Battleford town council received its quarterly crime statistics at its Jan. 21 meeting and took care of some routine business.
First on the agenda was a visit from the Battlefords Harness Club, who donated $400 for walking trail maintenance. The Harness Club also came up later in the meeting, when a letter was presented to council about their sixth annual cutter rally, which will take place Feb. 9. The letter asked the town for the use of the Fort Battleford administration building for registration and later a catered supper. The town allowed them the use of the building for the approximately 100 people who are expected to participate in the rally.
The RCMP quarterly report revealed surprisingly few trends. Few statistics were up or down by significant margins, and there were even fewer trends over the last three years. Some exceptions included provincial traffic offences, which dropped significantly from 415 to 336, property offences, which increased from 227 to 280, drug offences, which increased from 26 to 55 and person offences, which increased from 58 to 76.
When viewed over the last three years, though, there are no traceable trends - all of the rises mentioned were preceded by a fall and vice-versa. This was S/Sgt Phil Wilson's conclusion at the meeting as well - that crime is neither rising nor falling in Battleford.
Also at the same meeting, the town committed itself to sponsoring an award for the Battlefords Kiwanis Music Festival Association, in the national anthem category.
Finally, the town enacted the third bylaw of 2013, which changed the town's assessment appeal fees for multi-family and commercial parcels per assessment roll number. If the assessment is less than 500,000, the fee is $150, if the assessment is between $500,001 and 1,000,000, the fee is $300, and if it is over $1,000,001, the fee is $450.
The town's administrator, Sheryl Ballendine, explained the system is closer to the system used by the school division. The bylaw replaced the previous bylaw on the matter, which was signed in 1997.
