Previously, Saanich police employed a parking enforcement officer on contract to handle parking issues Monday to Friday. Outside of business hours, however, responsibility for parking complaints fell to police officers in the traffic safety and patrol units.
Saanich Police Chief Scott Green made clear in a briefing note to Mayor Fred Haynes last year that parking enforcement was eating up too much of his officers’ time, and there were more efficient ways of doing things. Green noted that parking complaints increased by 484 per cent from 2013 to 2017, and his patrol and traffic officers were dealing with more than 60 per cent of those concerns when they could have been focusing on other duties.