The Vanderhoof mayor has held another meeting with the Director of Court Services for the Region, Chris Nickerson to try and find solutions for the lack of court time in town.
This lack of available court time in Vanderhoof means a huge number of cases never go to trial.
On Friday Mayor Gerry Thiessen met with Nickerson, along with a number of people from the RCMP both from Fort St. James and Vanderhoof as well as two judges.
“We had a good discussion of where we are with the situation,” said Thiessen.
“It was very educational and we realized that there was a number of concerns and frustrations in a number of areas,” he said.
Thiessen said that the biggest problem is that British Columbia has the lowest number of provincial court judges in Canada. Despite this, health and education are bigger priorities for the government at present.
A meeting with a larger group is now being organized for some time in April to try and come up with solutions.
“What we’ve decided now is we need to expand the group and have other users of the court system to come and be involved in this,” said Thiessen.
He added that new technology, such as video conferencing is being looked at, which may help with the problem.
