Panhandling and drug issues, speeding along community streets, and a lack of "community policing" were among the numerous pressing issues and concerns Coldwater residents are urging the Orillia OPP to act on.
Dozens of residents joined the OPP and Severn Township officials at the Coldwater Community Centre on Wednesday evening for a town hall meeting, where police explained reporting methods and talked about local traffic issues before fielding questions about local crime enforcement from the public.
It was the OPP’s second town hall meeting in as many weeks, with the first taking place in Washago last week.
Several residents expressed a desire to bring community policing back to the village’s streets.
One resident, who identified herself as Kelly, said there is a recurring issue with residents aggressively panhandling near the post office late in the afternoon.
“Around 4:30 to 5:30 at the post office they hide around the corner of our building, and then everybody that walks into the post office they approach them for money,” she said. “It's getting really bad, like they follow you right up to your car … It's coming to the point that you're not comfortable walking at night in your own community.”
Another resident shared a similar experience with drug use on Coldwater’s streets.
“Those individuals that are panhandling and walking are on crack and fentanyl,” she claimed. “I run a spiritual group every Tuesday night, and they have come up and approached the women that come into my centre for healing that have been abused.”
She said she was recently threatened by one of these individuals on the streets.
“They have no problems screaming at us and threatening us ... it freaks me out so much that I want to leave this community, (and) I don't want to be here," she lamented.
Both residents said police have responded when they reported these incidents, but Kelly told OrilliaMatters she would like to see a return to a community policing model where OPP officers have more of a physical presence in the village, stressing the issue has grown worse over the past several years.
“I would like to see humanity policing brought back so that there's a presence in town that will deter individuals from disrupting a main street where people are running a business,” she said.
“It’s a deterrent, absolutely, or the drug deals that are happening in the corners of alleyways and stuff — if they know there’s police here they’re not going to do it anymore," she said.
OPP Sergeants Matt Stoner and Eric Steele, who facilitated the town hall, expressed sympathy with these concerns and encouraged residents to continue reporting such incidents to police.
“If it's happening at the time, phone it in, and we'll get out there as expediently as we can, but it also paints a picture in the long run that we need to be there at these times,” Stoner said.
“We can find things out and then that's all patterned, so call it in, and if it is every night at five o'clock then that's something that we will start coming out to because you’ve called," Stoner explained.
“I'm very sorry about what you and your people are going through. That's not right,” said Steele. “I'm going to tell you to keep calling because we do care about that stuff.”
Stoner also explained that while there are certain provisions for enforcement under the Safe Streets Act, which prohibits aggressive solicitation in public areas, these individuals still retain their civil rights.
“The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees everybody mobility rights and use of all public lands, so there's not a whole lot that we can do to impede people,” he said. “If they are being aggressive panhandling … we can look into that, but it needs to be called in ... (and) we can come out and have a talk with them.”
Regarding community policing, issues with speeding vehicles, and other crimes, both Steele and Stoner stressed the OPP has limited resources, and called on the public to report crimes to police via the OPP’s non-emergency line, online reporting tool, or Crimestoppers.
“We need you to tell us, and we need to be out of the cars; we need to be talking to you,” Stoner said. “We're trying to get back into that sort of model where we are engaging, but … we have finite resources — we can't be everywhere.”
Regarding speeding, Steele highlighted that the 85th percentile speed along Coldwater Road is 52.9 km/h in a 50 km/h zone, the metric that traffic engineers and managers use to judge the safety of traffic in a given area.
“What that means is that 85 per cent of the vehicles travelling on Coldwater are going 52.9 kilometres an hour or less in the 50 zone,” Steele said. “There are places and people on other streets that would die for that kind of number — that is excellent.”
Steele conceded the remaining 15 per cent of drivers may travel much quicker, but noted it’s difficult to assign patrol cars for extended periods of time to such areas.
“It's very difficult to have a traffic car sitting there all day to try and catch the 15 per cent because they're going to be sitting all day for one or two cars, as opposed to being in another roadway where the 85th percentile is horrible,” he said.
One resident said he finds the data “very hard to believe,” recounting how his neighbour was “clobbered” backing into his driveway; Steele again encouraged residents to report instances of speeding to police to help inform how and where they enforce speed limits.
During the meeting, Severn Township’s clerk, Alison Gray, highlighted that a traffic calming pilot will soon begin in Coldwater, which will include speed humps and centre delineators to discourage speeding.
“It's a trial — we need to test them out, see how effective they are, and then staff will report back to council to see how that progresses forward into the future,” she said.
Other residents raised concerns about gunfire and target shooting in rural areas, as well as illegal parking and ATV use on Hydro One property, both of which the OPP said are difficult to enforce — and may actually be permitted in some cases.
“Target shooting in itself, if you're in a safe area using unrestricted firearms, is legal, but you should be on property that you have permission to be on,” Steele said. “It also has to be a safe location, and what a safe location is it's berms or hills or what have you, because even a .22 at the right angle can go a mile.”
The same principles generally apply on Crown land, Steele said.
“If they're on Crown land, and there's no signs prohibiting it, they can use (unrestricted) firearms, and dirt bikes for that matter,” he said.
With regard to parking and other bylaw infractions, Gray encouraged residents to reach out to the township.
“Starting this summer, we will have bylaw officers out every day all summer, so we can target that area that summer a little more,” she said. “We do have a second full-time bylaw officer starting next month.”
