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Tuesday December 21, 1999 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER A3 * Police helicopter offers sky-high eye on crime ' the next one after that? I don't know. I do know we'll have to have a hell of a partnership" to make the program fly again, said H a m ilto n -W e n tw o rth Regional Police aren't account Robinson. The services board chair ing for a helicopter in its 2000 budget, and don't expect Halton stressed not to confuse his ideal to keep the program going istic and realistic viewpoints. "Is it a good police tool? Yes.' either, at least not next year, according to Halton Regional I've been up in it to have a ride Police Services Board chair Don and was impressed. I've encour aged other board members to go Robinson. As the helicopter trial run up. (All seven board members draws to a close this month, had taken a flight.) "But we represent sanity Robinson said the helicopter pilot program and its partnership from a taxpayers' point of view. involving Hamilton-Wentworth My thinking is to see what the and Peel regions is likely to be independent consultant report grounded for 2000, and perhaps says and consider that in per spective of the budget," said beyond. Robinson said it's not that a Robinson. The Halton police budget helicopter isn't useful to police, it's just that it has to queue up in increased by 5.6% to $45.9 mil a long line of services and costs lion for 1999, up $2.4 million to come, some of them mandat from 1998. Although a preliminary bud ed by the Province. That makes the whirlybird a get figure for 2000 has yet to be likely candidate for the chop formulated by Halton Police ping block when police budget Chief Ean Algar, many of the deliberations get under way at recommended increases in the the services board and at region recent past have been met with opposition by the services board al council early next year. `T he helicopter is the only and the Region (though often item that we can control, which passed), so the return of a heli ranks it at the bottom. The other copter may be a hard sell. It may all be a moot point stuff is mandated. In that con text, the helicopter won't be in anyway, as an independent eval there (2000 budget). Will it be in uation of the 20-week pilot proSPECIAL TO THE BEAVER 9? Stories by Tim Whitnell Reporter Tim Whitnell in police helicopter: specialized service ject still has to be written by an Regional council in April. outside consultant, read by the Still, Algar would not make a chief and services board mem definitive statement about the bers and its relative merits then future of police helicopter cov debated. erage over Halton. Algar does not expect to even "I need to see the (project) see that report until late January statistics and the dollar value or early February. The police and where that fits into the budget is usually set by whole budget concept," he said. noting it is possible to keep heli copter service as a separate item that could be inserted into the overall budget during debate, if circumstances dictate. "There are certainly opera tional benefits to having a heli copter. It's been a very positive project in response to communi ty emergencies. I have to look at it as a shared initiative and the cost," said Algar. Hamilton-Wentworth police Superintendent Brian Mullan, the officer in charge of the heli copter project for HamiltonWentworth, said helicopter use was not included in their 2000 overall budget. If that is the case, Algar noted Halton would have t6 find another partner in the project at some point, or else consider reducing the number of service days for a helicopter. Hamilton Wentworth's police budget is $74 million with a 0.38% increase earmarked for 2000. Mullan said the heli copter's $100,000 cost to each of the three participating ser vices in 1999 -- the Province kicked in another $250,000 -- works out to just a 0.1 % impact on the overall budget in Hamilton-Wentworth. "The decision to cut out the helicopter was made by Chief Ken Robertson. He was asked to keep the budget as close to zero (increase) as possible. We had to do something to keep it to zero," said Mullan. That's likely to be the chal lenge facing Halton's police brass and the seven members of its independent services board. j t A shift in chopper shows capabilities o f machine For Halton police officers and administrators who are proponents of helicopter surveillance in this region, a quiet Saturday night is both a godsend and a setback. Throw in generally declining numbers in auto thefts and residential break-ins in Halton in recent weeks and you've got an overall good news story that could be the death knell for a helicopter pro gram, if that trend were to continue. Any future police helicopter projects will likely depend as much on the type and frequency of inci dents police respond to as much as the cost to fly it. Last Saturday night, this reporter climbed aboard the five-seat Bell JetRanger III helicopter that calls Burlington Air Park its home base. Halton Constable Jeff Corey, one of two officers (Grant Schott is the other) who have been alternat ing going up two days a week, mostly nights, to assist ground officers since late July, was my men tor on the flight. Formerly a military chopper pilot, and now employed by Canadian Helicopters Ltd., Mark Horstead was our chauffeur for this 2 1/2-hour stint. Photographer Ron Kuzyk was also along for the ride. We went up for a couple of reasons, including seeing what police were doing with the expensive hardware on lease from Canadian Helicopters Ltd., at the tail end of a 20-week pilot project involving Hamilton-Wentworth and Peel regions. The chopper is housed at Burlington Air Park in north Burlington. The first thing that struck me was takeoffs and landings, besides being very smooth, were not done vertically, like British Harrier military jets, but rather like a plane, with the pilot taking a run at the runway and rising slowly. Once in the air, it took me a good hour to settle my nerves and look straight down on all the toy-like cars and children's play houses below. (I think an anti-nausea pill helped, especially on the few tight, diving turnabouts.) We cruised at 200 km-h which, to me, felt like we were virtually hovering. The ride was much more stable than in a small plane, with light winds helping out. A police helicopter is often used in big cities -- but not, surprisingly, in Toronto -- for highway chases of suspect vehicles, to aid officers with cases involving missing people, land and water rescue, Strategies should help ease congestion (Continued from page 1) scene), was because of the dif ficulty securing and removing the truck off the Kerr Street bridge. The transport was dangling from the bridge after the 5:30 a.m. crash and was held in place only by a small concrete retain ing wall. Weekes said if the truck had fallen it would have exploded, spilling a full load of diesel fuel into the creek and causing an environmental nightmare. It took nine hours before the truck was secured and rescue workers could reach the body, then another 11 before the QEW was reopened. "We are going to get situa tions like this from time to time with a controlled access high way," said Weekes, who lives in Burlington and understands the frustrations these slowdowns cause. "We are in a very vulnerable state in our community when these huge road closures occur," noted board member Jack Brewer. That incident, in addition to pointing out the town's vulnera bility, also underscored the appropriateness of many of the recommendations made in the proposed Road Closure Plan. A number of strategies con tained in the draft were adopted to deal with the blocked traffic as a result of that accident. These strategies included providing regular media updates on the situation, redi recting traffic to primary arterial roads, putting police at key intersections rather than at barri cade points, giving priority to responding to secondary traffic blockages and clearing the roads of other motor vehicle collisions or break downs as quickly as possible. Nonetheless Cormier emphasized the plan is not a cure all. There will still be traf fic tie-ups, but they will be eased by diversions set-up by the police. Cormier said his staff are working with the city of Burlington and the Town of Oakville to be able to change the timing of the lights. This would then enable them to keep traffic flowing steadily along east-west diversion routes in the event of a road closure. "We're also working with the Ministry of Transport and the provincial government for additional signage on the QEW so that drivers who are coming up to a gridlock area are fore warned and perhaps they can get off a little earlier and re route themselves," said Cormier. marijuana field observation, and, especially, for pursuing suspects in break and enters and auto thefts. This police helicopter is equipped with thermal imaging cameras which make night seem like day. It scans for heat emanating from objects, which is useful in ferreting out suspects hiding in forested areas or around buildings. Video cameras and a 30-million candlepower searchlight, the latter like something out of Batman and which some residents find intrusive, comprise the police package extras which makes this heli copter worth in the neighbourhood of $1 million. During my fly-along, Corey could only remark it was the quietest weekend night shift that he could recall during the project, which ends this month. Corey won't enter the political debate as to whether he thinks the program should continue in Halton. The 35-year-old pilot simply describes it as another tool in the teamwork context of crime fight ing and prevention. "I believe there are numerous success stories," Corey said of the police helicopter, a $2-million marijuana crop bust in Halton one of the big catch es. I'm happy how things went with the partner ships between the three police agencies." 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