Sgt. Jamie Day of the Three Hills RCMP was in attendance at the Delburne village council meeting on Nov. 22, 2022 to update them on the work of the detachment.
He advised that calls of service to Delburne and area were greatly reduced since more tours were being made by officers into the area. He reported that crime policing was down but crimes against persons have been going up.
“In the case of sexual assaults, the detachment gets lots of timely help from Ottawa headquarters for DNA profiling and DNA testing”, said Sgt. Day. We also have access to sketch artists, adding that these services come without cost to the province or the detachment.
The detachment is currently short one officer so Sgt. Day has been covering some calls.
He continues to prioritize meeting community leaders and residents, attending parades, Remembrance Day ceremonies and Christmas events in all detachment-area communities.
“The more community policing”, said Sgt. Day, “the more crime policing goes down.”
Sgt. Day said the creation of their facebook page is going well and once the staff have been trained, it will be launched. It is a sharing platform, not a reporting platform.
“We want to hear directly from the people we serve about their concerns or suggested improvements”, said Sgt. Day.
Recreation and Culture Grant
Every five years, the County of Red Deer enters into agreements with the seven urban municipalities within its municipal boundaries to provide grant money to share the burden of operating and maintaining cultural and recreational facilities in towns and villages.
The formula includes a $42 per person fee for county members living in Delburne’s catchment area—currently 1,300. There is a base amount which under the new agreement was doubled from $2,500 to $5,000. Then there are lump sum grants for specific Delburne facilities including the curling rink, ball diamonds, cemetery, community hall, skateboard park, splash park and museum.
There is also a new inflation provision which increases the grant by 2.25 per cent in each of the five years.
The council unanimously approved a motion to accept the terms of the Recreation and Culture Grant Agreement which in year one represents $86,100.
“This grant makes a huge difference to the village”, said Mayor Tim Wilson. “It’s a good deal”.
Library board appointees
Tiffany Therrien and Rene Rusaw brought their names forward to join the library board. Both expressed a wish to offer their skills and time to further enhance the great work of the library.
Council unanimously approved their appointments.
Costly fire hydrants
Four to five fire hydrants in the village need replacement as parts are no longer available to keep them in working condition. The cost, however, to replace just one is $25,000.
Council asked the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Karen Fagan to ask larger municipalities such as the City of Red Deer whether it would be possible to piggyback off their replacement program and get a volume discount break, or whether there are any re-conditioned hydrants available to purchase.
It was agreed that the village should have a capital replacement program for hydrants knowing now how expensive they are to replace.
The CAO will bring forward her findings to the next meeting.
Big thanks from Outlaws
Members of two of the three Outlaw minor league hockey teams were on hand to model their new jerseys and thank council personally for the Village’s generous support to purchase new jerseys for the teams. The Village of Delburne logo is displayed at the back of each jersey.
Roundtable
Coun. Kathy Faulk has been exploring the idea of using labelled bottled water for promotion and donations. A contract would include 10,000 labelled bottles at .69 cents each. A pallet of water could be delivered one at a time. No decision was made.
Coun. Jeff Bourne said that as the village and homeowners put up more security cameras, these could become valuable tools for the RCMP.
The City of Red Deer has a program where homeowners register and then police know which homes have potential video evidence when a crime occurs.
It was suggested that the village could have a rebate program similar to the rain barrel rebate program for homeowners who wished to install security cameras and allow RCMP access to the footage if needed. This item will be brought forward at the council’s next workshop.
Coun. Andy Folks continues to pursue how the village could secure speed sign units now that the province stopped providing a grant to cover them. It was noted that Kneehill County has three mobile units which they share with their urban areas.
CAO Fegan was asked to talk to Red Deer County to see if something like this is available through them and also to call the Village of Elnora to see if it were possible to make an arrangement to share their speed sign.
Brenda Schimke
ECA Review
