With nine of the 22 members of the rural detachment of the RCMP and as many as half of the area's total 76 officers living right in Battleford, town council is feeling secure in its policing situation.
"When you are talking about the nearest RCMP member responding we should probably be in good shape," Mayor Derek Mahon joked at a council meeting Monday, during a visit by the staff sergeants of the RCMP Battlefords Detachment and RCMP Rural Detachment.
Battlefords RCMP S/Sgt. Phil Wilson and Battlefords Rural Detachment S/Sgt. Howard Nodwell were there to discuss the changes in the provincial policing agreement that have seen Battleford's policing responsibilities moved from the city detachment to the rural detachment.
"We don't foresee a lot of change with the level of policing that's going to be experienced," said Wilson in what was his last policing report to town council now that Battleford is under Nodwell's jurisdiction.
Both the rural and city officers work out of the same building, said S/Sgt. Wilson, and in the interests of "common sense and practicality," in the case of an emergency, the nearest officer will respond, regardless of which detachment they are with.
"We are here to protect life and that's what it boils down to. We've worked that way always; that won't change."
The past arrangement basically had Battleford, which once had its own RCMP detachment, hiring five "resources" and putting them into the city detachment.
"The five resources that were tied to the town supplemented the city a certain amount and in turn the city provided 24-hour coverage and certain niceties to the town that the town might not have had before," said Wilson.
Things will continue much as they were, only those five resources are now under Nodwell's detachment. The five resources were not five particular officers dedicated to Battleford only, Wilson explained.
"We all worked both sides of the river," he said. "We didn't point at one member and say everything in Battleford is your's today."
All of the Battlefords resources are housed in the same North Battleford building, said Nodwell, "so there is an obvious advantage to Battleford and the city of North Battleford having all of those resources based out of a location that's in close proximity, and at any given time there are a number of police officers coming or going within the communities."
Wilson noted in addition to the municipal and rural detachments that work out of the same building there is also the General Investigation Section, or "plainclothes" section, and a provincial traffic section serving the larger area, neither of which work under himself or Nodwell. But in an emergent situation, everyone reacts, said Wilson.
"If I had a shooting in the city of North Battleford, I would probably have everybody coming from all those sections and the same if it happened down here [in Battleford]. We'd all come, because it's an emergency."
Nodwell said, since nine of the 22 rural members live in Battleford, town residents may frequently see marked police cars in driveways "in the wee hours of the morning." That means the officer is on call.
"So quite often the responding member may be closer than the detachment," he pointed out. "They may be a couple of blocks over."
Wilson added city detachment members rarely take cars home, so a marked car in a driveway is almost always a rural member on call.
The change in coverage is a result of the RCMP and the province aligning policing resources in the latest Provincial Policing Service Agreement. As a town under 5,000 population, in the new agreement Battleford is among those who pay a per capita rate funded by the province. Communities from 5,000 to 15,000 pay 70 per cent of the policing costs (the category North Battleford falls into) and over 15,000 population communities pay 90 per cent.
The new agreement was made a year ago, however the Battlefords were left as they were for a year, and effective April 2013, the RCMP Central District Management Team in the F Division Saskatchewan decided to bring the circumstances in line with the rest of the provincial policing resources. The five resources formerly paid for by Battleford are now under Nodwell's detachment, and the detachment boundaries have been altered to accommodate the change.
"We're excited about the change," Nodwell told council members. "We're familiar with the town of Battleford, the crime rate and calls for service, and it's an advantage for us to have those five resources that are available."
