INNISFAIL – It was a cold blustery evening for the first Innisfail RCMP Town Hall meeting of 2024 but about 60 local and area citizens still showed up, and no one was angry.
That’s always good news for the Mounties, and so was their messaging.
Crime statistics are down in many areas, and so is the Crime Severity Index, which monitors the severity level of police reported crime, while measuring the overall seriousness of crime from one year to the next.
The Town Hall audience on Jan. 22 was told the provincial average for crime severity is 103.2 while the town is below at 99.5, with the neighbouring rural area at 70.3.
And the good news continued as two important crime prevention and safety initiatives for the community received a timely announcement.
But despite the feel-good atmosphere from the evening, Innisfail RCMP know there is never any wiggle room for complacency.
“I think for the most part people are people are pleased, as much as they ever can be with the justice system and the police, right? Unfortunately, crime is still going to continue,” said Innisfail RCMP Staff Sgt. Ian Ihme immediately following the Town Hall meeting that was held in the auditorium of the Innisfail Royal Canadian Legion Branch #104.
“These meetings always seem to go well. People in the town they care; they come out and want to talk about stuff. Sometimes they just want to hear from us,” said Ihme. “I'd love to see a couple hundred people but it also shows me people really come out to these things when they're really mad, right? That's when you see the big huge turnouts.”
“This (evening) tells me that for the most part people are at least moderately satisfied with what's going on.”
The public attendance for last week’s Town Hall that was generously estimated at 60 was a far cry from the one almost four years when the auditorium was packed with up to 300 citizens concerned over rising rural crime.
Following presentations by Ihme; Gary Leith, the town’s manager of fire and protective services, and Arno Glover, the chair of the Innisfail Policing & Safe Community Committee, only a handful of citizen questions were raised to Ihme; all serious to each presenter and answered dutifully in detail by the detachment commander who offered further post-town hall one-on-one discussions immediately after.
The biggest news that came from the evening was the announcement the resurrected Innisfail chapter of Citizens On Patrol (C.O.P.) will finally start street patrols on Feb. 1.
Ihme said the resurrection of the C.O.P. was an issue that came directly from a local Town Hall meeting about a year and a half ago.
“That was something that wasn't on the mind of the detachment at the time but people brought it up,” said Ihme. “The Citizens On Patrol group we collected did a lot of work. There's a lot of government hoops to jump through to get not-for-profit societies created; insurance and bank accounts and all that kind of stuff.”
It was also announced on Jan. 22 that the Innisfail Policing & Safe Community Committee released its annual Community Safety and Well-being Survey earlier in the day.
“The overall aim is to provide us with a better understanding of residents’ concerns within the community,” Glover told the audience in his presentation.
Glover noted the 2024 survey was more comprehensive than in previous years, with its name changed from Community Safety Survey to Community Safety and Well-being Survey.
“It’s a little bit more enhanced. It's a little bit more rounded. But the overall aim is to get feedback on how residents feel within this community. So yes, it's different this year,” said Glover. “It's important to us because it provides us with invaluable insight and feedback.
“It allows us to further collaborate with the protective services departments and allows us to focus on the most important community safety issues that have been identified.
"Whether it's a serious nature or not so serious it doesn't matter. But we can focus on those areas that seem to be presenting residents with the greatest concerns.”
