Vernon-North Okanagan’s top cop moving on

The Vernon North Okanagan RCMP is losing its leader.

Superintendent Shawna Baher announced at Monday’s Vernon council meeting, she has been selected to be the new chief superintendent of the RCMP’s Vancouver Island District.

“That will involve taking over 26 different detachments on Vancouver Island and the northern Sunshine Coast and all the peripheral islands off Anchor Island, so I will be based out of Victoria, and I will have that area to cover,” Baher told Vernon Matters.

Baher will the highest ranking officer on the island.

“I will sort of be the boss of the island, if that makes any sense, and basically oversee the policing going on in the RCMP jurisdictions. Not the municipal jurisdictions, just the RCMP jurisdictions.”

Baher’s actual departure date will be in mid-February, and said she plans to move back to Vernon when she retires in the future.

Baher has 31 years of policing experience in B.C. and has spent the last five-and-a-half-years in Vernon.

“It’s a great community. I would recommended it to anybody. The community people that we work with are ideal and the membership in amazing, so we have a really good team and we really feel involved in the community.”

Baher added she has been fortunate to work with not only the large communities, but smaller ones in the North Okanagan, which will be the case on the island as well.

“Whether than be small 70-30 per cent funded detachments like Armstrong, Spallumcheen and Coldstream, but also the provincial communities like Enderby and Lumby as well as rural and remote areas and First Nations,” Baher said.

Baher explained that communities over 5,000 population are responsible for paying 70 per cent of their policing costs with the other 30 per cent covered by the federal government. If it’s over 15,000 people, like Vernon, the city pays 90 per cent of the costs with 10 per cent by Ottawa.

A new superintendent will have to be hired for the Vernon North Okanagan detachment.