A candidate for the Ward 7 seat on Windsor City Council has said increased neighbourhood involvement will help increase police presence.
Ward 7 candidate Greg Lemay announced his crime platform during an event in Forest Glade Thursday morning. The centrepiece of the plank is a neighbourhood watch program that would bring more volunteers out to report crime and suspicious activity as it happens.
Lemay told WindsorNewsToday.ca that the idea came from feedback at a ward meeting last week conducted by Windsor police.
"If they're [police] driving down the road at 50 kilometres an hour, they're not going to know which house is a drug house. They're not going to understand that," said Lemay. "They need the community to actually tell them a lot of times where this stuff is happening because the community is the eyes and ears on the ground."
Lemay said if elected to City Council, he will endorse an enhanced neighbourhood watch system with more captains watching the streets of Ward 7, particularly the Forest Glade area. He said more people have already expressed interest in becoming block captains.
"With only having eight neighbourhood watches, really, that means we only have eight active blocks covered by a specific captain," said Lemay. "So our whole idea two years ago was that, 'OK, let's find four or five captains per street, so this way everything's covered, almost like a pilot project'. I do have over 120 names of people willing to be captains."
Lemay said the crime concern in the Forest Glade area was brought to the forefront in April when five people were shot outside the Super Bowl Lanes bowling alley. All of the victims recovered from the shooting.
There are a total of five people running in Ward 7. In addition to Lemay, the candidates are Sydney Brouillard-Coyle, incumbent Jeewen Gill, Angelo Marignani, and Sophia Sevo.
The election is Monday, October 24.
