The City of Weyburn's new interim Chief of Police, Brent VanDeSype, was in attendance at City Hall for the August meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners on Tuesday.
While VanDeSype said he was not as prepared as he will be going forward, Board Chair Ron McCormick thanked him for stepping into the role on short notice.
VanDeSype covered crime statistics for July with comparisons to the previous year as well as the five and ten-year numbers. He also covered various details on human resources, and commented on the Crime Severity Index.
Citizen member at large, Barclay Charlton, brought up the fact that Weyburn's Board of Police Commissioners includes three City Council members and three citizen members on its board.
Mayor Marcel Roy said not only does the board of commissioners need more members in general, but that the board should go back to having four citizens.
City Councillor John Corrigan, as well as citizen member at large Krista Hubic questioned the necessity of this, noting they would want to see more data to support the change. Roy said having more board members overall is better and that the nationwide opinion is that it is better to have more citizens.
The ratio changed when a citizen member left the province and his position was not filled.
"I understand that some boards have an equal number of community and council members, and some have equal numbers," shared Ron McCormick. "Moving forward we will be looking at this and determining what would be best for Weyburn to ensure a safer community moving forward."
Councillor Van Betuw said a bylaw change may be required to go back to having the ratio of more citizens than elected officials on the board, and that the decision would be dependent on data and trends and would need to be voted on by City Council.
Roy said Weyburn is unique in this way, but the commission should look into it. They concluded the discussion by assigning Barclay Charlton to do the research into the data about how this works in other communities as well as nationwide.