Rutland gets chance to be heard at Conservative crime, social disorder town hall

There have been three public forums organized so far in an effort to promote public safety and curb social disorder in Kelowna over the past couple of months, and they’ve been mostly focused on the city’s downtown, but now Rutland is getting some attention.

Kelowna-Mission opposition MLA Gavin Dew has organized a second public safety town hall meeting, this time at Rutland Centennial Hall next week, the only forum so far focused on the Rutland neighbourhood.

Local safety advocate Christopher Bocskei isn’t sure whether any action will come from the meeting, but he says it’s good to see his neighbourhood isn’t being ignored any longer.

“I think people will feel heard and that’s really, really important,” he told iNFOnews.ca. 

The City of Kelowna hosted a public safety forum in January, followed by a BC Conservative forum in February and a federal Conservative forum at the beginning of March. 

Bocskei said people in Rutland felt left out of the action done to address complaints downtown like extra RCMP patrols and the new city initiative for a temporary overnight security patrol. 

“Consistently people were really upset that they didn’t think that they were going to be included,” he said. 

Dew said Rutland residents showed up to the other forums that were focused on downtown, and that every neighbourhood needs to be addressed to manage crime, drug use and homelessness.

He said it’s important to deal with social issues in a way that isn’t just pushing people from one area to another, like from downtown into Rutland. 

“There’s always a risk that enforcement in one place moves individuals and challenges to other places, and that’s why we need the kinds of upstream interventions that require provincial support,” he said. 

The BC Conservative MLA said some of the solutions he wants to talk about for Rutland include advocating for more Crown prosecutors and expanding involuntary care.

There has been some improvement downtown, but Dew said there is a lot of work to be done in Rutland. 

“I was just visiting with someone who has administered naloxone 50 times,” he said. “People are sick of this… they want to see action.”

The BC Conservative sponsored town hall-style meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 18.