The news that Prairie Bylaw Enforcement is pulling out of Thompson Sept. 6, after council chopped their annual contract amount by a third from $456,250 to $306,250, is not surprising.
Dave Prud'Homme, owner of Prairie Bylaw, said they couldn't afford to take a $150,000 hit. "The amount they want me to cut now would mean that we would be operating at a total loss."
Prairie Bylaw in April 2009 already offered an $87,600 discount over the two years on its current contract, which was originally valued at $1.0001 million - or $500,050 annually, ending March 31, 2011, resulting in the $456,250 annual contract. When Prud'Homme declined to accept the $150,000 budget cut in return for reduced level of service, the city asked him to end the contract almost seven months early, and he agreed.
While it appears on the surface to be pretty straightforward and about money, there is much more to this than meets the eye. In fact, Mayor Tim Johnston said in an interview May 13 he thinks the City of Thompson could come up with almost $400,000 - much closer to Prairie Bylaw's current contract - if there was a viable or workable alternative. Johnston said he thinks Prud'Homme has been a class act whose company does good work for the city but got "caught in the crosshairs" of that which was beyond his control.
Firstly, is the city's long-running feud with the Manitoba Department of Justice over its repeated requests, which to date have fallen on deaf ears, that the province make Prairie Bylaw Enforcement peace officers to allow them to lay charges under provincial liquor legislation.
Secondly, Johnston said, Prairie Bylaw made some powerful local enemies when they didn't devote all their attention to open liquor and public intoxication problems downtown, but also began to enforce commercial property and anti-graffiti standards downtown, as well as hand out some parking tickets. The latter areas weren't the type of bylaw enforcement some Thompsonites had in mind, Johnston said.
In fact, tensions between the public safety committee and the rest of council exploded into the open in April 2009 as council did an end run around the committee in approving by a 6-2 vote the current two year-contract with Prairie Bylaw Enforcement at a cost of $912,500 - over the objection of its chair, Coun. Judy Kolada.
Two citizen appointees on the committee, Colleen Smook and Susan Buckle, were also livid that three months of deliberations and work by the committee were simply ignored by council in approving the new contract. "My feelings are, if we're not going to be listened to, why bother?" said Smook April 6, 2009. "I'm the one looking like an idiot." Kolada said she learned of the council resolution approving the new deal the day of the meeting when she picked up her agenda package. No one from administration had consulted with her about placing the item on the agenda, she said.
Coming at it from a different perspective, Coun. Charlene Lafreniere 13 months ago questioned why council at the same time also approved the appointments of Mark Matiasek, general manager of Thompson Unlimited, and Lou Morissette, a retired RCMP staff sergeant, as citizen representatives on the public safety committee - doubling its citizen component.
"Are we appointing organizations rather than individuals?" Lafreniere asked in relation to the appointments of Morissette and Matiasek. Lafreniere also wanted to know if Matiasek and Morissette had been recruited or solicited to join the public safety committee.
In relation to the first issue, what powers Prairie Bylaw actually has, bylaw officers can only enforce bylaws of the city but not provincial statues, which can only be enforced by peace officers, such as the RCMP. Johnston notes some bylaw officers in Winnipeg have been granted peace officer status to enforce provincial liquor control statues and he wants to see that happen in Thompson as well.
And that's the rub. As Morissette, also a former MLCC liquor inspector here, who now operates Setting Security Consultants, noted in his 68-page five-year public safety plan to city council in January, because Prairie Bylaw Enforcement officers are not legally peace officers, they may not even have the power, amended behavioural bylaw notwithstanding, to stop someone and confiscate and dump their open liquor, let alone charge them. An amendment last year to the City of Thompson's behavioural bylaw allows for the "confiscation" of liquor by "a designated officer."
It now reads, "In addition to being liable to the penalties of this bylaw, any person found to be in contravention of Part II, Section 2.05 of this bylaw may have any alcoholic or illegal substance in their possession confiscated from them and disposed of by a designated officer."
Morissette says in his report the proposition that Prairie Bylaw Enforcement officers can "both confiscate and destroy personal property" is "tenuous" at best.
The issue "becomes one of PBLE possessing the formal authority necessary to both confiscate and destroy personal property," Morissette said. "I would suggest that because PBLE are not provincially appointed peace officers then they necessarily have tenuous enforcement standing. The problem is highlighted in terms of overall liability.
Likewise, short of making a citizen's arrest, since they aren't peace officers, do Prairie Bylaw Enforcement officers really have the power to detain anyone? Is the city exposing itself to potential liability on either front, Morissette wondered?
Others, however, wonder if Morissette should have even got the contract: "No one has questioned why a citizen appointee to the public safety committee was awarded a contract from that same committee that paid close to $20,000. If that isn't a conflict of interest what is?" letter writer William Olson asks. Another letter writer, former RCMP officer Harold Kemp, claimed the study wasn't worth a "hill of beans." And Prud'Homme, not surprisingly, chimed in: "Lou Morissette's report is just a smear campaign as far as I'm concerned.
In fact, the city approached Morissette and asked him to draw up a business proposal if he was interested. He didn't solicit the contract. A Kevlar vest for the requisite slings and arrows to come his way wouldn't be out of place.
Stay tuned. This story is by no means over.
