Committee and rural crime task force options in local crime battle

Property crime continues be a thorn in the side of business owners in Red Deer’s industrial areas west of the QEII.

Crime happening in the Queen’s, Burnt Lake and Belich business parks prompted around 30 community members to come out Wednesday morning for a brainstorming session, the fourth such meeting held in the last couple years.

Also in attendance were City and Blackfalds RCMP, city councillors Buck Buchanan and Vesna Higham, and Red Deer – Mountain View MP Earl Dreeshen.

According to Suzie Dietrich, Manager at Nor-Ag Ltd. and mastermind behind the community meetings, the next step is the formation of a committee which could include input from local RCMP and the City’s new Protective Services Division.

Dietrich says right now though, the key is for area businesses to report anything suspicious.

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“It’s a hard question for the cops to answer, it’s a hard question for me to answer,” said Dietrich on whether or not there’s a clear solution to the rampant crime. “If we’re not reporting, if we don’t have these stats, everyone’s just talking. It doesn’t matter if you’re walking around the building, or you see tracks in the morning in the snow, or you see fingerprints on your glass, report it. They [RCMP] are saying it’s not a burden on them.”

Inspector Gerald Grobmeier with Red Deer RCMP says property crime is unfortunately plaguing the entire region, not just these specific business districts.

“We’re very happy with persons crimes which keep going down, we just have to finally get a handle on the property crime,” Grobmeier said. “You heard a lot of discussion about the root causes, be it drugs, mental health, homelessness — they all contribute to crime here in Red Deer and everywhere.”

According to Dreeshen, there could be a new solution coming down the pipe to fight the crime rate in rural areas like the west-side business parks.

“We’re working on a framework for an Alberta rural crime task force,” Dreeshen noted. “My colleague Blaine Calkins, myself and Jim Eglinski are the co-chairs of this task force and as a Conservative caucus, we are looking at bringing together all of the different groups, municipalities, police forces and so on, to make sure we’re working in a concentrated fashion.”

Work on getting the task force up and running will hopefully happen over the next month, according to Dreeshen who admits the idea only came about two weeks ago.

City Councillor Vesna Higham says whether talking about the business parks or the region as a whole, there is no clear solution.

“What is clear is that we need people working together, we need a multi-pronged approach where different orders of government are lobbied or we advocate with different levels of government,” she said. “City council doesn’t have the jurisdiction or the resources to deal with all of this.

Higham says it’s great that there’s a real desire for business owners to band together, and adds it’s unfortunate some are being forced to pay out of pocket for private security, but that’s the reality of the situation.

“The one guy hit it right on the head,” Higham continued. “We have an opiate crisis that is fueling crime in this area. We need to deal with this on many fronts.”

As for the idea floated by Dietrich of completely blocking off access to the business parks, Paul Goranson with the City’s Protective Services division says that’s pretty much a non-starter as it’s basically impossible to shuit down public roadways.

Goranson also confirms the City will look at being part of future discussions.