08/28: Council discusses needles, parks, bears and garbage

Should garbage pickup be modified because of bear problems?

Drugs in the park

At a recent city council meeting Chief Fiander was asked if there was a problem with homelessness and people doing illegal activity in public places like parks.  Fiander said the force would gather more information to see if there was a substantive problem and deal with it in that case.  

Mayor Lordon said he thought any issues with homelessness and drug addiciton and mental health issues is a Provincial responsibility, Lordon said other municipalities recognize a lack of a provincial plan and financial commitment to these problems, but did acknowledge that some money was provided to police officers to put more boots on the ground to fight drug trafficking. Lordon said even though councillors get complaints about what people see going on in the park, the problems are systemic and need to be addressed in partnership with the province.. H offered to met with the province to work on solutions that can manage together.

Lordon said parks are for everyone’s use, and separating people by appearance is not the right way to go about it.

Fiander added that the force will not discriminate on people based on appearance, and will follow the law. Recent meeting of Chiefs of Police have confirmed it is a problem all over the province and it’s a problem that the force “can’t arrest our way out of”.

Line Painting

Public Works line painting is continuing as long as the weather cooperates. There has been a shortage of paint that caused delays. The Mayor noted that the bike lanes have been painted as he had hoped.

Community Needle Boxes

The city currently coordinates the distribution and collection of used needle boxes int he city with the police and Horizon Health Network. The police used to use plain clothes officer to pick up the needle boxes and dispose of used needles, but because of manning issues and drug investigations that take police officers outside the city, the force will no longer be able to provide officers for that task. A local company has offered to take on the task at a cost of $281 a month which will become part of the police budget. Fiander said his department will continue emptying the boxes until a new arrangement is finalized. This will have to be passed at a future meeting. Fiander said it would be wrong to ask officers in uniform to perform this work because uniformed police might discourage people from using the needle boxes, and what would happen if an officer had to respond to a call and arrest someone while he had used needles in his car. Police will still respond to calls about needles being found in public places.

Animal Control Monthly Report

Councillor Veronique Arseneault asked the Chief of Police about the role of the Animal Control Officer, specifically about providing raccoon traps that counted and included in his monthly report. Tony LeBlanc delivers the traps when requested, and then rehomes the raccoon in a rural area outside the city. Arseneault said she felt Tony was going above what his mandate is maybe his roles need to be clearly defined and see if there is a role for DNR to play.

Chief Fiander said the DNR stopped providing services for nuisance animals and therefore the police force bought the traps to provide to the public.

Garbage and Bears

The city received complaints from various regions in the city and their interaction with garbage. The people complaining were blaming the bear problem on the 2 week garbage pickup schedule and asked if the city could start picking up the garbage more often. City Manager Mike Noel said the city spoke to DNR and concluded that bear problems are not unique to Miramichi. He said there is some speculation that bear populations are up because Covid had reduced bear hunting activity for two years.   Noel also said that after talking with DNR he came to the conclusion that people have to take some responsibility and do things to minimize their contact with bears. DNR has lots of information on their website with helpful information to help people deal with bears with recommendations about like:

• rinsing food wrapers before disposal
• don't leave pet foot outside
• don’t compost meat products, only vegetable scraps
• keep smelly scraps like meat and fish in freezer until garbage day pickup
• wash garbage cans regularly and use lime or baking soda in can to reduce odours.

Noel said changes to garbage collection is not warranted, would be costly and probably not effective. If people feel there are no other options, they can take their garbage if it is properly stamped to the Fero depot.

Councillor Arseneault and Mayor Lordon said they have received complaints about bears. Arseneauklt felt the solutions proposed by DNR are not easy for some residents as they might not be able to store or transport garbage, and Mayor Lordon said he would not be in favour of going back to weekly pickup. Lordon proposed writing a letter to the Minister of DNR making him aware of the increased bear population in hopes they might offer more help with the problem. Lordon also suggested publicizing the DNR tips in dealing with bears.

Councillor Duplessie asked if there is any data that suggests that there are times during the year where additional pickup might be warranted. Noel said that there might be data about increased purchases of garbage tags and that might be an indicator of increased weeks for garbage. This will be looked at.