Policing is something I get asked about a lot, probably the most often as a Public official actually. I have had days that I have heard frustrations from residents who have received tickets for something and on the same day had complaints that the cops aren’t around enough. It is interesting but you have to know that they aren’t security guards, they will be issuing tickets from time to time. Small town living allows a more relaxed lifestyle where the odd innocent infraction gets overlooked but along with having more police comes more tickets for the little things as well as the peace of mind of having a police presence. We have 3 different police entities, the RCMP that are provided by the Province, the Sherriffs office traffic enforcement also provided by the Province and the County Peace officers provided by Rocky View County. In the recent years the number of Peace officers has been increased, I had many people want to see more traffic enforcement and Council authorized a budget increase to accommodate. Last year’s Budget suggestion was accepted to provide an enhanced service from the RCMP in adding an officer to the Strathmore Detachment so that our area gets an increased amount of enforcement. I have learned that an additional officer has now been hired so we should see some more Mounties around in the next little while.
Bylaws are another matter. There are bylaws for many things in the County, from dogs to noise and from fireworks to parking. There are bylaws for snow fences, for unsightly premises, for pumping, for weeds, for signs and many more. Most of the Bylaws are there to provide the ability for Peace officers or Officers to be able to make people stop doing something to excess and most often the excess either bothers or harms someone else. There is no patrol for Bylaw infractions and there is no one constantly inspecting or trying to keep everyone in line. Enforcement is mainly done on a complaint basis, if someone is doing something that bothers someone else they can always lodge a complaint and then the enforcement department opens a file and investigates to see if a warning should be issued of a fine imposed or any other action taken. In a perfect world, no one would ever need to call a complaint in. That isn’t to say that no one ever does anything that annoys or bothers anyone, but in small town Alberta I always hope that a neighbor can speak to another neighbor to address something without a fear that either one is going to hold it against the other. Kinda like a “code of the west”. You know live and let live, things like that.
Lately I have been hearing about neighbors calling Bylaw on neighbors, then they call Bylaw about something else, then someone a block away calls on someone and they think it is the neighbor but it isn’t, then that guy sees a bunch of other people doing the same thing so he calls on them, you can see how it gets carried away in a hurry. I’m not saying you should never call enforcement, just get to know the neighbors well enough that you can give or receive a suggestion every now and then. We sort of missed a summer of having a brew in the garage this year since it rained all year but maybe we can start to have a coffee with a neighbor every now and then…and tell ‘em to pick up the dog poo once in a while with a sly grin.
