It pleases me that my ideas of looking at efficiencies within the St. Albert RCMP detachment has become an election issue. A recent article said that I thought the current model should be “scrapped to save taxpayer dollars. I hopefully have not been misunderstood. I would like to come up with our own unique model. This requires time and consultation and until this time I am in support of providing our RCMP with the resources they require.

I have been resolute in my commitment to our RCMP detachment. They do a remarkable job keeping our city safe and hence we are ranked one of the safest cities in Canada. I am so proud of their efforts in our community and feel privileged to be somewhat involved as chair of the RCMP Community Advisory Committee (CAC). The “No Call Too Small” policing model that our city has adopted is a fantastic service. It would be wonderful to be able to respond to every call with promptness and compassion, and it is my preferred model, but can we afford it? In tough economic times when our residents are feeling the burden of residential taxes are we willing to accept the incremental increase in our taxes with every new officer required to keep this level of service. I believe this is an area that we can work more efficiently by coming up with a new uniquely designed police model that will prioritize calls. St. Albert has its own problems in areas of drugs, organized crime, reckless driving and youth issues. I believe our officer’s time is better spent focusing on the root causes of crime than it is responding to non urgent matters. Proactive policing activities such as patrolling parks, running preventative programs such as DARE and ensuring our safety before a crime is committed. Non-urgent matters still need to be analysed to understand trends and areas that require more patrols. Incidents need to be reported. I believe residents should be encouraged to come down to the detachment and fill out a report or we could investigate an online reporting process. It is a complex balance and in order to develop a new model we need in include input from community partners such as city hall, CAC, Neighbourhood Watch, Citizen Patrol and Edmonton Police. A balance needs to be found between our budget and our program.