Prince George was recognized Wednesday for efforts to cut down on the municipality's rough reputation.
At the beginning of a meeting of the provincial Blue Ribbon Committee on Crime Reduction in Prince George, Mayor Shari Green accepted the 2013 Community Safety and Crime Prevention Local Government Award from Minister of Justice Suzanne Anton.
The award, handed out by the Ministry of Justice, recognizes outstanding leadership in the area of promoting and implementing crime prevention and safety strategies in the community.
"I'm really appreciative that the province is recognizing the hard work that not just the local government is doing, that the RCMP is doing and all of our stakeholder partners around the city are doing, trying to ensure that we continue to have a safe community," said Green.
The city has led several projects including Communities that Care, focusing on crime prevention, and the Step-In Step-Up program, targeting vulnerable youth being actively recruited and engaged by gangs.
A year ago, Green introduced the Mayor's Task Force on Crime, which sought to examine the award-winning crime prevention strategy developed by Surrey and create a Prince George plan that not only reduced crime and improved awareness of crime, but also increased the connection between the different groups already working to those ends.
The resulting 18-page strategy was endorsed by council last fall and sets out seven specific actions to be undertaken over an 18-month period.
"It's a piece of work that the province was really pleased to see," said Green.
Awards were initially handed out at the beginning of November as part of B.C. Crime Prevention Week in Vancouver, but there wasn't anyone from the city available to accept it.
Green said she spent the morning with the provincial committee, as did other representatives from local and regional organizations that have their hand in crime and justice issues.
Struck in September and led by Abbotsford South MLA and parliamentary secretary for crime reduction Darryl Plecas, the Blue Ribbon Committee on Crime Reduction is consulting with stakeholders around the province to create a report and make recommendations around crime reduction opportunities to the Minister of Justice by mid-June.
"So we had a great roundtable discussion, just talking about what are some of the challenges we're experiencing here and in the north, but also what are some of the things we're doing that are working well and what would we like the province to focus on," Green said.
The objective isn't to ask the province for more money for initiatives, said Green, but to make sure resources are being used to garner the best results.
And while she said she feels concerns are being heard, the mayor said she'll be watching the work of the blue ribbon committee closely.
"So we really do need to ensure that we've got action-oriented people working on real solutions because we've got to see confidence in the north and in the region that this is a safe place to live," said Green. "Dealing with the perceptions of crime is as difficult as the crimes themselves sometimes."
