Revival of bike patrols proposed

The busy streets of Saipan could soon find at least 20 men and women in blue shirts and shorts mounted on mountain bikes and patrolling the island at night—if the idea gets off the ground.

Securewest International’s Pacific’s Professional Security Company is working to revive the long-dormant Community Watch Bike Patrol and has already presented the proposal to two business groups on the island: the Saipan Chamber of Commerce and the Hotel Association of Northern Mariana Islands.

Securewest sales and marketing manager Christopher P. Belanger presented the proposal to the Chamber during its monthly meeting at the Aqua Resort Club yesterday. Before this, he made a similar presentation to HANMI.

Belanger said the bike patrol is a community and business solution—in partnership with the Department of Public Safety—to reduce the prostitution activity in Garapan, protect tourists from harassment, and keep them safe from criminal activities.

“This is basically to clean up the Garapan area,” Belanger said, adding that he hopes to start the project a month from now.

Belanger said the bike patrol was implemented years ago but due to lack of support and funding, DPS had to drop the program from its priorities.

To ensure the new project’s viability, Securewest wants to establish tie-ups with the business sector to support the project. Belanger said that Matson’s Phil Santos and other firms have already expressed their interest in the project.

The proposal states that there would be three bike patrol officers in uniform to man the streets of Garapan, from the Hyatt Regency Saipan, American Memorial Park to the intersection of Hard Rock Café, DFS complex and the Bank of Guam building.

Belanger said the critical areas to be observed are the Coffee Tree Mall Street near Treasure Island Poker facility, a street at the rear of the GIG Discotheque, and areas from the Garapan Elementary School intersection on Beach Road through the Bank of Guam intersection.

Bike patrol officers will be working seven days a week, from 6pm to 2am. They will observe any illegal activity or unwanted incidents during their eight-hour daily shifts. They will make it a point to report on the status every 15 minutes to Securewest. The SWI control office will then contact DPS or other pertinent agencies for response, if needed.

Belanger said bike patrol officers would write down descriptions of any incident in a logbook that will be reported to proper authorities.

The cooperation of the business community in realizing the project is highly needed, said Belanger. He is now seeking their help by donating mountain bikes and safety gears to be used in the operation. Securewest will maintain the bicycles and will provide the uniforms for the officers of the bike patrol.

Donations of storage space for the bikes and radiophones are also being sought from the community. He said Securewest is donating two hours of airtime per night.

Securewest will be providing the training to the bike patrol officers. The training would include CPR and First Aid sessions. He also said he is requesting members of the Chamber to donate at least $4.80 per day to provide for one hour of service by the bike patrol officers.