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Wednesday, October 18, 2000 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER B1 F O U R T H L IN E A U T O For All Your Car's Needs Drive Clean Emission Testing Government Safety Inspection Tune-Ups · B ra ke s · E x h a u s t · C o o lin g S yste m s CAA Approved Shop 559 Speers Road 842-3001 In Business In O akville Since 1979 OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR OF THE OAKVILLE WATERFRONT FESTIVAL Focus 4 O a k v i ll e / W a te r fr o r y t fe s tiv a l S a m b u G u a rd W ffitittu sad R e fl$ 1 69 9 E x p ire sN w1 A X ) Oakville Beaver Focus Editor: WILMA BLOKHUIS 845-3824 Ext: 250; Fax: 337-5567; Email: blokhuis@haltonsearch.com Kerr Street's award-winning Constable By Mary Collett SPECIAL TO TH E BEAVER H alton Regional Police Constable Ellie Van Vliet is as proud of the Kerr Street com munity she has served for the past 10 years, as she is of the Community Service Award she recently received for that service and dedica tion. "The Kerr Street community is simply the most interesting, the most challenging, and most won derful community in all of Halton Region", she enthuses. In response to the award that she was present ed by the International Association of Women Police on Sept. 26th, Van Vliet says, "To receive recognition of this caliber just blows me away." · Hillary Weston, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, who was on hand to present the award at Toronto's Sheraton Centre, was also her luncheon companion for the afternoon. "I don't think it gets any better than this," adds Van Vliet She is especially grateful to her supervisor, Halton Regional Police Inspector Michael Kingston, for nominating her for the award, total ly without her knowledge. Van Vliet's journey to her current recognition has been a lengthy one, with no short cuts along the way. She has been with the Halton Regional Police Service for 14 years, but before that she was Toronto's first female cadet. Van Vliet graduated from the academy in 1963, then moved on to the Brampton force, before it became part of Peel Region. In those days, being one of a handful of female officers worked in her favour, since the chief was able to place her undercover, and no one suspect ed she had anything to do with law enforcement. It was there, on assignment in a cocktail lounge apprehending underage drinkers, that she met her husband, Bruce. Now happily married for 31 years, Van Vliet describes life with her spouse as "a very leveling experience." She adds, "People tend to put you on a pedestal when you're a police officer, but I don't get that from him." Motherhood quickly followed marriage, and Van Vliet voluntarily quit the police force in 1969 to become a full-time wife and mother to son, Bert and daughter, Heidi, now 30 and 26 years of age respectively. "I look at it as an extended maternity leave," she laughs. Although she jokes about it now, Van Vliet leaves no doubt about her serious regard for the role of parent. "I wouldn't trade those 17 years for anything," she says. "As far as I'm concerned, the most important job is that of a parent." But as her children grew older and more inde pendent, Van Vliet began to cast around for Photo by Peter C. McCusker K err Street Village Constable Ellie Van Vleit walks with Daniel Wolak, a blind youth who lives in the K err Street neighbourhood. As a member of the K err Street Community Consultation Committee, Van Vliet recently helped raise $1,000 on behalf of Daniel for the Blind Children and Youth Parents Association. employment outside of the home. Though she now considered herself to be "too old to be a police officer", she contacted then-chief of Halton Regional Police, James Harding, who had been her inspector in Brampton, hoping he could provide her with a reference for private security work. The next thing she knew, Van Vliet was panti ng through a practice run of the rigorous police physical fitness test. On this first attempt, she scored only 18%, but by the time she started back at the police academy in Aylmer, her average was 89% where it stayed all the way through college. "I weathered the storm and hung in there, never finishing last on the run," she says of those strenuous days. After 15 weeks of a live-in program, with 105 other candidates, many young enough to be her children, Van Vliet became the oldest recruit to ever graduate from the probationary constables class. "I'm glad I went through the process," she says today. "I didn't want anyone to be able to say that I hadn't been treated equally." Following her 1987 graduation, Van Vliet worked in a regular platoon, driving cruisers in Oakville for about two years, before moving to Bronte to serve as village constable there. While stationed in Bronte, Van Vliet filled in briefly for the vacationing Kerr Street constable. Shortly after, when the full-time position opened up, Van Vliet applied for and received the Kerr Street posting. "Bronte is pretty and picturesque," she says of her transfer. "But Kerr Street is where it's all hap pening." Van Vliet thrives on the varied challenges pre sented by this demographically mixed communi ty"We have everything from the developmentally challenged, to an abundance of seniors, to a rich multicultural blend of families," she says. Perhaps more than any other sector, it is the children and adolescents Van Vliet strives to assist, influence and befriend. Her brightly decorated, "kid-friendly" office in the heart of the community features a colorful array of pictures, greeting cards, mounted photos commemorating special moments in Van Vliet's career, and a menagerie of stuffed animals and plastic figures, many of them pigs. "Pigs are a much maligned and misunderstood animal", she explains. And though it has a nega tive connotation with regard to police officers, Ellie prefers to focus on the positive aspects. "PIG is actually an acronym for perseverance, integrity and guts." As for the importance of a mutually respectful relationship with today's youth, Ellie says, "When a young citizen approaches a police officer for the first time, it's going to set the tone for every encounter later in life." She sums up her role as village constable this way: "For me, success as a police officer has always been the ability to help someone on a oneto-one basis. When I patrol the streets and have little faces not afraid of me, and seniors happy to see me, and the developmental^ challenged com fortable in the community, that to me speaks vol umes." M o re th a n y o u r a v e ra g e W ir e le s s The Body Shaping Fitness Studio For Women. 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