I'LL PUT MORE COPS ON STREET - GREEN

NPA accused of underfunding police

The Non-Partisan Association underfunded police for years and now it
will take a lot of money to catch up, says Vancouver councillor and
mayoral candidate Jim Green.

Green, who is running at the head of a new party called Vision
Vancouver, said his group would ensure that 50 new police officers are
hired in 2006 and that council works with the Vancouver police
department to get a greater proportion of its almost 1,200 officers on
the street and to reduce response times to high-priority calls.

But he warned that it will take money to make up for the years when
the NPA wasn't willing to increase officers in proportion to the
city's substantial population increase.

"If you're going to have an effective police force, it will cost
money," he said.

But his NPA opponents said Green is just recycling old news and
repeating what everyone agrees needs to be done.

"I just don't know how much more mileage you want to get out of that,"
said Coun. Peter Ladner.

Council voted during the budget process last spring to add 50 officers
to the existing 1,124 in 2005 and supported the idea of 50 more in
2006. Whichever council is elected in November will make the final
decision at budget time next spring on whether to hire the second 50.

NPA mayoral candidate Sam Sullivan said Green is just throwing more
money at the crime problem instead of coming up with a strategic plan.

He said an NPA council would like to see 50 new officers hired as
well, but it would ask the police department to come up with internal
efficiencies to help pay the $3.6-million-a-year bill for hiring that
many new officers.

Sullivan and Ladner did not have an explanation for the charge that
the ratio of police officers to population dropped during NPA years.

Meanwhile, Sullivan criticized Mayor Larry Campbell for saying public
hysteria over crystal meth is "garbage."

Campbell told a prevention conference Saturday that people are
focusing so much on the presumed explosion of crystal meth that
they're forgetting the real problem is not which drug people take, but
why they take drugs and what to do about it.

Sullivan said Campbell's comments are a sign that he doesn't take some
crimes seriously. And he asked whether Campbell is saying what Green
thinks, but doesn't say out loud.

"This problem is real and if we don't address it now it threatens to
become an epidemic in Vancouver neighbourhoods," said Sullivan. He
said crystal-meth-related deaths in B.C. have increased from three in
2000 to 33 in 2004.