MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY - County peace officers issued a total of 742 tickets in 2021, down from 874 in 2020, officials said.
The Legislative, Community and Agricultural Services Department report for 2021 was presented at the recent regularly scheduled council meeting.
According to the report, 525 speeding tickets and 217 bylaw complaint tickets were issued. There were no commercial overload, traffic hazard, seatbelt or stop sign violation tickets issued in 2021.
The 525 speeding tickets issued totalled $154,535 in 2021, with May seeing the most tickets issued (104) followed by October (68) and November (58).
As in 2020, the Dogpound rural neighbourhood saw the most tickets issued (105), followed by Wessex (94), Jackson (51) Fallentimber (39) and Bergen (37). There was only one ticket issued in Water Valley and one in Harmattan.
The peace officer program has seen a “dramatic decrease in traffic stops over the past year, which is indicative of the economy and COVID,” said director Chris Atchison, noting bylaw complaints and inquiries have increased from the previous 2020 levels.
“The number of occurrences has certainly decreased year over year. Our typical road traffic seems to be down from what we would have experienced in 2018 or 2019.”
Fire departments keeping busy
The report also outlined fourth quarter statistics of area fire departments’ responses in rural areas.
“Quarter four is traditionally a fairly busy quarter for motor vehicle collisions, and you’ll see that a large majority of statistics from each department are attributed to motor vehicle collisions from October to December,” he told council.
The Didsbury department responded to 26 calls in Mountain View County, compared with 23 in Didsbury, as well as nine for mutual aid. Of the 58 total calls, 13 were for alarms, five for EMS, 13 for motor vehicle collisions, three for outside fires, one for structure fire, four for vehicle fires, and seven for wildland fires.
The Carstairs department responded to 72 calls, including six alarm, eight medical assist, 30 medical first responses, 12 motor vehicle collisions and four structure fires.
The Cremona/Water Valley department responded to 35 calls, including 29 in rural Mountain View County. Of those calls, 13 were for medical, one for fire, two for mutual aid, nine for motor vehicle collisions, four for alarm bells and three for controlled burns.
The Olds department responded to 44 calls, including 12 motor vehicle collisions, seven medical responses, 38 non-fire calls, and one fire response in the rural area. A total of 50 calls came from the urban area.
The Sundre department responded to 36 rural calls, including 17 medical assist, six motor vehicle collisions and four fire calls.
Film coalition being formed
In other news, work is underway to form a partnership of Mountain View County and the towns of Didsbury and Sundre to promote movie and TV making in the district.
In December, economic development officers in the three municipalities jointly applied for grant funding to support a film coalition for the region, said Atchison.
“The intent of what we are calling a film coalition is to develop an inventory of filming sites and a compilation of any rules and regulations, and try to make it a one-stop-shop for the filming industry for our community," he said.
“That is a partnership that we will be working on in the coming months.”
Council accepted Atchison’s report as information.
