Sandra Milton: Sure is more coming in.
Sandra Milton: Lloyd. Are there more people coming in.
LCA Meeting Admin: 2.
Sandra Milton: Okay. Next.
LCA Meeting Admin: They're they're they're joined.
Sandra Milton: Okay, good.
Sandra Milton: Alright. It's 7.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Might be close to a record attendance.
Sandra Milton: In
Sandra Milton: welcome. Everyone. Thank you for taking the time to attend our meeting this evening.
Sandra Milton: So I was wondering, did anybody see the 5 seconds of sun today.
Sandra Milton: Josian and I were commenting about that earlier. So we're noticing our flowers and glass grass are nicely watered. Our umbrellas were useful, and now it's time for summer to begin.
Sandra Milton: Saturday was the lower time festival as your ran park. Despite the weather, it was a success and a great turnout, so kudos to the low tone, community resource center, and other partners that made it such a success.
Sandra Milton: The market has been extremely busy and lovely to see so many people out and about, and hope you've taken the time to take in. This
Sandra Milton: a beautiful downtown that we share with many people around the world.
Sandra Milton: The media has contacted us about safety and security issues in the Byward market in Lower Town, especially linked to the Dnd move out
Sandra Milton: of their building on Cumberland Street, due to safety issues.
Sandra Milton: These are opportunities for us to share
Sandra Milton: is on behalf of the Oca. And conveys some of your key concerns and press for much needed improvements
Sandra Milton: out
Sandra Milton: helping our most vulnerable population is, except is essential to actually provide real support for them. So what we're asking is small scale transitional housing services in all of Ottawa's 24 wards, so that they will be safer as well as our residents, businesses, and visitors.
Sandra Milton: We also ask that beautification and illumination which is greenery lighting, public art benches, pedestrian spaces, which
Sandra Milton: actually do make you feel safer. So we're we're asking for that
Sandra Milton: and the Operation center in the reload center for Ops. And eventually host. It will host by law. Other city of Ottawa services is open, and it's a good thing is, it provides our community police officers who are incredibly knowledgeable and connected to our community, a place to work. We call it engagement as opposed to enforcement.
Sandra Milton: So tonight is our last full Lca monthly meeting until September, where we will host our Agm. And I'll talk about that a little bit later.
Sandra Milton: We have a different format for this evening. The Council will provide an update after the presentation by Acting Sergeant Stam, and that, and we are pleased to present this as a Town Hall session on the new Ottawa police Services community outreach response and engagement strategy called the Core Strategy.
Sandra Milton: It's another initiative that is positive for lower time and an opportunity for engagement in the community.
Sandra Milton: After we will provide you community updates and what is on the the burner for the rest of the summer for the Lca.
Sandra Milton: So we understand that the police cannot deal alone with the complexity of issues faced by individuals experiencing homelessness, mental health and or drug addictions, but being visible on our streets and being trained to interact with our diverse population, can help.
Sandra Milton: and being connected to the existing outreach housing and other social services can make a big difference.
Sandra Milton: So
Sandra Milton: Acting, Sergeant Stan will provide a presentation, and we ask that questions related to this core crown and how they can help you.
Sandra Milton: you wait until the end of the presentation.
Sandra Milton: We know the issues, so there's no need to address the issues unless it's something that you feel that that is related.
Sandra Milton: So let's move forward, and if you have questions, please add them to the chat for us to track them, and there will be some opportunities to ask your questions. These will be time limited. So ask the question first, st and if you have other
Sandra Milton: other related issues. Please address them then.
Sandra Milton: So I would like to introduce Acting Sergeant Stam, and we would like to thank you for being here this evening to present and take us through the core presentation.
Sandra Milton: Thank you very much.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Excellent thanks so much, Sandra, appreciate that I will share my screen.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And I apologize. That Sub Sergeant Subway was not able to join us this evening.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: That would have been fantastic to have his perspective on all this so.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and you'll have to bear with me. I do not speak French instead, would have been able to
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: fill that role for me. So I apologize for that.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Okay.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: so I was, gonna get right into it. And I've given this presentation a number of times publicly. Some of you may have already seen seen it. I'm not gonna get into. I don't think a huge amount of detail on it
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: at the very end part of the reason for this.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: But the main reason why we're doing this with with lower dialing, you know we're done with Byward. We did with some other community associations is
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: we want feedback. We wanna hear what the community thinks about it. We wanna engage with all of you, and we want your comments and criticisms and
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: corrections, and anything of that nature. So at the end of this there there is a QR. Code that you'll be able to link to a survey, and we'll also send that out afterwards
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: as well. So I would appreciate if you guys would take the the 5 min to complete that survey at the end. It would help us all out very much
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: so, as Sandra said, the strategy is called the Community Outreach response and engagement strategy core. There are 5 elements, the Neighborhood operation Center, which is newly opening up on Rideau Street, hotspots focused enforcement. There's a situation table and we're developing a Community Advisory Board to oversee the whole thing.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And I'll get into it.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: sorry. So
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: the origins of this really was, you know, chief stops came came over to Ottawa police starting almost a year and a half ago, coming up on 2 years ago, and
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: he was very quickly became familiar with the situation downtown that we're all familiar with, and he asked the Central Neighborhood policing director to develop strategy that would allow the auto police to address some of what we were seeing down there. So I would like to just point out also at the start. I think it's important to say that
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: you know the root causes
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: that are that are driving. Some of these issues are
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: well outside the police scope and mandate to solve, and where by that I mean issues of folks who are experiencing homelessness, increasing numbers of folks who are have no problematic substance, use issues.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And folks who are have, you know, untreated or UN
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: address, mental health issues. Those. Those fundamental issues are social service and public health issues that are outside the scope and mandate of the police, but because of those, the increasing nature of those in the fact that folks are, are sort of being forced to experience those issues in public. It has created a public or community safety issue. And that's where the police mandate is becoming invoked more and more and to require more and more of our resources. So this strategy is really an effort to address that community safety side of things
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: in the most efficient, effective, and fair manner possible. And that's why we've we've adopted an evidence based policing strategy which I'll get into so fundamentally, the 1st thing we did was we looked at our data.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: We we started with community consultations and feedback. We started this over a year ago. Now, in the spring of 2023 developing this strategy. Ultimately, our goals are very simple. We want safer communities. We want less crime. We wanna support the community, the community members who are the most vulnerable and need the support.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And we want community led solutions. This is an imposition of police
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: force or police on the community. This is a hand in hand strategy that's working in partnership with the community to develop the best possible solutions.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Timeline. We're gonna be fully operational rolling into July.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and we'll have preliminary evaluation starting
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: in September and then ongoing every 3 months after that.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: So fundamentally, this strategy breaks down into 3 things.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: We places, people and partnerships
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: places means we're gonna look at the places where crime and disorders happen in the most people. We're gonna look at the folks who are
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: disproportionately contributing to the high levels of crime and disorder. And and I'll get more into that, and and what that looks like, and partnerships. As I said, off the top. These are these, the the the root causes very complex root causes of these issues are outside of our scope. So we need to work with our partners in order to address them effectively. This is not a police only solution. The core strategy is not
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: to be all an end, all solution that's gonna solve all the problems it is one step in the right direction, and is the police effort to address it from a community safety standpoint. But it is by no means the ultimate solution to what we're seeing here.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: So getting into some of the data over the past 7 years. Average crime severity in the ward 12 and riddle venue board has been 3.5 times higher than the city average
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: as we all know, residents, business owners, stream ball folks, everybody who is living and working and and spending time in the downtown core feels unsafe.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: There's there's a real, you know, market sense of fear and insecurity. And, as I said, those that's you know what's driving those is these intersecting, intersecting crises of housing, mental health, addictions, and cost of living.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: If you look at the graph, that's a graph of marking crime severity, and I'll just take a moment to touch on what crime severity is. You can see here that it's 3 3 times higher than the city average. The blue line is the city. The green line is word 12. Crime. Severity is a measure of how serious crime is getting.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: If we just look at the numbers and we just count crimes. That doesn't really tell us, because you could have 10 bicycle fastes, you could have 10 assaults, and obviously the assaults are worse. So you need to look at the severity of each crime and crime severity index. Let's provide to us from stats. Canada allows us to get a relative measure of the severity of crime, and, as I said, is 3 times higher in world compared to the rest of the city.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Looking at our data analysis, the 1st thing we want to look at is places. So we looked at all the crime occurrences that happened between January 1st and 23, and March 31st of 24,
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and then we match that up with the Canadian crime Severity index to get that that measure of severity, and that gave us a occurrence. Harm, index of all the occurrences that were happening in the downtown core
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: then we generated these hexagons, which are places each of these hexagons, 150 meters in diameter.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: We covered all of Sector 24, which is Lower town byward, and Sandy Hill, in police zoning parlance, covered all of Sector 24 and hexagons. And then we did this data analysis to show us where the Hotspots are, which of these specific micro places is generating the most
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: crime disorder, and what these numbers are. The top number is the total number of prime severity in each hexagon, and the bottom number is the number of prime occurrences that happened in each of those areas. So, for example, you can see at the very bottom 61,134, that's the Rideau Center.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and then you can have a lower one.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: like, you know, 6,100, which is just around Rido and Nelson
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: the Blue. Only hexagons are
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: events only, and the red only are so there you only. So what we did is we looked at the top 20 of the most the the areas that were had the most high volume.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: most number of occurrences, and and then the top 20 areas that had the highest severity, and where those overlap is our priority safety areas
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: areas that have the most, the most frequent crime and also the most severe crime is the areas we want to concentrate on.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Secondly, we looked at people in the same way. We looked at our data set for all criminal events that happened between that same timeframe. We looked at the people who were charged with those crimes, and then we match that up with the Canadian crime index
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and that gave us an individual harm index, which which sort of gave us a ranking of folks who were engaged in the most serious levels of crime.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And then we looked at did a deeper dive at the top 10%. What we found was about 10% of people
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: who are in the, you know, living and and spending time with downtown core, 10% are responsible for about 50% of all the crime harm that's occurring in Sector 24.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: So 50% of those people are unhoused. 50% are housed.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: 15% were women, 84%
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and 1% other. And then we looked at age brackets and and no surprise there that the majority of people people here are between the ages of 20 and 39.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: So that was our data analysis.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And again, it tells us where crime is occurring most frequently, and where it's occurring most severely.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And and really what that is. That's the 1st step towards what we call hotspot policing
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: hotspot policing. I think there's probably some confusion around what exactly it is and what it isn't. I just want to clear that up. So hotspot policing is essentially using your data to identify the specific micro places where crime is happening most frequently or is most severe.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Crime is not equally distributed across communities and neighborhoods, and that should be pretty intuitive. If you think about it, it's obviously happening more in some places than others, and some people are committing more crime than other people are committing.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And so that's called the law of crime Concentration. And it's unambiguously
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: well studied and proven that this is the law of crime. Concentration is is seen all across the world anytime that we look. We run this kind of data. So like I said, it's unambiguous. So this is a thing legitimate principle.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And again, what it does is, look at areas of high crime, volume, and severity. What we found was that 1.8%. So less than 2% of all the hexagons in Sector 24, we're responsible for almost half of all the crime, 45% and 35% of all crime severity. So breaking down very simply less than 2% of places
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: in the downtown core
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: experience, almost half of all the crime events.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And so from a resource investment from the police side of things. If we want to be as efficient and effective as possible, we, we can address almost 50% of all the crime
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: areas by focusing on less than 2% of these micro places.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: I'll get more into what that looks like, but how? That tells us where the crime is happening, where the disorder, where the problem really is concentrated the most where it doesn't tell us how to respond to that effectively and under Hotspot policing. Which is this idea of just locating the Hotspots, there's a number of different intervention techniques that police can use. And the most obvious one is just increasing police presence.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And that's also because that's the number one thing that we hear from the community. That's the number one demand that we hear. I spent the last year and a half as a community officer spending a lot of time daily speaking with residents and businesses and screen ball folks and service providers, and everyone who's downtown. And the number one thing I heard was, Where are all the police? When I call them. It takes them too long to get here. We want to see more police. We want to see them more of the time we want to see them on foot. We want to see them in the communities. And we want to hear the hear from them. We want to talk.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: So that's exactly what we're gonna do. We're gonna increase our our police presence in the downtown core and specifically in these hotspot zones.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: But of course it's not limited to them. We're not teleporting into these areas. We'll be patrolling in in the area in general. But we're gonna really concentrate on these areas because research research has proven that concentrating on hotspot areas will decrease crime across the community.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Secondly, we're going to you know, that's sort of an immediate response. Increase in police presence. And the way we're gonna do that in practical terms is you'll see more neighborhood resource team officers in those areas on bikes and on foot and in in cars and more frontline patrol areas officers in those areas as well.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And really it's important to to emphasize that this is not about crackdowns or police sweeps or enforcement. What does it? It's about an increased police presence, and that's gonna have a deterrent and preventive effect on folks who are engaged in crime and disorder, because, having police there all the time, intermittently, randomly, and showing up all the time, is gonna reduce the opportunities to engage in that unwanted behavior. That's gonna increase the risk for folks who choose to engage in it, because the police are going to be there more of the time.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: So then, secondly, that that sort of is is an immediate way to to start responding to these issues and putting police there. But it doesn't address the underlying some of the problems that might be generating like, why are these hotspots hot doesn't address that. We wanna know why they're hot. So we need to do a deeper analysis.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And and and that involves more data analysis, and also involves this kind of community engagement. And we wanna hear from the community about what are the specific problems that are generating crime in and around these areas or the downtown core in general, you know, there might be specific addresses or services or lack of services that are causing crime to be drawn to these specific areas that are sort of crime generators or attractors. We wanna hear from you guys all about what you think that those issues might be
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And so that's that's what's gonna drive. This community led problem solving, and that we want to identify the specific, this very specific problems. It might be as specific as there's an apartment building. And there's 1 or 2 apartments in that building that are generating some of these issues. And we can concentrate on that very specifically and solve those problems
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: with, you know, the cooperation of the community.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And that's really called situational crime prevention or problem, oriented policing. And another way to address that is through crime, prevention, through environmental design which most are are familiar with. And that's very simply just
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: looking at the environment, at the built environment, and how we can increase safety and security. So whether that means clearing away overgrown shrubs.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: you know, putting up a gate or a fence where it's needed to be putting up increased lighting. And those types of things. It's gonna increase safety and security in and around some of the addresses that have been most affected by these issues. And to do that we're working with our non with our Ngo partners or service providers with the Bia's, the community associations and various city departments, and we'll be rolling out that septing next month, where we're gonna be working with some of the some of these addresses to address their issues very directly, and we have funding as well help fund some of those improvements.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And finally, because I said, the root problems of this are not fundamentally.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: you know, can be dealt with directly through law enforcement. We're working really closely with our community engagement outreach teams that are that are from the city and we're gonna be doing a joint walk walkabouts at least once a week, hopefully more, 2 or 3 times a week, with with one fleet, one or 2 police officers, and and a couple of community engagement outreach team members and spending some time in these areas getting to know some of the folks who are spending time here, you know, street involve folks, as, in addition to the businesses and residents hearing what the issues are, hearing what they need from us.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and just maintaining more of a presence there to to connect people to services, and also again to have that increase these presence.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: So.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: as I said, off the top. This is a, this is an evidence based policing strategy. And I know you know you start. That's sort of a buzz word. These days. Everything tends to be evidence based.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Anything that has data is end of evidence based. But that's not what the evidence is here. The evidence here is not the data that we're using. The evidence here is the incredible amount of academic research that has gone into proving that Hotspot policing is an effective police strategy. And that's been shown all around the world. We have close to a hundred Hotspot policing trials that have been studied academically and from around the world, and unequivocally. It shows that Hotspot policing shows the strongest collective evidence of police effectiveness that is now available.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: It also shows consistent evidence of effectiveness without negative community outcomes, which is very important to us. Obviously, there'd be no point in doing this if it was, gonna have a negative effect on the community. And that's why this is not about enforcement or crackdowns or sweeps
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and then another criticism that sometimes level that hotspot policing is that it causes displacement that we're just pushing crime around the corner. And again, we, this, this was research comes from 2,019. So there were 78 studies at a time. We're close to 100. Now.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: overwhelmingly, we see that displacement is not an issue that concentrate resources on these areas and and solving the problems and increasing police presence in those hotspot areas, shows a diffusion of crime control benefits across the wider community. So the whole community benefits when we concentrated, when we concentrate on the specific places where 50% of the issues are occurring
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: that covers with places and and moving on to people.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Similarly with places, crime is concentrated amongst a small number of highly active offenders. And again, when we ran our data in downtown Ottawa, we found that 10% of offenders are contributing to about 50% of crime harm. That's not total crime events. That's the harm from crime.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And again, this is an evidence based focus deterrence or focus enforcement is an evidence based policing strategy with a huge amount of support from a academic research. And it's a has been found overwhelming at overwhelmingly that strategies which combine law enforcement, community mobilization and social services reduce criminal offending
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and that, you know we have. We can. We can demonstrate a statistically significant crime reduction effect
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: that supports the use of focus returns as proactive crime prevention. So what does that look like in real terms
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: within that 10% of offenders there is a subset of people who are high harm offenders.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And what what I mean by that is that they're committing offences which have a high severity of crime score. These are some serious crimes. They're violent robberies or assaults. And you know many of these folks are carrying weapons. They're engaged in gang activity or violence of that nature.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and really they are victimizing the community. And it's very important, I think, and worth noting that research shows. And we all know, I think, through personal experience. If if we're familiar with the situation that street involve, people
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: are overwhelmingly the most often victimized by these types of offenders. They're the ones who are assaulted. They are the ones who are robbed. They're the ones who are sexually assaulted. And this is what we see over and over again. So this is not just about this is not about protecting, you know the residents in the business about protecting everybody from these types of predatory offenders who are victimizing the community repeatedly every day.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And so for that, we really wanna have a focused enforcement approach, meaning that law enforcement is the appropriate way to deal with these high harm offenders who are engaged in these serious crimes. And that's and what that looks like in practical terms is our neighborhood resource teams focusing on these folks?
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And that looks like arrests. If there's obviously, if there's grounds for arrests also warrants. If folks are in the community, but they have warrants for their arrest, we would act on those, and it looks like compliance checks. Many people are out in the community, but they have court and post conditions. We wanna make sure we're keeping up with those compliance checks and making sure that people are abiding weather court and post conditions. And we're working very closely with the crowd attorneys office to make sure we're doing that correctly.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And really, what how this works is, it's focused deterrence for a reason. It's when the police
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: research shows that when police spend a lot of time paying attention to these high harm offenders. And you're sitting and you're interacting with them on a very frequent basis.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And you're providing them with alternative support options.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Offending comes way down because you're reducing their opportunities for committing crimes. You're increasing the risk for doing so. And you're providing them with other options.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And that's where this divers diversion and support piece comes in. We're working with the John Howard Society to develop a a program. We can help fund their transitional housing programs, the community reintegration programs and also fund case managers for the day reporting center. Let us the catch folks who are coming out of detention or who are frequently in detention and and sort of give them support to give them options rather than sending them back. We're giving them no option other than going back to what they were doing before
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: before they were incarcerated. We want to catch them when they come out, give them options and support, so they're not caught back up in that cycle of criminalization.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And then again, within that, within that subset of 10% of offenders, there's another subset which is
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: people who are who are prolific offenders and that they're they're engaged in high high levels of criminal activity. But those crimes are not high harm. They're not violent. They're not serious. They're not victimizing, you know, other individuals. It's it's mostly property crimes, and a prolific shoplifter is is a perfect example.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And certainly people who are prolific shoplippers are inflicting harm on the community. There's there's people who are who have been suspected of stealing well over $20,000 of merchandise from a few stores from the radio center alone over just a few weeks
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and that doesn't pose a cost and a harm on the community. But we recognize that that that crime is not is being driven by these much more complex underlying issues, such as lack of housing, problematic substance use and mental health issues. And so what we recognize and what we see time and time again is that the the criminal justice system and the police have been inappropriately positioned as the
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: primary solution to deal
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: with these sort of prolific low harm offenders, and that doesn't work. And there's many, many, many anecdotal cases I can give you of recently, where we looked at the data, and we saw people who have been had hundreds of contacts with the police over the course of their lives. And and hundreds of arrests and charges. And yet
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: they've never got the support that they needed. They never got the intervention that they needed, and many of them end up dying
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: of overdoses due to the the current federal crisis. So this using the police and the criminal justice system to deal with these bullharm offenders is not affected.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and so we created it. We we worked for the last year and a half to build a situation table in Ottawa. Previous to this, Ottawa was one of the only cities in the province. Without the situation table there are 70 situation tables across the province. They're they're doctrined by this Ministry of the Solicitor General and the Free and the Ministry of the sort of information of privacy. Commissioner.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: give us, give us our our rules and regulations for how to run that.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And so yeah, we spent the last year working with over 30 partners from from all different community support services to put together a situation table. And really, the way that that works is.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: we meet Bi weekly at a round table of partners, and any partner can refer somebody to the table. An individual who, they feel is that acutely elevated risk of harm, whether that harm be from victimization, from criminalization. From, you know, substance use issues from lack of housing, whatever that harm is. This person is that acutely elevated risk of harm. And if we don't interact intervene within the next 24 to 48 h, that person is gonna experience severe harm.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And so we put together this table so that people who like prolific offenders, example that I gave you of a shoplifter can be referred to the table, and we can interrupt the cycle of crime and criminalization, and arrest and release by giving them the support that they need. So they no longer need to continue with those with that criminal offending.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: So it's going very, very well. So far we've had a number of very successful interventions, very, very high acuity folks who were well known in the community and haven't screened all for some time, and have now, receives the help and support that they need to become more stable, so really excited about how that's going. And I think it's, you know, it's also important to point out that this integrated community situation table is not run by the police.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: It is an invaluable resource and a fundamental part of the core strategy, but it is run by the community. Our our cares are from Salvation Army and the Sandy Hill Community Health Center. The Coordinator is a constable from the auto police. But this is not run by the police. It is run by the community, and the and the partners who are involved in this are not a part of the other hotspot or focused enforcement aspects of the core strategy.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: The Neighborhood operation Center is
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: coming up and running. These are shots of what it currently looks like or will look like if you haven't had a chance to check it out on Rio at William. I encourage you to go and do so. The front imagery is not yet installed, which is caused a little bit of a delay. We expect it to be installed and up and running as of June 14.th
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Which is this Friday.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: So the neighbor Operation Operation Center supports downtown revitalization and community safety by enhancing police presence, visibility and accessibility in the buyer market and registered corridor.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And that's a long way of saying that what we heard from the community is, we want to see more police. We want you down here more frequently, and we want more of a permanent presence. And this neighborhood operation center is really the physical home of the core strategy. It's an operational base. It's gonna allow us to implement these other aspects of the core strategy. On A on a ongoing basis in the downtown core.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And it's not just about being a police center. It's not the same as our other community police centers. It is really designed. And the vision is that it's going to be a. It's. It's about part community partnerships. It's about allowing us to work more closely with those other services and coordination piece where we can coordinate what we're doing with the paramedics, with our community engagement outreach teams. With that we'll see special Ocv transport special constables and byline fire and everyone else
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: coordinate what we're doing in a in a more. So we're all, you know, pulling in the same direction more of the time, but but also pulling in more of those resources that aren't police specific to allow us to provide more services or connect people to services that we can't provide.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: It is currently will be only the police with a permanent home there. But our vision is that we'll expand in the future phases of development. To host an array of community support services
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: we hope for that, and also potentially in the in the public. In the future we'll have public access in the same way that other community police centers have where people can come in and make reports and engage and interact with the police. Currently, we can't do that just for staffing limitations, and resource issues. But hopefully in the future. That is the vision. As I said, it's fully operational as of June 14, th and it is located within the Rideau shopping center. But it's on Rido Street. There is no Mall access. There is one access, and it's on Rito Street at William Street.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: finally, or the last aspect is the Community Advisory Board. And just touch on this very briefly, because this is something that's in development. But
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: really the one of the main pieces. That's missing from our overall efforts. Not just the police, but the city's efforts in the downtown war is a coordination piece. It's that we're not coordinated. We have a lot of very sincere, dedicated, hardworking people doing a lot of amazing work. But oftentimes
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: it's not all pulling in the same direction. It's duplicated. It's working across purposes. Or it's even working against each other. So we've we envision the community advisory boards across sectoral task force that allow us to collaboratively address the systemic barriers to community safety and well being those other aspects like enhance police presence and focus the deterrence and enforcement.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: It's more of an immediate or or medium term response. What we want is, how can we address the longer term barriers? How can we advocate for policy change that might be blocking us.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: or or preventing us from from, you know, moving our assets to where they need to be.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and that that's
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: what this looks like in practical terms, is a roundtable of decision making level partners who can advocate for that that policy change, whether it be increased housing, whether it be increased treatment or whatever it might might be. And in addition, we want them to provide oversight, accountability and strategic coordination to that core strategy. So again that everything is working together in the right way. We we're doing our evaluations. We're seeing our comes in. We're adjusting accordingly.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: based on the data feedback we get, but also based on community feedback. We hear things aren't going well or things aren't going the way that we envision them. We need to adjust.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And that Community Advisory Board would be of a board that you can take in the data, take in the community feedback and then guide the strategy in a new and adjusted and improved
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: strategy.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Yeah.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: So moving on to the last piece is
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: evaluation, strategic tracking.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: As I said, this is an evidence based strategy and and a a key part of evidence based policing is an evaluation. Oftentimes we implement new plans or strategies, and we have great intentions. But we don't bother to take the time to properly evaluate them, so we never know how effective they are.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and oftentimes, even when we do evaluate them. What we do is we evaluate our outputs. So the amount of work that police are doing in terms of how many arrests did we make? How many tickets. How much police time did we spend? How many police officers were worked on a project? But that doesn't tell us how effective the project was. It tells us how much work we did. So we really wanna measure outcomes
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: in in those hexagons that I showed you.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: What is crime doing? Is it going up. Is it going down? Is the severity going up or down? Is calls or service to police and other frontline services going up or down?
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And not just within the Hotspots, but in the in, in the entire area, as well to measure measure against those hotspots.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And then we also wanna hear about perceptions of safety, security, and fear from the community. We can see those numbers go up and down, primes can go up or down, but if the community still feels unsafe. If there's still a sense of fear and insecurity, then it's a fail. We we haven't succeeded, because ultimately what we're trying to do is make people feel safe and secure and live without fear in their communities and in their homes.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And so we really want to keep tabs on. What are folks perceptions of the situation. And how is it improving or getting worse over time?
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And also we wanna measure community and police relations? What are the perceptions of the auto police. How effective are we? Are we neutral, respectful, and fair? Or are we seen as as unfair and biased? And that, again, is A is an absolutely critical piece of the evaluation. We wanna know how the how the community and police relationships are being affected by this strategy.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And as I said, I brought up with this QR. Code. If if you use your smartphone and point the camera at that QR. Code, you'll be able. Bring up a link that'll take you to the survey. You don't need to do it right now. It's very short. It's only a few questions and it's mostly multiple choice or
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: you know, a scale of one to 10. So if you don't mind taking a few minutes and fill that out at your convenience. It would be greatly appreciated, and I'll just leave that off for a couple of minutes to let people scan it, and happy to take any questions, concerns, criticisms, etc, at this point. Thank you so much.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Okay, I'll I'll I'll take over the the time keeping for the question period. And I'll start off with the one that's already in the chat. But if anybody wants to pose a question verbally themselves, just please raise your hand, and I see Dominic has already got in there, so we'll we'll we'll follow in order, as I see the people raise their hands. But still the Grignie asks, Why are you implying vulnerable people are the source of the crime.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Homeless people were here during Covid, and the bars were closed, but the the crime rate went went way down. One of the major root causes is because of the concentration of bars.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Until the city accepts that and encourages a better mix of commercial business. Increasing police presence is ineffective and expensive.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: I think, Sergeant Stem, do you have a reaction to that point of view?
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Yeah. That is not certainly appreciate the the
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: the comment, the the source of you know the fact that bars being the source of the crime. That's not what our data
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: shows. Once we've looked at the all the crime that's happening and the types of crime, when certainly the time of when the crime is occurring. Certainly is not being
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: caused by the number of bars in the area and in terms of police presence every summer we'll we'll be starting that again in a couple of weeks from June to to September. We'll make sure we have an increase, please. Presence from Thursday to Sunday to deal with that bar, those bar, any bar issues that might arise. So.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: thanks for the common, appreciate it.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Okay. Dominic, you've raised your hand.
Dominic: Hi, thank you for coming and presenting
Dominic: so the recent Ops board report showed that once again the Ops you there's a disproportionate use of force on IP people.
Dominic: And I'm wondering if this program was created and is being implemented with that in mind.
Dominic: And
Dominic: how is the Ops going to ensure that this program is not just going to continue those issues.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Yeah, that's so.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Really broad question. Thanks for bringing that up. I'm not gonna comment on that the use of force, or how it applies to this
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: sort of a broad question that's not specific to the, you know.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: finer points of the strategy. If you have a question about the strategy, how we're implementing it for sure. But I don't. Wanna. I don't wanna sort of stray off and talk about wider police issues or anything like that. But.
Dominic: Well, I imagine that the
Dominic: the enforcement will be
Dominic: approaching people, and you'll be interacting with people.
Dominic: So I'm wondering if there's going to be some sort of new plan in how to interact with people
Dominic: ensure that we're not
Dominic: using a disproportionate use of force on certain people.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Yeah,
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: again. I don't wanna comment on that. The use of force
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: the data that came out
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: I know, was released by the Ops. But you know, it's sort of an unrelated issue. So is there a new? I? I'm not sure what you're asking. Is there a new way to make sure that the police aren't
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: doing what.
Dominic: So to make sure that the
Dominic: police is not using a disproportionate use of force.
Dominic: some bipoc people and we have a we have a significant amount of
Dominic: people of color. Here we have a significant number of
Dominic: various religious groups, marginalized groups, obviously in Lower Town.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Yeah.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: yeah. So I would say, you know, certainly, Ops takes that those issues very seriously. And I think we're working really hard internally to address that as an issue, to look at that data and see why it is the way it is and what we can do to change that specifically with this strategy. It doesn't, you know I don't. I? I take your question, but I I don't think it really applies to this. This is not again an enforcement where this has nothing to do with use of force. You know, we don't intend to use any force
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: unless in the regular course of police duties, and and certainly I would expect all police officers to do so according to best practices and way and and and law. So if that becomes an issue, it's certainly something, something we'll be tracking in terms of who we're engaging with. And the demographics around that. But
Dominic: That's that's really concerning, because the Byward market in Lower Town is
Dominic: pretty much one of the most policed areas in the city. So now we're adding more more cops, and we're we don't have a plan to
Dominic: where to deal with that issue. But you haven't answered my question. Thank you.
Dominic: Thank you.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Thank you for that. Appreciate it.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Okay, before I take Tina in in her hands up. But Sharon got into the chat just a bit before that, so I'll read Sharon's question, will the Ottawa police be monitoring, abandoned or boarded up homes in the Byward market? Residential areas?
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: In the last 20 years there's been an increase of empty buildings, and that that's risk of fire crime in places where one can overdose out of view.
Stéphanie Plante: I can answer that, Warren in my presentation, because I'll be talking about the problematic address initiative.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Okay, okay, you're off the hook, sergeant.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Acting Sergeant Stam, Tina. Tina. Walter, you've got a question you want to speak up.
Tina Walter: Yes, thank you so much, and thanks very much, Sergeant Tam, for for providing this this really good overview of the strategy. This question is a bit related to what the gentleman, sorry, I think it was Dominic was was talking about. So
Tina Walter: when I with within the context of this strategy that's already built within the context of the governance structure. For example, around the strategy, with real also, with respect to the manner in which progress is going to be evaluated
Tina Walter: did was diversity
Tina Walter: an important factor
Tina Walter: in developing the strategy and in. And when I say that within the context of important consideration, for example, and an example could be. And I'm curious about that. The Community Advisory Board
Tina Walter: not sure if it's already established or will be established. But was diversity a consideration in in creating that advisory board.
Tina Walter: So that's 1 example, and I think.
Tina Walter: go to modo. My point is, was diversity, was the attempt to ensure that diversity factors were embedded in the strategy.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Yeah, thanks. Great question. And so the Community Advisory Board is forthcoming. So we don't have it has not been formed yet, but that is absolutely something we're committed to making sure is a part of the formation of that. And that diversity isn't is considered, and that we have, you know, all groups included. I can say with absolute certainty that the situation table that was a was a fundamental concern, that when we, when we started
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: putting together and ask some people to be part of the situation table that, we absolutely wanted to make sure that all groups were represented. So we have folks from a complete array of of of service providers, including multiple indigenous mete and inui communities.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And and you know, Jewish family services is a member there, and many others as well. So absolutely. Diversity is a key concern for us for the strategy. And and also, you know, we work closely with the auto police equity, diversity and inclusivity
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: unit to to make sure that what we're doing is in line with those principles and those values.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Thank you.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Got another question here in the chat from someone named Hills. They say I'm curious about how this plan overlaps with organized crime plans, for example, to combat large scale. Interprovincial international groups that are bringing many of the substances and weapons that seem to be at the core of many of the more serious crimes in Lower Town, and also contribute to numerous smaller scale. Crimes committed by those who are victims of substance use disorder.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Yeah, it's a good question. It's this is that's sort of well beyond the scope of of this strategy. This is a, you know, a community policing strategy and how we can sort of focus police efforts on the local community. And
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: certainly, those are issues that need to be addressed, but definitely beyond the scope of what we're trying to accomplish. With this.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Okay Matt, Matt Putel, I think you've just put your put your hand up.
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: Thank you, Warren. Thank you very much. Paul, for the presentation. Yeah, I'm certainly aware of what's going on. It was really nice to see how it was laid out in terms of explanation. It made things clear.
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: to have a lot of questions, of course, and and a lot will be revealed over the next few months as things are rolled out. But I have a question about what you talked about with the the integrated community service table.
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: and how referrals have already shown that the approach can work and you also mentioned that the a lot of the folks who are seem to be referred are are already known. So my question is.
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: how does referring to the Icst, the integrated community Services table? What approaches and what solutions offer differ
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: from those that are already being carried out to help the people who are referred? And how is that being resourced.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Yeah, great question. Thanks for that. So, as I said, situation tables are have been very common and building over the last decade and a bit across the country, but also across Ontario, and so the the model is very well established and and proven, and we take our best practices from the community of practice, of situation tables from across the province. So we've learned a ton from people who've been doing this over the last decade. And again, you know.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: it's a good point, because you would think that those services already exist. So why can't the people being referred just get the services that exist. But again, it's the coordination piece, and what we saw as soon as we got all of us together in the same room, and we had 30 different agencies. Sitting around the table and and and discussing these issues.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: we saw very clearly how there had been a lack of coordination communication. And there's a very, very, very specific and stringent guidelines, and how you can share personal information. So we're not. We're not sharing anyone's personal information who hasn't given consent.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: or amongst the wider group. It's it's with people who have given consent to have their information shared, and amongst a very small number of partners. But once we share that information was very clear that that multiple agencies who have been interacting with the same person, we're unaware of what the other agency was doing or or failing to do, or even had lost track of an individual when the other agency had picked it up. But they might not have had the resources at hand that you know the 1st agency had. So what we see is the name comes forward. We have a big discussion with the group at, you know, with anonymized information
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: we share. Okay, what can we do as a group by focusing the totality of resources at our disposal very acutely on this one person to get them the help they need within a couple of days, and that really expands the amount of resources that are available as opposed to each of us working independently.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: And what drove the creation of that situation? Table wasn't a top down approach where you know our our chains of command said, You will do this. What drove it was a recognition from those of us who are working on the front line day in and day out and working with these clients day in and day out, seeing the frustration
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: that we felt, and that others in our shoes felt of not being able to get these people the help that they needed and provide the support that they needed. Because, you know, you might be able to call one agency or 2. But you don't have the disposal 30 plus agencies.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and all the resources that I can bring to bear. So really, what it's about is is collectively focusing our resources acutely on one individual who needs the help and those people. You know, I gave you an example of a young woman who who probably would be well known to many of us here. Who's Street? Involves her whole life. She grew up in Lower Town on Crighton Street.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: 320 contacts with the police over the course of her life. Starting from the time she was just 3 years old. Violent you know, adverse childhood experiences in her upbringing street involved from the time she's 12, engage in sex work. And obviously, along with that comes the mental health issues and and substance use that all kinds of things.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and last year alone she was arrested. 7 times. She was detained each time for multiple days.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and she was released, and after the last time she was released and she died of an overdose.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Now 326 contacts with police 154 court appearances, 12 mental health apprehensions, and she still ended up not getting the support that she needed. That's not somebody falling through the cracks. That's a system's failure. That's the failure of our system. The system doesn't work.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and this is a way to bring us together in real in real time to
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: fill in those gaps where the system is broken.
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: Oh, if if I could! Just a quick follow up! This is. It is certainly a promising and interesting way of functioning. It is not the 1st time that these kinds of things have gotten off the ground and just harken back to the merit initiative which Ottawa
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: and I had with about 10 years ago. And it was based on models that had been in elsewhere. And as with many things, you mentioned the word resources many times, Paul, and as with with so much, it all comes down in the end to resources. And
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: what what happened to merit? Well, merit
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: disappeared. It doesn't really exist and.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: What happened to Mary was. It was a top down approach that was the exact opposite of this, that it was imposed from the top down, and.
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: Yes.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: So I I worked very closely in development of this with the people who built merit, and what we learned from all their failures is what we're not gonna do with this one. So merit was, yeah, it was what it wasn't. It was. Well.
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: A a and, and to be fair, there was. There were some very good things about Barrett also in terms of how it functioned, but in the end, what it came down to also is this, re is is sustained and adequate resourcing, as with so much. And so I'm I'm just hoping that when and if
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: the model is proven that there is a proper allocation and reallocation of resources to make it sustained.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: Yeah, no, that's a great point. Right now. The situation table is has 0 resources. It has 0 money going into it, and the only resources it has is each agency volunteering to dedicate their time and resources to the table. It's a collective effort, and I think that really speaks to the passion and the and the dedication that people have, and how much they believe in the project. So resources is, you know.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: from all of us who work in this space is is obviously our number one issue.
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: and and that's hopefully, that's something that as we move forward and we and we continue with these interventions, and we probably will continue to run up against the same roadblocks, and those roadblocks will be lack of resources, lack of treatment beds, lack of detox facilities, whatever it might be. When we run into those things, those are things that we can then document and and and
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: get the spotlight on
A/ Sgt Paul Stam: to have additional resources that are very much needed.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Well, thank you. Acting side Acting Sergeant Stam, I don't see any hands, and no further questions. So I guess it's over to Stephanie Stephanie.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: plant counselor your.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: If you're still online, you can.
Stéphanie Plante: I'm here.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: You're good.
Stéphanie Plante: Blanson.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: And and pass the baton to you.
Stéphanie Plante: I gladly take your baton. However, I won't be the last
Stéphanie Plante: runner in the 4 by one. I will probably give that to Matt Bertell. Instead. He looks like he could be really fast in a relay, anyway. I have just a couple of things. I'll go through them quickly. So on Friday we did a think. O at 1 60 Charlotte.
Stéphanie Plante: It was amazing and awesome, as Bingo always is, amazing and awesome. The prizes were gift certificates from Bam's, which you know, is the restaurant on Kabul.
Stéphanie Plante: and the grand prize was a lunch with me, so I will also be taking them to Bam's cause we like to support our small businesses. But if ever you have an event and you want to do some Bingo, please let me know. Bingo is really big in my hometown. I've done a ton of them for as long as I can remember. But it is a fun way to get people together. And some of you may remember our drag, Bingo, that we do at St. Bridget. So if you have an event, you want me to come to an och, anything
Stéphanie Plante: I'm happy to do so.
Stéphanie Plante: Last man passing. When are you coming back? Presentation? La Ville, which is at the Mcdonald Gardens Park, Ely Plank, Yvel, Developi Pool, Conservilli, Vitage Park.
Stéphanie Plante: and Karina Atuvi. Lee sketch! He's on February met almost at Corriel doll dollar chat, Israel's 1st Le Patreon Department's Park.
Stéphanie Plante: Unfortunately we were rained out of our visit to Bingham Park. Karina is on the books for scheduling a new one. There was, as you know, a very, very big rainstorm Friday afternoon. So we will be rescheduling that as soon as possible. I feel like this meeting's been scheduled and rescheduled several times, but it was really dangerous. There was a thunderstorm, so looking forward to seeing all the Bingham Park, the friends of Bingham Park with our city staff on site, and hopefully, that will be booked very soon.
Stéphanie Plante: And also I'm just gonna put this in the chat.
Stéphanie Plante: So with the next Environment Committee. Hold on, I'm just gonna pull this up. I can't remember the date.
Stéphanie Plante: It is on Tuesday, June 18, th and I'll put the info in the chat.
Stéphanie Plante: There, at the Environment Committee there will be a discussion about a tree equity analysis, and you can see the link
Stéphanie Plante: to the tree equity analysis.
Stéphanie Plante: Report that they want to put together. If you want to delegate. If you want to talk about how our tree canopy sucks. How we need trees on King Edward! We need trees not just in Lower Town, by the way, but all over the world, the ward.
Stéphanie Plante: This would be the place to do it. So please reach up to me if you don't know how to delegate at committee, or if you want to delegate at Committee. I will be speaking about our the successful initiative to have the tiny forest at York Street Public School, and talking a bit more about the sad removal of the trees at Mcdonald's Park.
Stéphanie Plante: That was that was that was a bit of a shocker. But yeah. So I encourage everybody to read and talk about how we have a lack of trees downtown, and how we are a heat island.
Stéphanie Plante: Last, but not least. I have put my name forward. We talked about
Stéphanie Plante: the sort of problematic properties. I'll talk a bit about that. So, as you know, the problematic properties. Initiative was a motion that I put forward at City Hall. I will put the new website up. It just went online city.
Stéphanie Plante: It went up just last week. On the city website. Please have a peek at it. Let me know what you think.
Stéphanie Plante: It sort of describes what a problematic property is what it isn't. As you know, guys know, I get a lot of calls about problematic properties. You guys may have heard about what's happening on St. Patrick. It's not just in Lower Town, by the way, it's also a lot in Vanya, but the issue around this is a lot of absentee landlords a lot of people who don't keep up their properties. We're sort of sitting on them as investments.
Stéphanie Plante: So if anything falls under this problematic properties, please please, please let us know we have a spreadsheet, and the reason we have a spreadsheet of our frequent flyers, as I like to call them, is because myself and Councillor Traster. We are getting the new pilot, which is there will be dedicated Bylaw officers to problematic properties will be going around. We will be doing, looking at things as perhaps increasing fines which you guys know, we have to ask the province to increase fines
Stéphanie Plante: and deadlines on a lot of these things, so have a peek at it. If there's a address you think is problematic, I can tell you right now I'm keeping a very close eye. I think it's 2 0 9 York, the one that's next to the bed of breakfast. Lot of issues around that address right now. Still, a lot of issues on St. Patrick. But I'm hoping we can go after the landlords and get some money from them, because it costs money every 9 1 1 call every 3 1 1 call
Stéphanie Plante: every time bylaw has to go by ambulance. It's property standards that costs the city money to have
Stéphanie Plante: people go look at those properties and see what's wrong. So we're hoping to recoup some of those costs. But
Stéphanie Plante: again, I need you guys to report those properties to me
Stéphanie Plante: last. Well, I guess 2 more things. Some of you may. If you do, watch Police Services board. I want to give a huge huge shout out to Lower Town. You guys came out to Police Services Board. I will also put the link in the chat here. You guys did a great job articulating the issues
Stéphanie Plante: how you're feeling in Lower Town. We had some people who were in tears. Christine came to my office because she doesn't have a computer, and she wanted to delegate. Thank you for sick to Sandra for organizing all that, Brian. I see you. You were there as well.
Stéphanie Plante: Thank you. Everybody who came out. You were compassionate in the way that you expressed how you were feeling, and I think it resonated. I still have people this day who stop me and say, Oh, those delegations that came to Police Services Board! It was really, really touching. And I think people really really could sense this, the the urgency in the comments that you made. So I will also.
Stéphanie Plante: I'll put the link in the chat here. Oh, there it is so the the public delegations start at 13 min.
Stéphanie Plante: I urge you to watch them. Yeah. It was a really good gang that came out from Lower Town.
Stéphanie Plante: And last, I have put my name forward. If you guys know what Amo is, it's the Association of Municipalities, Ontario. They're having their big meeting in August. Here in Ottawa, the Shaw Center. I have put my name forward to present the vacant storefront tax.
Stéphanie Plante: So, as you guys know I, along with our problematic properties, initiative. I like we much have vacant unit taxes. I want to start taxing vacant storefronts which are vacant for longer than 6 months, or whatever this exists in other cities. But again, we need the province to unlock this magic button for us to be able to start finding
Stéphanie Plante: vacant storefronts. What sucks for us is a lot of our vacant storefronts and Councillor prosters having this issue as well. A lot of our vacant storefronts are in Main Streets streets where there should be a lot of foot traffic, and there should be a lot of activity. But instead, again, people are just sitting on their investments, and not even putting like art or opening up as a warming center. Or, you know, allowing dogs to go in. If you wanna take a break or allow people to cool off in the summer. There's a lot we could do with these
Stéphanie Plante: vacant storefronts, and right now they're just boarded up, and that's not cool. So that's all. Situant Ma and Jason courage derogative, and the Police Services board. So his address problematic.
Stéphanie Plante: Oh, Buddy, Korea, okay, cool and also just to clearly Jean Kyon, Korea, for what they say for myself, Mcdonald Gardner's Park. Who's that elaborate super? A Wednesday, too. Okay, Sandra? You have your hand up.
Sandra Milton: Yes, counselor. I was wondering about the defense around the Andrew fleck daycare center when that would be.
Stéphanie Plante: Yeah, they're kind of just going back and forth right now on like size and trimming the hedges. It just seems like these final little details.
Stéphanie Plante: I there's not really much for me to do at this point. It's just them negotiating and clarifying with bylaw and property standards where the exactitude of the fence is gonna go what materials will be used to put the fence in. This is absolutely not stuff. That's my expertise at all. But that's that's where we're at with that.
Sandra Milton: It? Is it only going at the front on George.
Stéphanie Plante: No, I think it's going all the way around.
Stéphanie Plante: Yeah. And our priority.
Sandra Milton: Here.
Stéphanie Plante: Obviously, huh.
Sandra Milton: It go it goes on. King Edward Avenue is that it.
Stéphanie Plante: Yes. Correct.
Sandra Milton: Okay.
Stéphanie Plante: Yeah. And obviously our priority, there is making sure the children and the care workers are safe. So, and I also, now that you mind me, Sandra, I don't have an update on the new daycare that's opening on Mira. I'll make sure to send her a message, cause I haven't heard from them in a while, and I know they got their grant
Stéphanie Plante: but I just haven't heard from them, so I'll make sure I get an update on that.
Sandra Milton: I think she's open. I think Deb's open on Miranda.
Stéphanie Plante: No, no, it's a pat.
Sandra Milton: Oh, pop. Okay.
Stéphanie Plante: The former Sandy hill, Daycare.
Sandra Milton: Yes. Yeah.
Stéphanie Plante: I don't know if they've renamed it anymore. But I I will see if I can get an update for the next time I may actually invite Pam to come by and just give a little presentation as to what their daycare is about. So if you have littles.
Stéphanie Plante: good time to be in Lower Town.
Sandra Milton: This is our last meeting for the summer, so.
Stéphanie Plante: Well, I'm just gonna invent a meeting. Sandra.
Sandra Milton: Okay, well, very good. Then, Stephanie. Thank you.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: I see no further questions. So you're you're off the hook, Stephanie.
Stéphanie Plante: Yeah. Super. Cool.
Christine vincent: Warren.
Christine vincent: or and.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Yes.
Christine vincent: Yeah, I want one more question for Stephanie. I wanted to tell her something that happened.
Christine vincent: When I went through her office that day cause I was running. Is she still there, Stephanie?
Stéphanie Plante: Here.
Christine vincent: Okay, yeah. On my way to your your office to do the delegation that day. You know where I'm located at 3 0 3 King Edward, and where they have the slabs across, and then those 2 properties behind, and where the one murder took place, they're hanging out there. This is where one of the hotspots that was mentioned by the police department. So
Christine vincent: I was going by. I was. I had my cane on me and I saw about 8 or 9 on one property and a group of about 8 or 9 on the other property, so I was just glancing at them to make sure everything was okay.
Christine vincent: and all of out of the corner of my eye I got this guy running up to me. He almost ran into me and then veered off into the crowd, and I couldn't believe what he was wearing. I told Sandra about this. He literally had on him, strung up a string around his neck, and our garbage pans. The plastic lids for a garbage can had. One hung around the front of his neck
Christine vincent: and one hung around the back of his neck.
Christine vincent: and everybody just looked at him, and one guy said, Well, what are you wearing that for? And all I heard was he had a fucking knife, so immediately I'm looking around. I didn't see anybody that had a knife, so I heard it on, so I left it there and then. My! On my way back from the meeting with you.
Christine vincent: Who do I run into? I almost ran smack into the drug dealer who they just the beginning of May finally got out of our building, and he's there dealing the drugs as well. And then on this Friday it was even more interesting, too, because I'm just trying trying to get in with the dog just before the rain comes pouring down. And I look on the sidewalk. And what have I got but a toy gun split in half?
Christine vincent: So I got a picture of it, and I was able to tell some of this to a Sergeant Lemay when we saw them on the part there on Saturday. But this is a problem property and one of the properties. They're just ripping the property apart
Christine vincent: as well, and it's like, and they had it for sales sign and for rent sign on it, and they just tore the the sign rate off and threw it on the ground.
Christine vincent: I just wanted to bring that up to you as well.
Stéphanie Plante: No, no, that's okay, Christine. I'm hoping we will
Stéphanie Plante: make things better for you
Stéphanie Plante: very soon. i i i know it's very hard for you. So I just want to thank you for all your advocacy. I know things like computers are not always evident, but we're here to help, and we love
Stéphanie Plante: to hear from you and hear about your experience, because it matters.
Christine vincent: Well, I was glad to hear from the police board on the core thing that they wanna find a way of helping, and it's not, and it's a most vulnerable and how they're being attacked. But this is what I'm seeing at really full help now is, are they using a toy gun to try and protect themselves, are they? And to use 2 garbage candles to try and protect yourself from a knife attack. This is, get, get, gonna get out of hand. I'm really afraid that somebody's gonna get hurt
Christine vincent: from this as well, because I can see them. They're so vulnerable they're trying to do whatever they can to protect themselves, too.
Christine vincent: So it's a real big problem. So I just wanted to bring that up to you as well.
Christine vincent: so that you knew about it.
Christine vincent: so I'll leave it there, and I'll see if I can get myself undone. Here.
Stéphanie Plante: Thank you. Christine scheduled
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Interesting. Let's jump.
Stéphanie Plante: Okay, Merci and Carla and Louise. I just sent the email off for you guys to get info about Mcdonald's park. So Merci Buku say, er park manifi.
Karla N: Wonderful
Karla N: hope.
Sandra Milton: Alright!
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Next on our agenda, Sandra. What's next? On our agenda?
Sandra Milton: Okay, well, I'd like to thank the counselor, and also acting Sergeant Sam for a great presentation. We really appreciate it. Hopefully, we're a little bit more informed, and we'll we'll stay on top of this. Do not forget to complete the survey, and we'll try to be as engaged as we can as the Lord Town.
Sandra Milton: People are really good at that, so as you can hear. So let's let's keep the survey going and report back to the police. Report any incidents to the police.
Sandra Milton: As you can tell, it's data driven. So so let's do that.
Sandra Milton: We have many initiative projects. On the front burner the summer with the executive and the many other volunteers. So I would like to 1st introduce Dominic Santos
Sandra Milton: with the Transportation Committee, and then I'll come back and give you a brief update on that.
Dominic: Hi. Everyone just wanted to quickly mention 2 initiatives that were signed onto as a transportation committee. We we're signatory to a claim to the Ontario Tribal.
Dominic: Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. Sorry.
Dominic: that the downtown truck route is
Dominic: violates the human rights of protected groups. Along along that route, and that the the air pollution is a violation of their right to clean air. So that's sort of gone to the tribunal, and it's, I guess, being considered and we'll keep you updated on hopefully. Something coming of that. We're also signatory to an initiative to improve
Dominic: transit in Ridovanier. As it is one of the highest
Dominic: wards with highest use of transit, especially in Lower Town. And yeah, just kind of making bustlings better. Better signals, more frequency and more reliability. So we'll be having a meeting with a counselor plant in a few weeks, and advocate for our transit users.
Dominic: that's all. Thank you.
Sandra Milton: Thanks a lot, John.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Any any questions for Dominic.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Okay.
Sandra Milton: Great so for heritage the key pieces that they'll be working on over the summer by the St. Patrick Street, demolition by neglect buildings. Councillor Plan brought that up the Po. Possibility of 2 large condo developments on the housing.
Sandra Milton: Information about both of these are to be distributed throughout the neighborhood in mid June the status of the Heritage Conservation district designations for both lower time West and hopefully for lower time. East will be
Sandra Milton: coming into effect.
Sandra Milton: Does anybody have any comments for heritage?
Sandra Milton: Nope, okay, good.
Allen Brown: One thing. Sandra, they're actually a rental of buildings that would are are proposed to be constructed on dell Husy, and we hope to get some information out about them so shortly.
Allen Brown: Also,
Allen Brown: the we're outstand. We're waiting for the finalized versions of the Heritage conservation plans for the Byward market and for Lower Town East.
Allen Brown: and I guess at the Built Heritage Committee on Tuesday there'll be a work plan put forward for new Hcds. And we've strongly advocated that the area around Mcdonald Gardens in Lower Town east.
Allen Brown: Be considered for an Hcd. Plan.
Allen Brown: And we'll see how that goes. We're we're not terribly optimistic because of
Allen Brown: other priorities, but that will be decided on Tuesday, I believe. Thanks.
Sandra Milton: Great. Thank you. Josiah, do you have any update on the Alexander Bridge?
Josiah Frith: We are still currently waiting for their spring summer consultation the community that was either supposed to be
Josiah Frith: individual or or another group consultation at the Ncc, so to be continued, unfortunately. But yeah, we have a I'm working on a letter
Josiah Frith: hopefully to be signed amongst the other groups of the
Josiah Frith: the committee. And yeah.
Josiah Frith: so hopefully, we can get them to at least
Josiah Frith: refuse to submit a a Restoration plan in public.
Josiah Frith: That's it.
Sandra Milton: Thanks a lot. For us arts and culture. Jackie can be here tonight. She's not feeling very well, but she wanted me to mention that planning for the lower time Arts Festival is in high gear, and it is planned for the 1st week in October. So when we come back in September we'll be able to provide you more information. But it sounds like a really great event, and something fun for lower time. That's great
Sandra Milton: for safety and security and homelessness. Josh and I will join together for an in person or an online session, and the date of that is to be announced.
Sandra Milton: For safety. We join the Sandy Hill liaison group with businesses residents, social services and housed and please to discuss and work together on community issues in Sandy Hill. It does affect Lower Town Rideau Street, Nelson Street. That area. So that is something that we've been working on for a year. So we have input, which is great.
Sandra Milton: There's also a smaller community. It's called good neighbors. And it's putting together document that can be provided to social services in the area. So that's that's again working with Sandy Hill, the police and and community members. We're working with that. We also meet monthly with Dr. Etches to discuss any auto public health issues.
Sandra Milton: So there's a lot going on lots, many meetings. I might in the community meeting with you all. So if you have any issues don't hesitate to reach out and
Sandra Milton: and we'll see how the summer goes for Parks. I know the counselor had brought this up, but I just wanna say that being in park.
Sandra Milton: it's still in progress, and the meeting with the city last week was postponed, join due to the weather we had asked City come to come and speak at our Lca. Meeting, as there are many unknown questions that the community would like, answered
Sandra Milton: the friends of Bingham, still do not have a date for the children's port to be opened, so I know that many of you are asking, and perhaps our cancer, if she's still here, would be able to provide a timeline.
Sandra Milton: Councillor, are you still here?
Sandra Milton: Kiss.
Stéphanie Plante: I'm here. But I I sorry I missed the question. I was just on a phone call. What was the question.
Sandra Milton: Oh, sorry for being in part when the the Children's Pool will be opened Waiting Pool.
Stéphanie Plante: It won't be open this summer it'll be have to be next summer, and I I seriously doubt they would open it in September.
Sandra Milton: I I thought we were told that it would open this summer that they would section that portion off.
Stéphanie Plante: That's not what I heard, but I can send a question and ask.
Sandra Milton: Would you? Thank you very much. I'm I'm sure that the community would really appreciate that. Mcdonald's heritage conservation. You heard that as well some progress, and, moving along the Rca. And friends of Mcdonagh Gardens, look forward to the installation of the Irish Family Memorial, and no date has yet been provided. And we're I don't think we're sure of the location, either at this point in time.
Sandra Milton: Friends of Laertime Parks, we're continued to work together to ensure our parks are clean and safe, that we have trees and activities going on
Sandra Milton: for heritage. Does anybody want to speak to heritage tonight?
Allen Brown: Yeah, I'll just mention our last meeting of the season is gonna be held on Thursday, June 20, th
Allen Brown: and we're gonna have our last meeting as an in person meeting
Allen Brown: and at the Uchi Community Community Center on gee!
Allen Brown: So whoever wants to come and learn more about heritage in person. It's at 7 o'clock on the 20th of June. Thanks.
Sandra Milton: Thanks for that. Now planning Warren, do you want? Do you want to add your comment.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Well, i i i just encourage everybody to read about the rezoning in the upcoming echo. This June 20.th There is going to be a citywide virtual consultation on the rezoning. If you if you want to. If you want to to contact the city, just Google city of Ottawa rezoning, you'll find the the June 20th citywide virtual
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: consultation. But but the the details that we've been able to to ring out of the of the the documents so far are in the in the echo, this coming, this coming June.
Sandra Milton: Great. Thank you.
Sandra Milton: Next week there will be a byward market history walk. It's a pop up walk on Sunday, the 16th of June at 11 o'clock, and we encourage you to come out and meet at the auto assign. I believe that's on George Street. Is that, George?
Sandra Milton: Yeah. So it's by the auto attendant.
Sandra Milton: So meet me to 11 o'clock.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: It's on. It's on York Street.
Sandra Milton: York Street. I'm sorry. Okay.
Sandra Milton: Have you ever wanted to know more of our history? Well, come and join us. It's an hour-long walk. York, Dowsey, George to Sussex. It's it's it's in that area. And we hope to do more walks this summer.
Sandra Milton: Members of the community have asked for a lower time garage sale
Sandra Milton: last year the Lca. Work with Derek Mcdonald of the Routier Community Center, and we are discussing a date this summer, and it's still to be determined it could be July. We're not quite sure.
Sandra Milton: possibly. Yeah, possibly in July, and there may be a smaller one in the wedge. The wedge is east of King Edward, and it's north of St. Patrick. It's in June, and the date is not yet Con confirmed, so we'll let you know about that.
Sandra Milton: It never ceases to amaze me. The dedication enthusiasm of everybody. Our elected officials, or Lc. Board, Lca. Board of Directors, and all of our volunteers and you the community. There's so many initiatives with the executive
Sandra Milton: and the many volunteers. So we're asking you, come and volunteer with us. We? We're having an agm in September
Sandra Milton: this today is our last meeting. So the next I'll say meeting is, put it in your calendar is the 9th of September it would be an in person meeting.
Sandra Milton: Location is still to be determined, and we do ask for volunteers for you to run and or volunteer with our subcommittees, and when I say, Run, it's not walk, run it is.
Sandra Milton: If anybody wants to be on the board, you're more than welcome, so we'd love to have you.
Sandra Milton: and thank you very much again for the time to attend this meeting. Have a great summer, and don't hesitate to contact us at info at lower time. basketball.ca, we're here for you and
Sandra Milton: enjoy your summer, and let's hope that the the the knock works out well. And we're quite enthusiastic that our area will be happy and healthy, and the Byward market will be vibrant this summer.
Sandra Milton: So thank you all for coming. Are there any more? Comments, Warren.
Sandra Milton: Oh.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: I don't see any hands up.
Sandra Milton: Okay, Matt, do you have a quick
Sandra Milton: Say.
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: If you give me a minute I will take it for sure. So.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: We weren't going to. We weren't going to Matt. We.
Sandra Milton: Yeah.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: We no go ahead.
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: Thank you. So, as I mentioned in the chat, it is our agm tomorrow night as well. Senator and UN sasa tendra, O Teathan, it'll be at the new best Science Theater on King Edward 3 33. King Edward doors open at 5 and we will have, of course, a bit of food for tasting, and there'll be a nice little musical presentation from
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: a lower town resin. Who's also I did a South student and also a shadow to to Sebastian. Sebastian Justin is his name. He he
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: performed on Friday evening had a a little some fundraiser for our center and him and a few students sold tickets and and was a fantastic show. So we're looking to profile them as well. Other news. I would just like to give a shout out to to residents of Lower Town, some of whom are in the meeting today who signed a letter. It was a resident led initiative.
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: and signed and submitted a letter to the Lithuan newspaper. For a feed that calls both
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: Palmet. I live in ma Actionees guys get a posse not bunk any month out, so share it to to the residents who signed the letter to the editor to the Doha to finally have our our food bank moved. a 1 time. Great organization. The patho is is kind of pulling up access to the door, and we're just kind of wondering why. And and many residents have have signed that letters. Thank you very much.
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: Other news just a big shout out and thank you to all the partners from Lord Town festival was mentioned at the beginning on the weekend. Great success hundreds of people in January Park. And lastly, if you know anybody, or if you have children, Suzie Zafine, our day camp our full free day camp is taking registration right now. It starts in early July runs for 6 weeks.
Matt Beutel-Lowertown CRC Basse-Ville: We also have free sports programs soccer and basketball, A and athletics at the auto lines club. So it please go to our website sign up or refer people. If you if you know of kids who would like to get involved. Daycamp, soccer, basketball and track and field. Thanks. Folks.
Sandra Milton: Great thanks, Matt, and again, thank you very much for everybody coming out tonight. We really appreciate it. And send in your comments. You know. Love to talk to you, and
Sandra Milton: do come out and volunteer if you wish, and so our next meeting is Monday, the 9th of September at 7 o'clock.
Sandra Milton: Okay, thank you. Mercy. Everybody.
warrenhwaters@gmail.com: Trails.
Allen Brown: Bye.