The Weyburn Police Service will have to do some upgrades to keep up with the changing times. 

Police Chief Jamie Blunden was one of many City of Weyburn employees who presented before Council on the 2023 budget on Monday, October 24th.

"There are a few things on the capital items that we're looking to upgrade," he explained. "Of course, some of those aren't needed for the next couple of years, so obviously we would go back to Council and the police board to see whether or not that's something that they want to look at."

This year, he said, they had to replace the 25-year-old clocks at the police headquarters, and they'll need to replace some tazers in the near future.

However, something bigger coming up is being ready for the N.G. 911 system, for which all policing agencies need to be upgraded by 2024. The new system will enable anyone to use any digital device to contact emergency services. 

"Whether it's your iPhone, whether it's a laptop. So presently it's landline where they call in, and the 911 system comes where you can trace that line back," he explained. "The new system that they're going to have in place, and I'm of course watering this down quite a bit, but the new 911 systems can allow the community members out there to be able to get ahold of 911 through their cell phones, whether they send photos, whether they send text messages, all that is going to be on the availability of our 911 system."

"We are going to have to be able to receive all those different types of 911 calls through a platform here in Weyburn and so that's going to be, you know, important for us to upgrade our system here to be able to accept the 911 calls that are coming in. And again, at this point, we're not certain how that's going to look, because we're still a year or two away, but they do tell us that it's going to be a cost to it, and so we're trying to budget for that for the for the coming years." 

Weyburn residents are asked to review the 2023 proposed budget HERE and respond to the City Clerk with any comments, questions, or concerns by November 18th.