The President of the Foothills Rural Crime Watch Association is happy to see the Province adding 500 more RCMP Officers to rural detachments over the next three years.

Don Larson says the move has been in the wind for a while.

"(Justice) Minister (Doug) Schweitzer said he was going to do this. So, it looks like they're delivering on that side of the promise. But again, like so many other things, the Devil's in the details. How all of this is going to work and where the allocation of where the manpower is going to be. And of course it now all comes with a price tag for all the municipalities, the rural MD's and County's."

Larson says it's obviously too early to tell how many new officers will be coming to the Foothills, but he says he has an idea of what he'd like to see happen when they get here.

"Maybe they can then turn them into the "Rapid Response" program that the RCMP had where they can deal quickly with situations that then develop. If they have the manpower, you know, they've got that available tool."

Local municipalities like Foothills County and Town's with a population under 5,000, like Nanton, Turner Valley, Black Diamond and Vulcan, will be asked to pick up 10 per cent of the tab in for the new Mounties in 2020, 20 per cent in 2021 and 30 per cent in 2022.

High River and Okotoks, who already pay the lions share of their policing costs, won't see an increase, with High River Mayor Craig Snodgrass saying High River already pays 70 per cent of the cost of their RCMP detachment.

 

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