BONNYVILLE – While much focus of the MD of Bonnyville’s peace officers is to deter crime and enforce municipal bylaws, members are often kept busy with a wide range of community calls, enforcing the provincial Traffic Safety Act, and engaging with students through presentations.
Luis Gandolfi, the MD’s director of Public Safety, presented the work being done by the municipality’s peace officers in a quarterly report spanning from October to December of 2022 to the MD of Bonnyville council on Feb. 14.
“Many of our Crime Prevention Patrols involve MD property and Infrastructure,” said Gandolfi.
Of the areas patrolled by MD peace officers that are Geofenced, members spent the majority of their time patrolling bin sites, logging 88 visits, followed closely by checks to municipal landfills, logging 82 visits during the fourth quarter of 2022.
A Geofence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. To create a Geofenced boundary, GPS and other software are used to trigger a response when a mobile device enters or leaves a particular area.
Other locations regularly patrolled include community halls, grader shops, fire halls, campgrounds, and Kinosoo Ridge. Gandolfi noted that this data did not include time spent driving on highways or in hamlets, only locations that had Geofencing established.
When responding to questions from council about the time spent monitoring waste facilities, Gandolfi said, “We do have criminality at the bin sites, and we do have other issues as well at the landfill. We've had people drive through our landfill gates, we've had people come in and steal and pillage through some of the rubbish, so we do have criminality there.”
The MD’s Public Safety Department also partners with industry to deliver patrol services at well sites and on service roads.
“In the fourth quarter of 2022, we delivered 288 hours of patrol services to our industry partners on a fee for service basis,” Gandolfi told council.
Over the last quarter, MD peace officers spent the most hours patrolling Wards 1 and 5. The least number of hours were spent patrolling Wards 2 and 3. However, Wards 1,2 and 6 had the highest number of total visits – 1,776, 598, and 430 respectively.
Peace offices travelled to Glendon 137 times, made 212 trips to Ardmore, 43 to Cherry Grove, and 242 visits to Fort Kent during that same period.
Following the presentation, Coun. Ben Fadeyiw said, “My comments, like they have been in the last year and a half, have been the amount of hours spent in Cherry Grove and area. The landfill there is one of the biggest [sites] that has been seen with illegal dumping.”
Fadeyiw thanked the department for the time spent visiting the landfill in Cherry Grove.
In total 54,436 km were racked up by MD peace officers patrolling the municipality from October to December.
Traffic stops spot big concerns
A big component of peace officers’ work involves inspecting commercial vehicles for safety violations on roads and highways within the MD, said Gandolfi.
In the last quarter, MD Peace Officers conducted 112 commercial vehicle inspections resulting in 37 trucks being pulled from service for a variety of offences. He explained that the severity of the offence dictated the length of time a commercial vehicle was out of service.
“Overweight vehicles damaging MD roads are a priority for public safety,” he said. “This quarter, three violators were apprehended.”
Over the last three months, peace officers have found several vehicles violating safety offences on area roads. A vehicle was found with tape used to seal a fuel tank, a vehicle with crushed air bags, a vehicle travelling with no hub oil and a broken airline, as well as a vehicle found driving with its Pitman Arm rubbing directly on a moving tire.
Other violations saw drivers travelling with chains not secured and one instance where a large structure was not strapped to a trailer hauling it.
MD peace officers handed out 453 provincial warnings, 270 provincial tickets and 15 bylaw tickets in the last quarter.
Community outreach
Gandolfi added that members investigated four trespassing incidents and dealt with 29 dog complaints.
“Dogs have been a growing problem in the MD as the volume of complaints has risen over our figures from last year,” he told council. While dog complaints are growing overall, the fourth quarter of 2022 saw a 10 per cent drop compared to the same quarter the year before.
The Public Safety Department is also working on a new Consolidated Public Safety Bylaw that would see increases in fines in an attempt to increase accountability of dog owners. “We hope it will encourage responsible dog ownership moving forward,” said Gandolfi.
MD peace officers also serve as School Resource Officers and delivered 440 presentations to over 9,824 students in 23 area schools during the fourth quarter. These school presentations fulfilled the department's mandates set for 2022.
The MD’s Public Safety Department has also carried out joint operations with other emergency services.
“This quarter, Public Safety has participated in 18 law enforcement related projects, files, or investigations, and those numbers are continuing to climb” he said.
These partnerships include joint force operations with RCMP, Bonnyville Regional Fire Authority, EMS, Fish and Wildlife, Military Police, and other area peace officer programs.
