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By Justin Dionne

Report on Muskoseepi Park trail safety and patrols brought before City Committee

Jan 29, 2019 | 2:15 PM

A city committee has heard a report on incidents in Muskoseepi Park and how often trails are patrolled.

The report looks at the number of incidents in the past two years.

Enforcement Services Program Manager Kelly Kokesch says there’s a list of different events that have been reported, but none of them included dangerous assaults.

“The calls for service over the last couple of years have been very consistent,” says Kokesch. “There’s no real spikes in any of the specific types [of events]. There’s 48 different types of events we attended. We found lost bicycles, lost children, noise complaints, animal welfare, snow clearing, smoking, public lands damage, RV trailer complaints and other traffic-related events, too.”

Among the most common incidents over the past two years were calls relating to camps set up in the park, animal control related calls and public intoxication.

“Those are during nice days. There’s people out on the hill having a beer and we discourage that type of behaviour and we encourage responsible pet ownership. The camps, we try to move them along as soon as we find out about them.”

The report shows there were 86 documented incidents in 2017, and 67 in 2018. Kokesch says there were no unusual changes to the data between the two years.

 “There’s no significant events or trends in Muskoseepi Park. There are occurrences in Muskoseepi Park from time to time, but I think most of the community feels safe using that corridor,” says Kokesch.

The findings also show that RCMP had documented 58 incidents in the park over the two-year time span.

The RCMP’s reported incidents mostly occurred between May and August. The calls were mostly for social disorder concerns that were similar to the Enforcement Services incidents and events that occurred overnight represent the most serious call types.

Kokesch adds the park and its trails will continue to be regularly patrolled by Enforcement Services and other City departments. During the summer months, the South Bear Creek area and the ball diamonds have extra patrols allocated to them.

The report also says bicycle patrols are an effective technique used by Enforcement and RCMP. Last year over 85 bicycle patrols were documented by Enforcement services.

“It’s important for us to know the community feels safe there. So we’re going to keep doing all the patrols we normally do. We’re going to keep doing bike patrols with the RCMP, and we’re always looking for new strategies.” 

by Justin Dionne