Re: VicPD deputy accepts challenge (column May 31)
Unfortunately in setting Saanich Mayor Frank Leonard straight on Victoria’s response to calls such as noisy parties, VicPD Deputy Chief Const. John Ducker supports the fallacy that funding is not in balance because Victoria has the troubled downtown activity that the suburbs do not.
But Victoria gets revenue from the properties and businesses that peddle booze to all comers. Why isn’t Victoria using property taxes from those businesses for the extra policing needed?
By the way, Frank Leonard is also wrong on Victoria’s closing of neighbourhood police offices.
When I checked recently, the police office adjacent to the Esquimalt firehall is still open and staffed on weekdays – live interacting people were there.
Perhaps Leonard listened to Esquimalt politicians who cannot see the half block from city hall to that police office, even with those quite visible Victoria police vehicles sometimes there.
The big question is why voters elect stumbling politicians like Desjardins, Fortin and Leonard, who are unwilling to perform their duty. The reason for government is protection of the individual. Police are the front line of that protection.
In digging into the bunfight, as you should, consider the possibility that many mayors and councils want power themselves instead of co-operation.
On several subjects, Frank Leonard seems to be pandering to those who almost defeated him in the last election – neo-Marxists, who oppose policing. Puzzling.
Keith Sketchley
Saanich