BARCC looking at hosting Crime Prevention trade fair in May

Kevin Berger – Leader Staff

The Barrhead and Area Regional Crime Coalition (BARCC) is looking at hosting a crime prevention trade fair in May 2020, coinciding with Crime Prevention Week in Alberta.

Mayor Dave McKenzie brought the idea to the July 9 council meeting where he asked for a motion approving the participation of the town’s administration in organizing the event.

BARCC is a regional partnership between the County of Barrhead, the Town of Barrhead, Woodlands County, the RCMP and the Barrhead & District Rural Crime Watch Association.

Earlier this year, the coalition successfully set up BARCC Connect, which the municipalities and RCMP use to send out alerts to the public about crime, emergencies and disasters, fire bans, road construction and other events.

McKenzie said the members of the coalition have been talking about organizing a crime prevention trade fair, featuring displays by vendors in the security industry and a number of breakout sessions focused on crime prevention.

The event would draw a “wide spectrum of attendees,” McKenzie said. While such trade fairs are fairly common at certain conventions like gatherings of police chiefs, the general public generally don’t get to see them.

“I just think — and the members of BARCC agree — that this might be a great opportunity to have a trade fair of this nature,” he said.

McKenzie said the coalition would like to have the administrations of all three participating municipalities to be part of the working group that would organize the event. (The RCMP and Barrhead and District Rural Crime Watch would also be involved.)

“Crime Prevention Week in Alberta is in May, so we’ve got some time to look at this,” he said, noting that because all three municipalities would work together, no one municipality would have to shoulder a big workload.

He suggested the trade fair might be funded through fees charged to vendors and/or administration fees. Also, there are quite a few crime prevention grants available to the public.

McKenzie indicated he wasn’t asking for a financial contribution at this time, beyond whatever time administration puts into organizing the event.

“I’m anticipating there won’t be a huge cost to the municipalities,” he said.

Coun. Shelley Oswald asked who would be the lead on this crime prevention trade fair. McKenzie said the county is the unit of authority for BARCC but he would likely chair the working group “just to give direction on how we want to do this.”

Ultimately, council passed the motion directing administration to participate in the working group putting together the trade fair.