Municipal policing in High River was up for discussion at last week's council meeting.

Mayor Craig Snodgrass says in the past by-law enforcement was more of a complaint-based process with no teeth.

"The way by-law has been handled for a number of years in High River is complaint based only, so you can do whatever you want as long as your neighbour doesn't squeal on you, nobody's out there actually looking," he says. "And then when there is a complaint, we go out and look at it but what we'd really do about it, 'could you pretty please not do that anymore and that's where it gets left."

He says it's no offense to the people who've worked in by-law enforcement in the past, they were doing what council had directed them to do.

A survey was done of residents, staff, and council earlier this year and community safety was a top priority.

The mayor says he's on board with the idea of CPO-1's, who can enforce more provincial traffic statutes taking some of the pressure off RCMP, but it comes with a cost.

"We've got to get serious about this, the problem is when you go to CPO-1's there's serious budget impacts that come with it," Snodgrass says. "But what we need to look at is what is the financial impact to the people of High River, is this worth it to the taxpayers, do they get enough value out of this that they're willing to pay for it And if we don't have the money to do it how do we do it, do we do a partnership with the (Foothills) MD?"

He says until council sees the Emergency Services Regionalization Study, that's been in the works for two years, council doesn't want to commit to anything.