The top cop in Kamloops says a plan to potentially expand the role of the Community Services Officers could alleviate some pressure on RCMP officers.

Superintendent Jeff Pelley says the proposal to give CSOs potential enforcement powers to respond to things like dog calls and parking tickets will need to be looked into further.

“The Community Service Officer program certainly has evolved since my arrival with the engagement on the front line and the impacts on that joint collaboration,” Pelley said during Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting. “Obviously, a tiered policing approach has further exploration that needs to occur but we are supportive of modernizing our approaches jointly and how that can be more effective in addressing non-criminal acts versus criminal acts and how we could work together.”

City Councillors voted last month to create a new Select Committee to look at whether CSOs could be granted peace officer status

Councillor Katie Neustaeter, who put forward the idea, said CSOs can help with “the protection and enhancement of the well-being of the community and our current challenges with escalating criminal behavior.”

“We should be able to have a tiered program that allows folks who are CSO’s to respond to dog calls, parking tickets…those kinds of things, all the way up to somebody who begins those police files and operates as a junior police [officer],” she said.

Added Councillor Mike O’Reilly, “the RCMP should not be dealing with little things. They should be dealing with things they’re good at: gang violence, murders, sexual assault, drug dealers. We need a third level.”

It is not clear when the committee will be back with its findings.

“I’m in support of how we can evolve that as a team with respect to this and how that a low-tiered call, that is still important, that can be a collaborative approach,” Pelley said Tuesday.

“It would be very interesting to know more information about that and that model and how it would work.”