hyggen and Acting Mayor John Middleton-Hope.

Apparently the word “lawlessness” was a lot of hyperbole according to councillor Belinda Crowson, but Middleton-Hope noted “this resolution is strongly worded because tough problems call for tough solutions”, he further noted “We have a lot of issues but we are doing a lot of work.”

On, November 16, 2023, terms of reference were set for the lawlessness task force.

Middleton-Hope said the task force will identify the top 20 issues then prioritize them. Middleton-Hope is thinking big. He said “we need to work on a solution for our city, we are doing it at the local level and then we are going to do it at the provincial level.” The task force will not be looking at homelessness Middleton-Hope noted.

At the December 12, 2023 meeting at

City Hall to discuss terms of reference for the task force, 20 items are part of it, too many to mention, but one I thought is worth mentioning: the members should be curious, innovative and analytical in their approach.

On December 15, 2023, city council approves the terms of reference for the Downtown Lawlessness Task Force.

It will operate through 2024 with a review planned before the end of December 2024. Middleton-Hope noted “this task force now has a clear direction to identify the symptoms and depth of lawlessness behaviour and the impact to our city. We will collaboratively strategize on responses and resourcing requirements, then work with stakeholders to take action on solutions.”

On January 2,the Task Force elects its chair and vice chair. Also at this meeting Director of Community and Council Relations Travis Hillier was directed to look for a required funding source to have HelpSeekers analyse City data and help determine the Task Force’s priorities.

It was suggested that up to $10.000 was available. Did not Mr. Middleton-Hope claim at the Dec.15 meeting that the Task Dorce has now a clear direction to identify the symptoms and deptH of lawless behaviour in the City?

And is there no one on the City payroll who can analyse City data? And by the way the cost of the data provided by Helpseekers is $9,999 but I suppose that’s just a coincidence even though the City did tell them that they had up to $10,000 to spend!

On January 27, BRZ looking forward to future of task force (Lethbridge Herald). The task force will be holding meetings the second and fourth Thursday of each month expecting to last between one and 1.5 hours and since it did not say otherwise I’m assuming that those meetings will go on all year till their planned review at the end of December of this year.

So adding all that up, let’s say 12 months times, two meeting times at 1.5 hours per meeting, that works out to about 36 hours of meetings this year. That’s a lot of talking.

Since the task force will only deal with lawlessness it might be reasonable to assume that we will see a task force on homelessness sometime in the future since the two are almost going hand in hand.

Here is an example of that: Vancouver city council years ago thought it appropriate to allow homeless people in the Downtown Eastside to hold a flea market near a park every Saturday morning so they would have some money to purchase things they needed.

Here is how that worked out: the homeless sold items and made a few dollars and the business people and home owners in the area could go to the flea market and buy back things stolen from them for pennies on the dollar, a win-win situation for everyone!

So I guess we will have to wait till the end of this year to find out what the solution will be to the downtown lawlessness. Barney Feenstra

Lethbridge