MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY - Mountain View County's council has decided not to ask area RCMP detachments to step-up enforcement in the West Country area west of Cremona and Sundre this summer.
At the March 12 council meeting, council instructed administration to ask area RCMP detachments to provide extra officers for all long weekends for additional support in the West Country. Council also instructed administration to engage the Town of Sundre, Rocky Mountain House and Clearwater County in the lobbying efforts.
“Following the meeting, administration reached out to both Didsbury and Sundre RCMP detachments to better understand the challenges they experience in the West Country, what additional resources they would be in favour of receiving to assist with those challenges,” the county's chief administrative officer, Jeff Holmes, told council members at the April 23 council meeting.
The Didsbury RCMP identified no resource constraints with the West County area located within the detachment’s jurisdiction and is not in need of any additional resources, he said.
The Sundre RCMP detachment indicated it “would always be in support of additional resources to assist on busy weekends in the detachment area,” he said.
The Sundre RCMP detachment commander told county officials that in the event that the county wishes to secure additional resources for these busy weekends, the county would be required to enter into an enhanced policing agreement (and) this agreement would come at a cost to Mountain View County and any of the partners in the project, he said.
Reeve Angela Aalbers said, “So the recommendation is that we do not request additional support from the RCMP.”
Council carried a motion receiving Holmes’ report as information with no further action to be taken.
