Brandon Police Board gets a new chair

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This article was published 06/03/2021 (2033 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Brandon Police Board has a new chair after the resignation of Marc Casavant in January.

Deb Arpin was voted in as the new chair of the police board at the police oversight body’s Friday meeting, the first of the new year. No other members of the board came forward for the position.

Arpin previously served as the board’s vice-chair and was appointed acting chair after Casavant stepped down.

Tim McFadden was appointed as the new vice-chair of the board.

The board also received a financial update on the police service at the meeting, which was held virtually.

According to police Chief Wayne Balcaen, the police service is expecting to post a small deficit in 2020 of $1,937, but is still finalizing the end-of-year results.

Balcaen said the shortfall is due to an extra $70,371 in police operating costs but is buoyed by a $68,434 surplus in vehicle operations.

“This projected result is slightly better than what I reported at our December meeting of $2,050 deficit,” he said.

Methamphetamine is an ongoing concern in Brandon and for Brandon police, Balcaen said. In total, officers seized approximately 1,700 grams of the drug in 2020 and laid 39 possession of controlled substance charges related to the substance.

While the 39 possession charges represent a 29 per cent decrease from 2019, Balcaen said the police service also laid 44 drug trafficking charges, which, in turn, is a 29 per cent increase from the year prior.

The total number of calls for service fell by approximately 5,000 from the year before, Balcaen said, partly due to the pandemic. Calls significantly decreased between March, when the pandemic started, and December 2020.

This meant the total number of calls per officer also fell, from 449 in 2019 to 382 in 2020.

“It also showed a varied landscape in our trends and our calls for service in previous years, again because people were encouraged to stay at home, work from home, there was less traffic, especially at the very start of this pandemic,” he said.

“As we start to open up our calls for service are starting to reflect what they were in previous years.”

The police service was also faced with the province cancelling the direct lockup agreement at the Brandon Correctional Centre in early 2020. As such, detainees had to be housed at Brandon police headquarters until they appeared in court, meaning some officers had to be shifted to guard duty.

While that caused many initial changes for police officers, Balcaen said construction on new temporary holding cells behind the police service’s building was scheduled to be completed in the coming days. The cells will be staffed largely by private security.

Balcaen said the police service’s annual report will be finished by the end of March and an updated strategic plan is in the works.

The Brandon Police Board is next scheduled to meet in June.

» dmay@brandonsun.com

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