Police give update to Taber residents at M.D. AGM

PROGRESS BEING MADE IN SETTING UP RURAL CRIME WATCH

With the Municipal District of Taber opening the doors up for their annual general meeting in late April, it allowed both the Taber/Vauxhall RCMP and community peace officers to give an update to residents.

As both organizations have been busy, the AGM held on April 30 at the new M.D. Operations and Maintenance building was a prime place to inform the public on what the two had been up to.

“Over the last few months, we have been working together to get a Rural Crime Watch group started in the M.D. of Taber and even encompassing some of the other areas. Right now, we have people interested from all over our detachment area,” said Sgt. Gord Yetman of the Taber/Vauxhall RCMP. “We held public meetings back in March and at the time we explained to everybody present at the meeting what the benefit would be to having a rural crime watch group for the M.D. and area. The benefits are obviously for more eyes and ears to the police to be a sort of force multiplier for us and finding out what is happening in the rural area. As you are aware, we are a fairly small detachment with a fairly large area to cover, about 4,100 square kilometres I believe.”

Since those meetings, more progress has been made in getting RCW up and running in the M.D.

“We held a meeting on April 24 where we brought all together all the people who were interested in forming a board and we were successful in forming a Rural Crime Watch board. We have seven people on there,” continued Yetman. “The board is now looking at forming an association, they will be doing a membership drive in the future and hopefully recruiting people from around the M.D. to form that crime watch group. The board will be working closely with the Alberta provincial Rural Crime Watch Associate who will help them with the next steps in terms of getting the association formed.”

While the organization will rely on volunteers, the RCMP will be a key contributor in making sure dialogue is open between the groups.

“The RCMP will be involved and we will have a liaison assigned to the group so we will be communicating freely with them. We will also see some involvement from the CPOs and the M.D,” said Yetman.

With the introduction of the program on the horizon, Yetman shared a story of why the program has seen success in other communities.

“I remember talking to a young offender many years ago and he was talking to me about what deterred him from committing crimes in rural areas. He told me ‘the things that scare me off are angry dogs, bright lights and those yellow signs.’ Those yellow signs he was referring to was the Rural Crime Watch signs, back when in those days.”

On top of RCW, the RCMP has plenty of other irons in the fire.

One of the standouts for Yetman is the RCMP’s focus on crime reduction and prevention.

“Over the last few years, the RCMP has put a lot of resources into crime reduction and crime prevention. What we have done is stood up crime reduction units, Airdrie has them, Edmonton has them. Those crime reduction units also have crime analysts working with them. These are people whose sole job is to go through files every single day and start looking for commonalities between say a break and enter in the M.D. and a break and enter in Lethbridge.”

A question came from former M.D. councillor Bob Wallace around how the RCMP and CPO’s were working together since the introduction of the former in late 2017.

“I like to think we have an excellent working relationship with the CPOs and with the M.D. That relationship makes my job easier as the detachment commander and we get together with the CPOs on a regular basis,” replied Yetman.

The CPO program idea was formed from a prior AGM where residents were concerned with the growing amount of local crime in the region.

With that in mind, the topic was brought to this AGM to gauge feedback from the ratepayers on the impact of the CPO program.

A question from M.D. resident Jim Rabusic was around how many hours and days CPOs work during a normal week.

“Community Peace Officers, two of them, work 37.5 hours a week and their shifts vary. They work Monday to Friday but they do work weekends and some afternoon and evenings. Lately, they have been up early in the morning to get to some of the school zones.

Councillors Jack Brewin and Mark Garner investigated the proposed locations, with Brewin inquiring if the new lighting was to be installed on existing poles.

“It would be a lot bigger cost if you put actual street lighting in, and it would have to be in somebody’s parking area,” replied Scherer. “So it will just use what’s there.”

Brewin also asked if area business owners had been approached as a possible alternative.

“Have we considered — I own a building further down one of those alleys — I would be more than willing to put a light on that building, and even pay the power costs, it’s fine. Have we explored businesses putting lights up?”

Scherer appeared to be concerned about town liability involved in such a scenario.

“It’s more of an issue of maintenance then. If someone comes and breaks in, is the town going to be liable for that, or the business owner? This way they’re all elevated, they’re LED lights, they’re nice and bright.”

Brewin was also interested in the intensity of the proposed lighting, with Scherer explaining that the lights to be installed would be 150 watts, which exceeds the town’s standard street light intensity of 90 watts.

“Being that they’re so much brighter, is this going to affect the residents that have apartments in those back lanes there?” questioned Coun. Joe Strojwas.

Scherer suggested there will be an unavoidable lighting increase in the area, but that this shouldn’t be a cause for concern for residents.

Following discussion, council voted unanimously to approve the purchase and installation.