Chestermere municipal enforcement has increased public engagement as presented in the quarter two report to city council on Nov. 5.
“Our officers are conducting regular foot patrols in the parks and beaches, this increases our presence in these areas,” said Chestermere Municipal Peace Officer Sergeant Trever Bowman
“It also makes our members much more approachable and facilitate positive interactions with residents and visitors of the city,” said Bowman.
During quarter two, municipal enforcement continued to focus on patrolling the beaches, parks, and lake while also visiting schools, and community events.
Community policing and engagement is a relativity new component to municipal enforcement, where peace officers conducted 41 school visits, which consisted of student interactions, lunch box talks with students, and discussions regarding traffic and safety concerns with staff.
Although municipal enforcement is focusing on public engagement, there has been an increase of bylaw violations from April to June of this year.
“Our by-law violations are up significantly. What we’ve done is we focused more on our bylaw because that’s our occupational mandate, and where our taxpayers are expecting us to focus,” Bowman said.
Although bylaw violations have increased, municipal enforcement have seen a slight decrease in provincial violations, such as speeding, uninsured motor vehicles, document violations, liquor, cannabis-related violations and suspended drivers.
A significant amount of traffic complaints were made to municipal enforcement during quarter two, which included abandoned vehicles, vehicles blocking access to private property, and illegally parked vehicles.
During the street sweeping operations, despite additional signage, and efforts made by the city’s roads department, around 40 tickets were issued to vehicles that remained on the streets.
Chestermere municipal enforcement has continued to make traffic safety a priority, especially around schools and playgrounds.
“Our officers are maintaining a high presence in these areas, and they are proactively working with our schools in Chestermere to address traffic and pedestrian safety concerns,” Bowman said.
The implementation of the harmonized speed zones went extremely well.
“We went through an educational component following the public media campaign, and right now are compliance is extremely high with very little issues,” Bowman said.
“It went well, and we’re very pleased with that,” he added.
In addition to traffic safety, municipal enforcement is continuing to focus on commercial vehicle safety.
In speaking with the city’s road department, Bowman said it costs approximately $32,000 to pave one km of road that has been damaged by a heavy vehicle.
“In addition to overweight vehicles, a number of charges were laid this quarter for insecure loads, equipment, and logbook violations,” Bowman said.
Another large component in municipal enforcement is animal control.
“It’s apparent we have very responsible dog owners here in Chestermere. I can tell you Facebook is probably our best friend, the amount of dogs that are put up on Facebook by our residents are usually claimed within three to four minutes,” Bowman said.
“Considering Chestermere has approximately 5,000 licensed dogs, we only impounded one animal,” Bowman added. “That speaks volumes to our responsible pet owners here.”
