After a long discussion at their meeting on Tuesday, Rocky Mountain House town council has decided to cut ties with two RCMP officers, due to budget reasons.
The decision made by council was not an easy one, and went into depth about possible substations instead of losing two officers.
Staff Sergeant Carl Dinsdale noted, he can’t give more with less, he can only give less with less. He also said that having more support staff would also greatly help officers with getting paper work done faster and thereby increasing the RCMP’s effectiveness.
An option that was brought up was only releasing one RCMP officer as well as releasing two Peace Officers. It was eventually agreed upon that releasing two Peace Officers would leave one Peace Officer with all the work in town. It was also discussed that giving Peace Officers more training would also help the community, as Peace officers are limited to working in town, while RCMP officers also work outside of Rocky, including in Clearwater County and in Indigenous communities because they can offer a higher level of service, according to Mayor Debbie Baich.
Councillor Len Phillips noted that after the federal government gave RCMP officers a raise of 25 per cent, council felt the increase could not be fit into Rocky’s budget. This came as a surprise to members of the community, according to council. Meantime, Staff Sergeant Dinsdale added, that because Rocky is already known for being a busy detachment and has one of the higher criminal case loads in the division and one of the highest crime severity indexes in the province, this means more serious crimes happen that require a more in-depth investigation and more man hours than a petty crime.
One unit considered for removal is the two-officer Crime Reduction Unit (CRU), which has had phenomenal success in keeping criminals in custody or keeping them under close police tabs, according to Dinsdale. He says the Crime Reduction Unit has also managed to seize numerous drugs and firearms in Rocky Mountain House, Clearwater County and surrounding areas, making the community safer.
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