At the risk of sounding redundant, the time has come to bring back a police detachment for the Chemainus and Crofton area. Actually, it’s way overdue.
Perhaps new North Cowichan Mayor Al Siebring and council can make that a high priority project and, if they can pull it off in a cost-effective manner, that would be a huge coup for the new regime.
The petty crimes and thefts are continuing in the region in outrageous numbers. Having a stronger police presence here is the only way to curb a lot of the nonsense.
People are sick and tired of having items stolen from their yards, cars and garages.
The North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP has its hands full with similar problems in the Duncan area so Chemainus ranks lower on the priority list.
Having said that, the police have been called countless times about incidents here and responded when most necessary.
A huge police presence in Chemainus was observed last Friday, Nov. 2. An incident resulted in an assault charge against David Hodgkinson. He appeared in court Nov. 5 and goes back Nov. 22 for an arraignment hearing.
The North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP have sent out less than a handful of news releases about police incidents in the Chemainus area this year, even though there have probably been hundreds of matters of concern to residents.
Among the recent spike in activity was the return of the counterfeit couple from the summer during the weekend. One sharp young custodian recognized them and called police.
They left, but you know they’ll be back. Whatever sentence they received was not enough of a deterrent and the number of those reoffending is skyrocketing, as a result.
The big case coming up after two and a half years is the trial of Colin John that starts Nov. 19. He’s charged with second degree murder in the death of Derek Descoteau and the attempted murder of Descoteau’s girlfriend.
Let’s just call all this the new abnormal. Are we going to be content to maintain the status quo at this point?