Saint John councillor calls for regular reports from community safety team
A Saint John councillor is calling for regular reports from the city’s new community safety team.
During Monday’s city council meeting, Greg Norton proposed a notice of motion requesting that the team report to council. Norton said the idea came from his role on the Saint John Police Board of Commissioners.
He said that council receives monthly police reports detailing community work, which helps members understand budget pressures and identify areas for improvement. Because the community safety team performs similar functions, Norton said comparable data is needed to justify the use of taxpayer dollars.
“It’s important to understand what they are exactly doing, and looking for those data sets is part of the conversation,” he said.
The city announced the pilot community safety services team in December in response to concerns about safety and disorder in Waterloo Village, uptown Saint John, and the Thorne Avenue–Rothesay Avenue corridor.
GardaWorld was awarded a $780,000 annual contract to provide a 24/7, non-police presence to patrol those areas and respond to non‑emergency issues. The team began work in February.
Norton said anecdotal feedback suggests the service is benefiting the community but emphasized the need to measure its effectiveness and determine the appropriate scale of the program.
“Sizing the service can only be done when we have the data to support that discussion,” he said, adding that detailed reporting would help assess whether the pilot is a good use of public funds.
According to an email statement from the city, the community safety team falls under the Growth and Community Services department of the City of Saint John and reports to the Community Standards Compliance team.
However, Norton believes the team is better suited to report to the council, particularly the Public Safety Committee.
“Voters elect us to be stewards of the dollars that we spend, and so it’s important that they speak to us and report directly to us, as we represent the public,” he said.
In a separate email statement Wednesday, city of Saint John spokesperson Lisa Kennedy clarified that the team is already scheduled to present at the next Public Safety Committee meeting.
