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Kelowna hoping former police officer can help solve conflict between homeless, public

Former Kelowna RCMP superintendent Bill McKinnon has been hired to help solve the growing issue of homelessness and social issues in the city. File

Kelowna’s former top cop is now a consultant with the City of Kelowna.

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On Monday, the city announced that Bill McKinnon, a former RCMP officer and superintendent of Kelowna’s police detachment, was hired to help solve a growing conflict between homelessness and public safety. The city called the hiring a term position.

“While crime rates per 100,000 people have gone down slightly between 2012 and 2017 in Kelowna, we are recently experiencing more criminal activity in concentrated areas, which is negatively impacting our community despite our increased enforcement efforts,” said Mayor Colin Basran.

“There is a limit to how much can be solved through enforcement and we need to work more co-operatively and collaboratively with our partners to ensure services are in place to minimize crime from occurring in the first place.”

McKinnon retired in March 2018. He was hired as superintendent of Kelowna in 2004.

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According to the city, McKinnon will work with senior levels of government, social service agencies and community organizations to find ways to ensure the public feels safe throughout the city, and to develop recommendations. Those recommendations are to be delivered by November.

“This is not about the enforcement side of things; superintendent Brent Mundle and his team are doing a good job dealing with that,” said McKinnon. “This is about the coordination of all levels of government and identifying the services needed upstream, before there’s a need for law enforcement.”

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