“Better through prevention.”
The motto of Arthur’s newly formed Community Oriented Policing service (COPs) committee sums up its goals and objectives nicely.
While Lynda White is the chairman of Wellington County Police Services Board, at the local level she wears a much different, but similar hat as chairman of the Arthur COPs committee.
Last month, White spoke to Wellington North council about the new committee. With her were vice-chairman Alex Beatty and Constable Kirk MacDonald, of the Wellington County OPP.
White said, “The Arthur community is proud to take an active role with our local police to assist in serving our community in providing excellence in all aspects of community living. We aim to provide education in making our seniors aware of fraud, property owners on protecting their homes and vehicles, and, most importantly, education and work with our youth to divert them away from the pressures that are prevalent in our society.”
The group’s mission is for residents and businesses of the community, to be able to work with the county OPP and the township to take an active role in promoting public safety.
And it all began with a phone call.
White explained, “Late last year, I received a telephone call from Alex Beatty, who expressed concern about some crime activity in Arthur.”
While he was pleased with the response from local OPP officers after a break-in at his property, Beatty wanted to see the community to become more involved in what goes around it.
White explained, “As you know, policing does start within the community itself.”
Beatty called her because she is chairman of the county Police Services Board, and he knew that. She suggested to him “that maybe we look into setting up a community policing committee.”
Beatty expressed interest in taking part and White worked with OPP Inspector Scott Smith to set up the first meeting.
White said Smith believes that starting a COPs in Arthur would be a great idea. It was also something Beatty was equally willing to be part of. He now serves as vice chairman of the Arthur COPS committee.
The first meeting was held at the Arthur Fire Hall in January, and there were quite a few people interested, White said. At that time, Smith also assigned the group a liaison officer, – MacDonald. Since then, the group has met about four times, she said.
White said because of her experience on the Police Services Board, members said to begin with, she could chair the committee. “Once we get going, someone else may be interested in doing it,” she said. “It’s something that’s really important to me … the safety of the people in the village.”
Moving along in the process, one of the first challenges was finding a location to meeting.
“Constable MacDonald has been instrumental in helping this committee work on setting up goals and providing us with the much needed information to make this successful.”
She estimated the committee now numbers about 15 people.
COPs is a non-profit community organization comprised of Arthur residents. MacDonald provides advice and conveys the group’s concerns to the detachment commander. Those currently include youth crime, drug awareness, property crime, and general public safety.
Thus far, she said, there have been discussions on how to best serve the community, policing excellence, and general awareness of community activity. One goal is setting up a Neighbourhood Watch, and helping to provide for the (social) needs of youth.
Those involved in the committee represent a wide selection of community interests.
White said two are a husband and wife team that is very interested in what is going on.
Membership also includes business people, a volunteer firemen, and residents just interested in their community.
One thing the group is looking for, is more representation by young people.
When the fall comes, MacDonald will go to the high schools to let them know this could be part of their required community service hours.
Committee members want to be involved in drug prevention, the skateboard park. and making sure youth have something to keep them busy.
On June 8, local COPs members invited representatives from the Mapleton COPs committee to speak about the successes there.
That group was started, in part, to reduce speeding through Alma and Drayton. Speeding has been reduced, although vandalism has not seemed to have a consistent improvement. What the Mapleton COPs?group has accomplished is raising awareness in the community.
She has yet to meet with members of the other committees, but said she understood that Centre Wellington is considering setting up one. “They had a great one in place at one time, but it disbanded. I think they’re talking about putting one together again.”
White added that Puslinch Township has a very active COPs?committee.
She said Smith has talked about once a year getting all the groups together and bringing in guest speakers to talk about different ways of doing things.
“I think we all that we all have basically the same issues,” White said.
There are groups in Puslinch, Mapleton, and Arthur, and committees in Centre Wellington and the Town of Minto are in the process of being set up.
While each community has its own specific issues, it still all has to do with public safety, she said.
White said the Kenilworth OPP?training centre has an open house showing the intense training that officers go through, and the committee members will try to attend the next one.
Drug concerns
“We hope to set up a presentation on How to Recognize Drug Use for Parents. Constable MacDonald is willing to present this in the fall,” White said. “The link to other criminal activity is prevalent with the drug trade.”
Drug awareness is very important, White said. “One of the things we are going to be doing in the fall is setting up a meeting for parents and their children to come as well, so they can tell if their children are involved in drugs and what to do, if they find out.
“It’s a big problem – everywhere. We seem to see it a lot in the schools and even in the younger grades.”
White is uncertain if that is because there are now officers in the high schools, “and they’re starting to see a lot of it in the elementary schools.”
She said many people are more aware of the issue as a result of the DARE program (Drug Abuse Resistance Education being run by the OPP?and the police services board for grade 6 students.
“It’s definitely made the kids aware of drugs, and how to say No’ … which is really, really important,” White said.
She said the officers in the high schools are just amazing.
“They are there for the kids, the parents, for the teachers if they are needed … not only for drugs, but also bullying and internet bullying, which is a big problem these days.
“Our motto, Better Through Prevention, is what our committee came up with.
We want the people in town to become aware of what’s going on around them.
Youth activity
White said committee members would like to pursue a skateboard park in Arthur with the help of council and various local service clubs. She said any such effort would move ahead only if local youth are on board, various organizations assist; and that there is some help from council.
“We spent a lot of time talking about the idea of a skateboard park in Arthur. If the kids have a place to go with their skateboards, it would be very useful for a lot of kids in town.”
White said the Arthur Fall Fair would be a good time to make the community aware of the committee and the work it hopes to accomplish. She noted that theft from unlocked vehicles is prevalent everywhere in Wellington County.
“We are going to do a ‘Lock it or Lose it’ campaign in Arthur village.”
Awareness
Awareness is the word and the action that the Arthur COPS?committee would like everyone to use, White said.
Awareness includes residents familiar with their surroundings and what is happening around them, she said.
White cited two very recent incidents in which local people have made a difference.
One involved counterfeit money, where a person in town believed some bills did not look right, and, as a result, contacted police. That call, resulted in the capture of a counterfeiting ring.
Another recent incident was group tampering with a bank ATM machine. Some of the young people who go to the The Door (youth activity centre) saw something that just didn’t look right.
They contacted the police officer in town and through that, police discovered the machines had been tampered with.
“Again, this was because of the awareness of these young kids. I don’t know how much further this will go, but these kids deserve a commendation, because they saved residents thousands of dollars, by making the police aware.”
Knowing of the upcoming interview, White contacted OPP?Inspector Scott Smith for a few additional comments.
Inspector Smith wrote of the project and citizens working with police, “A community includes every person or organization that is affected by any real or anticipated threat to peace, safety, security and well-being.”
He explained community policing is the process by which police and other community members partner to improve community well-being, safety and security through joint problem identification, analysis, response and evaluation.
“A COPS committee is just that … a partnership … engaging community members to increase their own safety, security and well-being.”
He said the committee is not for areas of police responsibility such as enforcement, high impact patrol or intelligence gathering, but rather for developing community-led problem-solving initiatives.
Smith believes that as a committee, it is possible to educate the public on the security of their valuables because it is well known that if residents can increase the effort it takes to commit a crime, they can reduce the number of crimes.
“Most importantly, the COPs committee is not a snitch committee,” he said.
“Its mandate is to work at prevention, and thereby reducing crime in the community. It is an opportunity for the community to mobilize and deal with issues that frustrate or impact them.”
For more information contact: chairman Lynda White 519-848-3145, vice-chairman Alex Beatty 519-848-2368, Palmerston OPP detachment 519-343-5770, OPP Constable Kirk MacDonald 519-323-3130, or secretary Al Rawlins 519-848-2284.
