MORE COPS TO HIT THE STREETS

It's all but a certainty that Fort McMurray's RCMP detachment will have
another traffic cop and drug enforcement officer sometime next year.

Regional council decided Tuesday to ask Canada's solicitor general to
provide two new constables to the oilsands city, and the top cop in the
region says these kinds of requests are almost never denied.

"The solicitor general grants the request, and the (municipality) has one
year to fill the positions," Insp. Paul McLennan told Today.

He said in his four years as detachment boss he's put together a plan to
handle the region's growth, using technology like photo radar and portable
computers in police cruisers.

"The detachment is coping.... There are two areas, however, that continue
to exert pressure on available resources," McLennan wrote in a memo to
council. "Increasing traffic within the city is putting more demands on the
two-member traffic unit and that unit requires additional resources.
...Fort McMurray is an ideal target for the drug trade and the problem is
increasing."

He pointed to similar-sized Alberta cities' detachments as examples of how
more resources are needed in the two areas here. Grande Prairie's traffic
unit has four members, while McMurray's has two. Red Deer has four drug
cops, compared with the oilsands city's two. McLennan had originally
estimated the two officers would cost the municipality an extra $160,000,
but he's still crunching numbers. If the actual per-year cost is more than
the budgeted amount, he'll arrange for the new members to start later in
the year, he said. Council's decision to ask the feds for the officers was
unanimous and without discussion.