The City of Thompson presented their 2013 downtown strategy on two separate occasions last week; first at a council meeting on April 29, and again at a Thompson Chamber of Commerce meeting on May1.
The official launch of the downtown strategy will be held on May 16, with this year's plan taking a different approach than in year's past.
For starters, the city has hired Annette Siddle to work specifically as their downtown strategy co-ordinator. Siddle had previously worked as a truancy officer with the School District of Mystery Lake.
In years previous, the city has contracted out independent organizations such as Prairie Bylaw Enforcement to keep eyes and ears on the downtown; this year however, Siddle has hired on four bylaw officers, three of whom are from Thompson, and one who has family living in the city.
The early stages of Siddle's strategy involved bringing as many community agencies as possible to the table in order to work together in keeping the downtown safe, active, and clean.
RCMP, Thompson Fire and Rescue, Addictions Foundation of Manitoba, the Thompson Homeless Shelter, and the YWCA have all been brought in to work together and look at the social issues that are present in the city's downtown.
"We want to have an increased level of visibility in the downtown and to be an advocate on behalf of members of this community," said Siddle, "we are looking at social issues like homelessness, addiction, and mental health and working to get to the root causes of these issues."
On top of the four bylaw officers Siddle has hired, she will also be bringing in four downtown ambassadors who will be keeping eyes and ears on the city's trails as well as the downtown. Siddle has also attained the assistance of the RCMP, who will be yet another set of eyes on the downtown.
"The RCMP will be providing us with a fifth watch," said Siddle, "they have allocated six officers, two of which will be on bicycle, and the others in vehicles."
The May 16 launch of this year's downtown strategy is just a small piece of the puzzle, and is merely a short-term solution. For the next six months, Siddle will be working to develop a more long-term and concrete plan.
"The first steps were to get everyone to the table and figure out where we were at," said Siddle, "community safety is much more than just policing though, it's about solution posing, not problem finding and it's something that we all need to work on together."
