New community group looking for town grant

By Jeremy Appel
Alberta Newspaper Group
Redcliff town council heard a request for a $1,000 grant from a new community group at its Sept. 23 meeting .
Redcliff and Area Community Association president Chris Corry addressed council, saying their ultimate goal is to build a new community centre.
“The purpose is to build a better community,” Corry said at the meeting.
He said that while RACA has its origins in the Golf and Curling Club Association, they decided to break off due to the golf club’s precarious financial situation and a general “abeyance” in the process of getting started.
“When we sat down and thought about it, we decided we’re probably better off dissociating the curling club and golf club from the whole thing and trying to set up a proper community association,” said Corry.
According to a letter to council, the funding would go towards start-up, initial communication, registration and advertising costs.
“RACA is in the process of registering the name, creating bylaws and has a draft strategic plan,” the letter says.
The presentation was accepted as information.
Corry said RACA will have a more “formal presentation” to council once their strategic plan is refined.

RCMP delegation provides stats for April through August
Redcliff RCMP Sgt. Sean Maxwell provided his regular update to council.
“Normally I do a quarterly report. We’re a little behind on things, so my report will reflect April to the end of August to make sure we’re caught up,” Maxwell said at the outset of his presentation.
He presented statistics from the second quarter (April through June), as well as separate stats for each of July and August.
The second quarter saw a decrease in person crimes from 20 at the same time in 2018 to 14 this year.
However, property crimes increased to 75 reported incidents from 56 in 2018.
There were no drug charges laid the second quarter of 2019, down from a single instance in 2018.
However, there was a single cannabis-related charge, which is now categorized separately since legalization.
July saw a decrease in persons crimes from six in 2018 to three in 2019, while property crimes decreased from 28 to 25.
Maxwell pointed out that in June and July, they had five individuals responsible for 61 Criminal Code charges.
“One individual has 38 separate charges that he’s looking at. Of those five individuals that we’ve got there, the lowest person accounted for eight separate charges,” he said.
“These individuals are committing crimes in Cypress County, Redcliff’s area, the City of Medicine Hat, but they’re going into Bow Island, Taber, Brooks, Oyen and into Saskatchewan.”
In August, persons crimes decreased to one incident from nine last year, while property crimes increased slightly to 23 from 22.