Tofino is tweaking its bylaw enforcement policy to better reflect its complaint-driven approach while allowing room for the town’s municipal council to identify priorities in need of proactive enforcement.
During the final meeting of their term on Oct. 11, council unanimously approved the first amendment to Tofino’s General Bylaw Enforcement Policy since 2012.
The changes had been discussed at a Committee of the Whole meeting the week prior where Tofino’s fire chief and manager of protective services Brent Baker explained the policy was first adopted in 2009 and had not been amended since 2012, adding that “staff feel the current policy inaccurately reflects how bylaw enforcement is administered.”
He said the policy’s current wording stated the district “will undertake a proactive approach to bylaw enforcement within the constraints of available staffing and resources,” which does not reflect the district’s real-life process.
“That wording probably comes as a surprise to most of the public and maybe to folks in this room because for many years we have understood it to be the opposite way,” Baker said. “The majority of the bylaw enforcement that does take place in the community is complaint based or concern driven.”
He suggested rewording the policy to reflect the current practice being complaint-based, though he added proactive enforcement could be done in areas that council identifies as a priority.
“This creates clear direction for the enforcement staff and provides an opportunity for council to review and update priorities annually, which at this point is something we don’t necessarily do,” he said.
He said residents could be confused if the policy continued to reflect a proactive approach to enforcement.
“There are so many activities that may require enforcement. There are far more things going on than is possible to be consistent across the board with all of those infractions. Leaving it worded the way it is, that we use a proactive approach, gives the impression that we are actively going after everything and not necessarily waiting until it is an issue for somebody,” he said. “By changing the language and having it be complaint based or concern driven, that still continues to operate in the way that it has been since I’ve been in this role in 2016. My understanding right from the start was it was complaint based…I think changing the wording reflects the way the majority of the community actually sees it, although they may wish that it was different.”
He added that community feedback is often received at meetings, pointing to past complaint-driven priorities around vacation rentals and off-leash dogs and added the new process would allow staff and council to sort out what the enforcement priorities should be.
“This amendment will provide clear direction to enforcement staff and create an opportunity for council to review and update priorities on an annual basis and better align the establishment of enforcement priorities with the financial planning process,” he said.
Baker noted that anonymous complaints will continue to not be acted on except in situations where “failure to act on the complaint may adversely affect the environment or the health, safety or security of the public or may result in a liability incurred by the district.”
He added that the new policy will treat complaints received via text messages the same as anonymous ones, explaining that text messages are a safety hazard when bylaw officers are driving.
“Sometimes the text messages are just rolling in constantly about a car parked here and a car parked there and people wanting bylaw on demand, but it becomes a distraction while operating a vehicle, so I have actually set the phones on silent and do not disturb mode while the vehicles are moving,” he said. “Another (reason) being that a complaint that comes through via text message is most often the same as an anonymous complaint. If you try to contact the person back to get further detail, they’re often not responding to you at all. You don’t get a name. You don’t get a location of where they live and those sorts of things, so getting additional information to research the issue becomes really challenging.”
Coun. Cathy Thicke suggested living in a small town like Tofino makes it difficult for community members to cause problems for their neighbours and asked if a person who receives a complaint would be informed of who reported it.
“They can ask, but they’re not going to get it,” Baker responded.
“The only time where that information may come out is where it progresses to the court system and the court needs that actual information from the complainant as being an official witness statement.”
He added that one of the first questions a bylaw officer asks a complainant is whether they have spoken to the person they have concerns with.
“That’s often an important first step and can eliminate a lot of the issues just by actually speaking to one another,” he said.
He said bylaw officers often deal with concerns or questions from people who aren’t sure of the local bylaws, but have concerns about particular issues.
Mayor Dan Law wondered how the new process would look in terms of specific priorities, noting council made the decision to prioritize off-leash dogs earlier this year.
Baker noted it was made clear that council wanted more to be done about off-leash dogs, which led to a “blitz on off-leash dogs” that involved allocating resources that had not been planned for.
“This way, we can plan for and try to allocate resources based on priorities and ensure we can do both or reassess based on what that looks like financially and human resource wise,” he said. “We’d be able to actually plan for it, as opposed to sort of shifting course based on some requests partway through the season.”
Law asked if the new process would limit councils ability to shift bylaw priorities when a situation arises.
Baker responded that it would be circumstantial based on what the situation is.
“We can always do our best, but with a limited number of hours and resources in a day, if we shift focus midway through that’s going to take focus off something else,” he said.
andrew.bailey@westerlynews.ca
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