Just two items are on St. Albert city council's meeting agenda this week: a potential increase to the local RCMP detachment's authorized force, and the likely repeal of a bylaw from the 1970s.
As the Gazette has previously reported, the St. Albert RCMP detachment is trying to manage staffing, as just 55 officers are currently policing the city of 70,000, despite having approval to have 70 officers.
A recent report to council, written by the city's director of emergency services and current fire chief, Everett Cooke, says one strategy the city could employ to try to recruit more officers in St. Albert is to increase the authorized strength of the force to 75.
Cooke's report says the strategy, referred to as “over asking” is “often” used by other municipalities, “thereby increasing the city's chances to achieve their desired level of officers.”
“To put forward the formal request to the federal government to increase the number of RCMP officers assigned to St. Albert from 70 to 75, the Mayor is required to send a letter with such request to the federal government,” Cooke wrote. “Once [the letter is] received, the RCMP will work to address the request... by training new members or by redeploying any available members to St. Albert.”
“This process is not immediate, and it may take upwards of a year before we [receive] any new officers.”
The Gazette will have further coverage of council's discussion and decision in the Thursday, Nov. 9, edition of the newspaper and online.
Old bylaw being repealed
The only other item on the Nov. 7 council meeting agenda is the repeal of the city's Penalty Bylaw, which has remained untouched since receiving council approval back in 1976, when St. Albert was still a town.
The Penalty Bylaw, the city's director of legal and legislative services Marta Caufield wrote in a report to council, was created to impose penalties on bylaw infractions.
Caufield said the city's current practice is to assign infraction penalties to each bylaw as they are created, rather than having an overarching bylaw that exists solely to outline what penalties are applicable for bylaw infractions.
“The city does not rely on the Penalty Bylaw and it is no longer required.”
As of Monday morning, the bylaw's repeal is set to pass on consent, meaning there will be no council debate.
