Safe Injection Sites approved for edm, Cgy announcement tba

[Deviaant]

Well sounds like the Hotel idea proved too expensive for the city. The Hotels only wanted a monthly contract so they could rapidly switch back to normal operation if things returned to "normal"

I hear the next place they are looking at is the Saddledome.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

The price of street drugs is rocketing as well with the border closures, which means more desperate people doing far more desperate things to get money

Isn't a common way to support addictions doing B&Es and pawning off stolen goods? Gotta think that's going to be a lot tougher with everybody home all day and nobody buying on Kijiji.

[peter12]

I also expect a bit of a crime wave to start any day in Vancouver now. The price of drugs will soon be a "problem" in this strange city.

[chemgear]

Pretty gross abuse. Does not help addicts nor the injection site.



https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/funding-e...sing-1.5027078

The Alberta government has ended an agreement with the organization that runs Lethbridge's supervised consumption site after it said an audit revealed millions in misspent funds.

Deloitte's report found a number of serious issues including $13,000 in interest from ARCHES bank accounts being used for parties, staff retreats, entertainment and gift cards, the annual salary of one senior executive exceeding $300,000 when it should have been capped at $80,000 and more than $1.6 million that is unaccounted for due to missing expense reports from 2017 to 2018.

The audit also found:

- More than $4,000 was used to fund a trip for senior management to attend a conference in Portugal
- More than $7,500 spent on management retreats including meals and mileage
- Thousands in unverifiable travel expenses, including trips charged to company credit cards that were not recorded
- Thousands of dollars' worth of gift cards to multiple businesses, including to a company owned by a senior executive's spouse
- Other conflict of interest issues such as where a senior executive's family member was hired and earned a salary of $9,900
- The number of staff members at ARCHES exceeded the 126 allowed as per the agreement; the actual number of employees could not be verified
- "Proper personal conflict of interest declarations were not recorded when related individuals or vendors were hired or utilized," the province says. "Vendors were repeatedly secured in secrecy with a lack of transparency and accountability. No petty cash reconciliations have been completed."

It adds law enforcement has been notified about the situation.

"Due to missing funds and unverifiable transactions, as well as allegations, which could not be investigated in the scope of this audit, government will consult with law enforcement to determine whether further investigation is warranted."

Even though ARCHES' site has been closed as a result, the government says a temporary overdose prevention site has been set up to help those with addictions.

[Buff]

I heard last fall that this site was going to be shut down and the province was going to operate a new site. After no announcement was made I assumed it was merely a rumor born from wishful thinking by somebody opposed to this site.

I forgot all about that until this morning.

Thete was another recent report that said Arches essentially failed to build relationships within the community and had a lot of work to do to repair the damage they have done with how they handled community concerns.

I guess they're not going to get that chance now.

There was a lot of divisiveness in Lethbridge around this place. I only hope people can be more open minded to the new place. There is value in this place but it wasn't enough, it merely prolonged a vicious cycle.

[cal_guy]

Missing money found, no criminal charges involving Alberta drug site, police say

“The funds that were unaccounted for were actually found during this investigation and now they are accounted for,” police Chief Shahin Mehdizadeh told a news conference.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cana...+Article+Links

[blankall]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Isn't a common way to support addictions doing B&Es and pawning off stolen goods? Gotta think that's going to be a lot tougher with everybody home all day and nobody buying on Kijiji.

Conversely, cars and businesses are much less well monitored.

[chemgear]

So this additional 1.5 million that is now "accounted for" was also misspent as the original investigation found?

https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/missing-a...actForm%3Dtrue

Lethbridge Police Chief Shahin Mehdizadeh said the Alberta Justice Specialized Prosecutions branch supported the findings of the investigation and determined it would not recommend criminal charges, “as there wasn’t a reasonable likelihood of conviction and prosecution would not be in the public interest.”