Victora’s police chief Del Manak said today (July 3) he is extremely pleased with the announcement the city is re-allocating funding for nine new police officers, along with funding for 12 new bylaw officers.
He emphasized his belief police need support from partners like bylaw, along with the direct resourcing of VicPD.
“If we have more bylaw officers, they are able to enforce the bylaw and I don’t have to have police officers doing bylaw work, which I don’t really have the ability to do,” he said.
He suggested any potential operational challenges associated with hiring and onboarding these officers now are “good problems to have,” with this resourcing from the city for permanent officers going beyond what was previously discussed in budget talks.
This comes after Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto announced a wide-reaching reallocation of $10.35 million in funds to address community safety issues on Wednesday (July 2), which is expected to be ratified at council today (July 3).
Manak said he first heard a “heads up,” from the mayor something along these lines was coming roughly a week ago, but he just learned the funding would be confirmed roughly an hour before media received the city’s release on the funding.
While applauding council for investing on this issue, Manak also noted his support for the city’s Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan.
“I think it is a good plan, it is an ambitious plan, and it is a forward-thinking plan.”
However, he did suggest he would have preferred if Alto’s latest announcement did not single out specific areas of the city and rather kept it generic, saying many areas of the city need immediate attention.
But ultimately, he said what was important in all this is the city is stepping up.
Manak was on CFAX 1070 with Adam Stirling today (June 3):