ATHABASCA – The Athabasca RCMP’s work on drug issues in the area in the last year is starting to see results, says the detachment’s commanding officer.
Drug enforcement in the community was one of the priorities Athabasca town councillors asked for local law enforcement to focus on last year, and Staff Sgt. Mark Hall was back at the council table for the Feb. 15 regular meeting to talk about some of the progress that’s being made in that regard, the general state of crime and policing in the area, and a look ahead to the coming year.
“We did work on the drug issues here,” Hall told council. “We ended up doing some search warrants and four investigations turned up quite a bit of methamphetamine and a bunch of prescription pills for that. Also, through those investigations we were able to extend a cascading effect in getting some stolen property back … and a couple of our repeat offenders who were really causing some problems in the area, we got them into the court system and out of the area for quite some time.”
Hall added that just moments before the meeting started, he spoke with one of the members who had just conducted a search warrant and was able to retrieve some stolen property.
“We’ve got some really good stuff on the go right now and I’m pretty excited about that,” he said.
On Feb. 17, Const. Billy Kelly told the Advocate RCMP recovered a stolen car and a trailer from a property in Athabasca. The warrant came about after the stolen property was discovered at the residence while conducting patrols Feb. 6. The investigation is ongoing, he said.
The next priority was community engagement and visibility, which was a challenge because of the pandemic, but Hall said they still found ways to interact safely.
Hall’s first day at the Athabasca detachment was in September. Not long after that he was in front of a crowd of 22 residents at a meeting organized by the Athabasca Community Opportunities and Protection group.
“It went really, really well. We talked about things like homelessness issues, drugs, police funding and restorative justice,” he said, adding he also goes out of his way to bring other detachment members to public engagements, like that council meeting for instance, where he was joined by Cpl. Alan Caldwell.
“I want my members to see what this actually feels like, being put in the hot seat and that's just to give them an idea of what our communities are expecting, and why it’s so important that we're doing what we're doing here.”
As far as stats from the previous quarter, Hall noted, “It looks like we're going down in a lot of different areas here. You'll see an increase in the Controlled Drug and Substances charges, but we've spent some time in that area there to make sure we were getting some good successes.”
The other category that is way up in the last quarter is motor vehicle collisions, particular animal strikes.
“We’ve had a ton of animal collisions in the last quarter … it seems to be going up everywhere,” he said in response to a question from Coun. Ida Edwards.
Of the 188 MVCs in the last quarter, 80 per cent came as a result of an animal strike, especially deer.
Hall said he was also seeking priorities from the community for the coming year.
“I definitely want to hear feedback though, if there are specific things that the community has let you guys know about or have concerns with, or that you yourself have concerns with,” he added, noting a virtual town hall is scheduled for March 2. (Details on page 19.)
Coun. Sara Graling said she recently filled out an RCMP survey and identified homelessness, opioid abuse and member retention as her priorities, but as a group the council did not identify priorities at that time.
“Those were the three things I feel we should continue to focus on, so it’s great that you addressed all three of those today. I appreciate that,” she said.
Full roster coming soon
Hall also reported that for the first time in a long time the Athabasca RCMP Detachment will be fully staffed as of April 1 when a new constable arrives.
“I don’t think that in the four-plus years I’ve been on council that has ever been the case,” commented mayor Rob Balay.
Two new constables started at the detachment in November and are still in their training stage where they are teamed with a trainer “and their trainer’s job is to make sure they get in the field and patrol, patrol, patrol.”
“One of the things that we push on our members is to get out there in the community and not just drive around but actually engage with people and the feedback I'm getting from the communities is they’re hearing from members,” Hall said, adding that when the weather was warmer there were even some foot patrols.
An additional corporal is also currently house hunting in the area and “he'll hopefully be here in short order and alleviate some of the workload we have at the office. We're starting to get to a really good position here.”
Hall said previously he was also interested in bringing a sergeant to the detachment to assist in a more operational capacity. Mayor Balay said he would gladly write a letter to support that application to ‘K’ Division.
“As far as member retention levels are concerned, we’re definitely seeing people who want to stay around a lot longer. I’m hopeful that the new members coming in aren’t going to be in a rush once they’ve completed their service,” he said, noting new members are eligible for transfer after three years.
Coun. Edwards asked about the local housing market in relation to attracting new members to Athabasca.
“There’s just not enough on the market right now,” Hall replied. “Even for myself, I’m going to be looking to buy a house soon because I’m just renting right now and there’s not too much for sale in the communities.”
Cpl. Caldwell said housing availability seems to come and go in a cyclical pattern, so it can be hard to gauge. He shared that when he came to the community in 2013, there were three homes he was interested in purchasing but by the time he arrived in town, one was already off the market, and his family ended up purchasing a private listing.
It also depends greatly on how established the new member is, he said, with younger recruits opting for rentals more often, while more experienced members, with larger families, are often looking to buy.
“I've been fairly successful in my past detachments attracting experienced members, and that's my goal here, to start attracting some members that have a lot of experience,” Hall said. “This community is fantastic — it's been absolutely great to me and my family and we’ve been here long enough to know.”
