BARRHEAD – Until the County of Barrhead can create a community policing department, the Town of Morinville will provide the municipality's bylaw enforcement service.
On Feb. 7, councillors authorized the municipality to enter into a temporary service agreement with Morinville to provide its community peace officer (CPO) service.
County manager Debbie Oyarzun said that since 2016, the municipality contracted its bylaw enforcement service from Lac Ste. Anne County.
However, she said that because of the increasing price of the contract, in September 2021, councillors instructed administration to investigate the potential of taking over the service by creating an in-house bylaw enforcement department and hiring a CPO.
When the municipality first contracted Lac Ste. Anne County, the County of Barrhead was charged $60 per hour to receive 80 hours of CPO service.
But by 2021 that rate had increased to $88.50 per hour, and starting in 2023, the rate would have jumped to $105 per hour.
"Keeping in mind that the rate was all-inclusive, it is a reasonable hourly rate, but the only challenge was that we were only getting 80 hours a month of service, which is only part-time," she said. "So when we did a cost comparison study, for a little bit more (because we would have to include costs such as vehicles) we could hire our own CPO and get full-time hours.”
Again, she reiterated that while the county received good service from Lac Ste. Anne, there were challenges such as case continuity.
"Getting the same officer taking a file to resolution was difficult under the contract," Oyarzun said. "We would have different officers handling the same files and losing continuity and momentum, and we did not have enough of their dedicated time."
She added that in September 2022, Lac Ste. Anne County informed them that the municipality, as contracts expired, planned to enter into five-year agreements with all the municipal partners contracting CPO services with them.
"And if you terminated early, they required one-year severance, which was a little bit disconcerting as council had authorized me to pursue our own (community peace officer) program, costing us a year's payment," Oyarzun said.
As a result, following a Dec. 6 in-camera session, Barrhead informed Lac Ste. Anne County that they would be letting their CPO service lapse on Jan. 31, 2023.
Oyarzun said they had been hoping to be able to have a transition period with Lac Ste. Anne County until the county could establish its CPO program, giving notice of impending termination sometime towards the end of the first quarter of 2023.
Before the county can hire a CPO, not only must the municipality have all the tangible things in place, such as a vehicle and other equipment needed, the county must receive its "authorized employer" status from Alberta Justice.
"The application is extensive," Oyarzun said. "First, we must have a traffic safety plan signed off by the RCMP, a (memorandum of understanding) with the RCMP, a CPO code of conduct, along with a long list of policies to be approved, like public complaints against a peace officer, a discipline process, public privacy, use of patrol vehicle, emergency response, uniform, use, training and storage of weapons, records management, known risk and body camera policies, among others."
As a stop-gap measure until the municipality completes all the necessary steps to create its program, she recommended that the municipality sign a temporary short-term agreement, to provide CPO service with Morinville until the end of the year.
"They have a full-time sergeant and two CPOs along with seven casual CPOs that they can schedule, including the municipalities that they have service agreements with," she said, predicting the county would need anywhere from 30 to 80 hours of CPO service a month.
Morinville charges $105 per hour for the service, all-inclusive and there is a 30-day termination clause with no severance required. The amount is included in the 2023 interim operating budget.
Coun. Bill Lane noted that the county was also considering asking Woodlands County to provide CPO service temporarily, asking why they went with Morinville.
Oyarzun corrected Lane saying that Lac Ste. Anne provides Woodlands County's bylaw enforcement service, noting they recently signed the previously mentioned five-year agreement.
It is worth mentioning that as reported in the Feb. 7edition of the Town and Country This Week, the five-year contract Woodlands County signed with Lac Ste. Anne is for $140 per hour and increases three per cent annually.
Coun. Preugschas asked if there would be an additional fee for training the Morinville CPOs, suggesting they would need time to learn about the area and any files they would need to take over.
Oyarzun replied that training costs would be negligible, suggesting a two-hour meeting should suffice, for which they would be charged the $105 hourly rate.
Deputy reeve Marvin Schatz interjected that he was frustrated that the process of creating a bylaw enforcement department was taking so long.
"In October 2021, we talked about this and directed administration to work towards getting our own (bylaw enforcement)," he said. "Here we are about 16 months later, trying to get another contract with somebody when we were expecting to have this in place by the third quarter of 2022. We should have our own officer by now and not still be talking about how to get there."
Oyarzun replied she was confused about why Schatz would say that.
She said that although council discussed creating a county bylaw enforcement department as a priority project to consider for 2022.
"When we introduced it in 2022, it was for the 2023 budget," Oyarzun said. "The discussion about bringing it in the third or fourth quarter of 2022 was only if we could make it at that time."
She noted that even if they had been ready to roll out the program in 2022, there still was no budget.
"The work involved is extensive, and if I could clear everything off my desk, perhaps I could get it done in two weeks, but that is not a luxury I have," Oyarzun said. "I also asked for council's input on the traffic safety plan, and to date, I've only received input from one individual."
