Signs that the areas of Chimney Valley, Chimney Lake, and Dog Creek-Mount View area is under watch for crime by the community could soon be going up.
Williams Lake Manager of Community Safety Dave Dickson says about 15 people attended a recent meeting to discuss things that are happening and what they can do to make their community harder to steal from.
He says one of the topics that arose was Rural Crime Watch in which the community takes the lead and has a single person being the ‘clearing house’ on connecting with him if something-a break and enter, theft of vehicle occurs.
“I could contact the contact and say hey this happened during the night. That person would then be connected to all their friends through email, or a phone system, or a program that they would implement and maintain themselves. I would share that information with them and all those people then become the eyes and ears for the police.”
Dickson says when scoundrels know that things are reported promptly to the police, it causes them to go look elsewhere to commit their transgressions.
“The people that were at the meeting are going to need to talk to their neighbors and put together a plan. If they get enough interest then they would get a hold of me and we’d go from there. In the past, we used to have some signs-Rural Crime Watch Signs. I’m not sure if we still have any left, we’ll have to check our storage at the community policing office.”
Dickson adds that well as discussing Rural Crime Watch, they also talked about Crime Stoppers at Wednesday’s meeting held at Mountview Elementary School.
“We receive quite a bit of those in our community,” Dickson says of the anonymous tips. “Some are very successful.”