City looking at revamping downtown community policing office
NANAIMO — Since no police officers are stationed at the downtown community policing and services office, the City of Nanaimo is now looking at how else the space can be used.
Nanaimo City Council voted 6-2 to work with the community and service providers like Island Health and the province to find new groups to fill the space, as well as create strategies to rebrand the office and remove the reference to police.
“I think there’s a perception that the office has been manned and it hasn’t,” coun. Sheryl Armstrong, a former RCMP officer, said when informing a delegation an officer hadn’t been staffed there since 2009. “[Officers] will drop in there and say hi or whatever, but it’s not manned.”
A staff report on the issue said the office was designed to station bike patrol officers, but currently has four bylaw and parking officers who are often out of office and one clerk working the desk. The office door is locked when only the clerk is inside.