Enforcement blitz happening at park

Posted on June 13, 2019 by Vauxhall Advance

By Cole Parkinson
Vauxhall Advance
cparkinson@tabertimes.com

With warmer weather reaching southern Alberta, the Municipal District of Taber has some concerns with happenings at the M.D. Park.

During council’s regular meeting on June 11, council was informed of some problems happening at the park, most of which have escalated since the temperature has increased.

“We’ve had some major issues at our M.D. Park in the last number of weekends with respect to large numbers of crowds, disruptions and traffic issues,” said CAO Derrick Krizsan.

The RCMP, M.D. community peace officers and administration scheduled a meeting on how to address the problem earlier this week after concerns continue to arise.

With discussions ongoing, there are possible ways to move forward and hopefully, they lead to the desired effect.

“There will be an enforcement blitz over the next month or so,” added Krizsan.

This won’t be the first time this method has been employed at the M.D. Park.

When first taking over the park, the M.D. faced a very similar problem and are hoping the same solution can be applied this time around.

“The nature of these types of events that are occurring, I anticipate over the next month, there will be a time we call on the RCMP quite frequently as well as our peace officers. They will probably be putting in some overtime. This is a matter that we addressed 15 or 16 years ago when we first took over the park. We resolved it by having an enforcement blitz. We educated people and there were a lot of tickets handed out. We anticipate the same thing this time around,” said Krizsan. “The park is meant for families and seniors and we are losing that demographic very quickly as a result of some of these activities. Large groups of people and loud parties and no respect for our park managers.”

M.D. council also asked about RCMP response to their numerous parks in the region.

For the month of May, RCMP park patrols were M.D. of Taber Park (seven), Enchant Park (14), the Forks (two), Grassy Lake Park (six), the Trout Pond (one) and other (seven).

“Even if we only have one member on say on a Sunday night, we have a member on backup and that member can respond if called out. We have used them before if the member gets tied up with something and another call comes in. We try not to do item but if it’s serious enough we will call the backup,” added Sgt. Gord Yetman.

Both the RCMP and CPO’s will be involved in getting the situation under control and they expressed opinions the solution will be coming quickly.

“I’m confident we can get on top of it again,” said Kirk Hughes, CPO sergeant.