The Village of Telkwa doesn’t have any plans at the moment to increase the hours the bylaw officer works.
This comes after a resident inquired in August about the zoning bylaws and if the officer has enough time to patrol the village.
Director of Finance Rowena Atienza-Paquette made a report for council outlining the hours the officer spends and how he spends them. She concluded that she doesn’t see the need to increase his hours at this time but additional hours could be considered during budget discussions.
From January to August 2020, the officer spent 199 hours or 87 per cent of his time patrolling while 25.5 hours or 13 per cent were spent responding to complaints and reporting. The breakdown was very similar in 2019.
Atienza-Paquette said while there are certain areas of enforcement that are safety related and require proactive enforcement which is addressed through patrolling and vigilence, the majority of responses are in relation to animal control and are complaint-driven. She added because of this, citizens’ participation through reporting violations is key to effective bylaw enforcement.
CAO Debbie Joujan told council the bylaw officer is now working on getting ready for winter.
“I recently spoke to the bylaw officer about getting derelict vehicles and unlicenced vehicles off the road and he is taking that on now,” she said.
“Usually, he waits a bit longer and does it just before the snow flies, which we usually do at that time to make sure there is nothing in the way for our snow clearing equipment. But he is doing that now.”
Council accepted the report as information for now.