MANNVILLE WANTS POLICE

MANNVILLE -- Two Mannville residents have taken to the local streets
to try and re-establish a police presence in the town.

Joyce Wasalasko and Al Good created a petition stating an "urgent
need for increased police presence in our community. We insist that
the Mannville RCMP detachment be re-established and that the
community receive a minimum of 12 hours of police presence per day."

Wasalasko believes the town has problems only the police can fix,
including drugs.

"It's needed. We both saw a need. We are fed up with the noise and
the kids running wild [up and down the streets with their vehicles].
We felt a lot of drug houses are popping up because they're leaving
the cities and coming to small towns where there's not much police
presence."

Wasalasko said she has notified the RCMP of the drugs in town.

"They know about it, and they're working on it," she said.

Wasalasko and Good went and researched the legalities of forming an
official petition to send to the government. The petition has been
completed and the two are in the process of having it sent off to the
proper authorities.

"We went to every house in Mannville, and sometimes we went two or
three times because some weren't home the first time and we wanted to
make sure they had an opportunity to sign."

Wasalasko and Good have collected support from 64 per cent of
eligible electors, which equates to 350 people. Wasalasko said the
response was positive.

"They snatched it up out of our hands and signed it. About 95 per
cent of them say it's about time somebody did something about it."

Wasalasko says she has the support of the town of Mannville as well
as MP Leon Benoit and MLA Lloyd Snelgrove.

"Stephen Harper promised in his election platform that he was going
to put money into front line policing. (Two weeks ago) he announced
there was going to be 1,000 extra policemen on the street - and we
want a couple of them here in Mannville."

The RCMP sent a letter to the village of Mannville in March of 1999
with their intention to vacate their offices in town. They also
stated they intended to remove their residency requirement for an
officer in the community.

Sgt. Dave Neigum of the Vermilion detachment said the closure was
partly a financial decision.

"They're 12 miles from Vermilion. It was no longer cost effective to
administrate two offices within that close proximity. That was a
major reason behind closing it."

Neigum felt the Vermilion detachment had an adequate response time to
calls in Mannville.

"If it's a traffic related matter, it depends what our guys are doing
whether they respond right away. If they were free, they'd respond
right away. If they had other matters of priority they were attending
to, they probably wouldn't see them right away."

Neigum said he encourages Mannville residents to call the detachment
with their concerns.

"We always encourage people to phone us when it (crime) happens, but
we always hear about it after the fact, with no details. We can't be
everywhere - people need to let us know and tell us in detail."

As far as drugs are concerned Neigum said the detachment is
investigating the situation.

"It depends what you mean by the word `problem'. Are there some users
and some drug traffickers in Mannville? We believe there are."

Neigum said RCMP have to follow certain rules and procedures when
investigating issues related to drugs and having a detachment in
Mannville may not make that much of a difference.

"Whether we lived in Mannville and performed the same duties I'm not
sure it would benefit them anymore. Are the people (trafficking
drugs) getting paid attention to? I believe yes they are. I think
it's handled totally adequately from here."

Mannville mayor Germaine Hill felt the RCMP did do a good job of
patrolling the community.

"Mannville has seen an increase in illegal activities since we lost
our police detachment, but we commend the Vermilion RCMP for the work
they've done. We understand there is sometimes a delayed response to
calls due to the manpower."

The Vermilion detachment is fully staffed at the moment with nine
officers handling general policing duties and six traffic patrol
members.