By Chad Klassen

CAP team to begin patrols on the North Shore next month

Apr 19, 2018 | 2:02 PM

KAMLOOPS — It’s hard to miss the bright red shirts in downtown Kamloops, but they will now be visible on the North Shore starting next month. 

The North Shore Business Improvement Association announced on Thursday, in partnership with the Kamloops Central BIA, the addition of two Customer Care and Patrol (CAP) members on the north side of the river. 

“Everybody is very excited to be part of the first CAP team to work with downtown on the North Shore,” said CAP team member Angela Halas. “I think people have been talking about this for years.”

It’s an idea that’s been on Jeremy Heighton’s mind, the new executive director of the North Shore BIA, since he took over in January. 

“When I got in the chair, within a few days, I called [Kamloops Central BIA executive director Carl DeSantis] who just got in his chair a few days prior as well and said ‘how do we expand this CAP team?’ because we need boots on the ground. We need people here who are concerned not just with the tourism aspect but also with the community safety aspect.”

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The North Shore BIA is contributing $10,000, but Heighton said a $30,000 grant from the City of Kamloops really helped get the project off the ground. Heighton wanted both BIAs to work together for once after years of doing their own thing. Carl DeSantis, executive director of the Kamloops Central BIA, was on board right away. 

“What this does is reinforce the value this community places on CAP team resources from a safety, social side, from the tourism side, from our business side, engagement side. There’s so many reasons for bringing them over to the North Shore,” said DeSantis. 

He said two more CAP team members will be hired, and there will be a rotation between the new hires and four CAP members already in place. 

“As far as a deployment schedule, I don’t think it would be fair to introdce two brand new people to a brand new area with brand new responsibilities all the time,” noted DeSantis. “What I think will happen is we’ll take a veteran CAP team member, partner them up with a rookie CAP team member, send them over to the North Shore for a shift and rotate them through.”

Heighton is excited about the new venture, but noted the north side accounts for 23 per cent of the city’s land mass and covering every corner could be challenging. 

“We have the Brock shop, we have 12th Street, we have 8th Street, we have the Tranquille Corridor, so we have to figure out the best method to getting the teams around,” he said. 

The two new CAP members will be hired in the coming week and go through training. The CAP team’s presence on the North Shore is expected to start in mid-May.