By Ian Holmes

Needle pick-up in City parks to continue after Nanaimo Council approves funding

Mar 20, 2018 | 6:21 PM

NANAIMO — City Council is committing nearly $70,000 to allow needle clean-up to continue in City parks and to improve security around an elementary school.

On Monday night, Council approved $45,000 for a full-time and part-time seasonal worker to do downtown needle sweeps, clean graffiti, pick up trash and empty needle drop boxes from April 1 through the end of October. Council also green-lighted $24,000 to forge a cost-sharing deal with School District 68 to support an overnight security guard position currently stationed at Ecole Pauline Haarer Elementary. That guard would also watch over Comox Park nightly through the end of 2018.

Alison Evans, the mother of two Pauline Haarer students, appeared before Council Monday night to highlight the need to invest in helping to clean up the area and make it safe. The appearance was one of many for Evans, who first brought the issue to the forefront in January.

“There are aggressive people on this property and garbage,” Evans said. “I can tell you countless stories of little kids who have seen things that are inappropriate.”

The City’s director of public safety and fire chief, Karen Fry, said Pauline Haarer teachers often clean up needles at Comox Park, since the playground there is used by students.

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“They have been directed not to engage the individuals that they run up against in the park because some of them have been threatened in the past,” Fry said.

Fry said parks staff currently do daily needle sweeps of 10 to 12 “hot spots” primarily in the downtown area. She said the funding fills a needed void since parks staff won’t have time to pick up needles after April 1 when they resume annual spring and summer maintenance work in parks.

The City’s parks operations manager, Al Britton, told Council the $45,000 in funding provides 12-hours-a-day coverage to focus on needle clean-up at Comox Park and several other locations during the day. He said cleaning graffiti and picking up trash are other obligations.

The part-time evening worker would be tasked with emptying needle drop boxes and dealing with overflowing trash cans in the downtown core, according to Britton.

Laura Mercer, the City’s manager of accounting, told NanaimoNewsNOW it’s unclear what impact the additional $69,000 in spending will have on this year’s budget. She said staff were still in the process of determining how the initiative would be funded.

ian@NanaimoNewsNow.com

On Twitter: @reporterholmes