ATHABASCA — On a typical day, a parking lot filled with black and white SUV’s, complete with lights, sirens, and the gamut of enforcement agency logos, isn’t a positive sign. But in small, rural communities like Grassland, the sight is a welcome one approximately once a year.
Boyle RCMP officers, Athabasca County community peace officers, and an officer from the Sheriff Highway Patrol gathered in the Grassland Community Hall March 28 for the last of their Athabasca County Town Halls to address concerns from local residents.
Grassland was the third stop of the week for the group, after hosting similar events in both Boyle and Wandering River March 26 and 27, respectively. The Grassland meeting saw eight attendees from the area, including county councillors Kelly Chamzuk and Gary Cromwell.
“Grassland was larger last year,” said Boyle RCMP Sgt. Dennis Properzi in an April 4 interview. Properzi has occupied the role of detachment commander in the village for more than a year and said the smaller turnout in 2024 wasn’t necessarily a negative.
“We had the same representation from the enforcement partners, and it went really well last year,” said Properzi. “Going into this year it didn’t seem like there was a whole bunch of community concerns. I feel that we got a pretty good relationship with the public.”
Residents in attendance voiced perspectives on a range of issues, from loud sirens disturbing cattle during sheriff training drills, whether digital or physical copies of identification can be accepted, to internal communication concerns.
One attendee expressed disappointment in the lack of knowledge-sharing between RCMP detachments in the area during crimes in progress, and inquired how rural detachments in the area, and even other agencies, communicate with each other to collaborate responses.
“Each agency that we have has a certain hat to wear in our jurisdiction,” said Properzi. “Our common goal is obviously serving the public and ensuring the safety of everybody, but we don’t always have the same communication channels.
“We’re working on that,” he added, “That’s obviously something that the province and K Division RCMP representatives are always working on. I don’t know when everybody’s going on board, if that’s going to be happening.”
Although no top-down solutions are set in stone, Properzi said the agencies and officers in the area do have their own methods of sharing information.
“Because we know each other well enough, we try to establish our ways of communicating,” he said. “My goal is to hopefully have each other aware. If somebody’s going to be in a remote Wandering River area, if they feel that there’s something that they need assistance with, they can reach out.”
Questions around property crime, a common thread through previous town halls around the county, were also addressed by officers, as were concerns about repeat offenders in the county.
“Rural property crime is always a concern, and that’s not something that’s going to go away,” said Properzi. “But we’re doing what we can to at least have the community a little more engaged."
He encouraged attendees at the meeting, and county residents at large, to report suspicious activity, noting the preventative power of preemptive patrols. “Even if it’s something that might not seem right, we can always check it out.”
Properzi compared positive changes being made throughout the justice system, particularly bail reform, to a large ship changing course.
“There’s a lot of public pressure on a lot of the government levels, as well as the courts,” said Properzi. “They are trying to look at methods of curbing some of the repeat offenders that are causing a lot of the work for not only the police, but the courts as well.
“There’s good ideas, I believe, that are going to be coming down … but those programs are just starting or getting resources funneled to them,” he added.
“Eventually, things will turn around, I believe for the better, but it’s going to take us some time to monitor those changes.”
