A new agreement between the Town of High River and the MD of Foothills, with the MD taking over bylaw enforcement for the Town, has the full support of Mayor Craig Snodgrass.

Council had an update about the agreement at the meeting on May 14th.

"I am very excited about it," said Snodgrass. "This has been a long process in getting this agreement done."

He adds Lisa Reinders, director of community services and Peter Genereux, manager of emergency management and protective services have done a wonderful job in finalizing  the agreement because inter-municipal agreements are not easy to put together.

"There are going to be learning curves going through it and it is a three year agreement. I am sure there will be some adjustments and changes from the learning as we will go through in the next three years, it is good to get it started."

Snodgrass said it is going to enhance the services that we already have.

"Which is none. It is just commissionaires and the bylaw program we had before, there wasn't a lot of enforcement. It was complaint based and show up."

He adds even if a ticket was issued there was no follow up and no way to see if it was paid.

"So when we are looking at going to CPO 1 and CPO 2, primarily the CPO 1, is great because then we will have additional traffic enforcement in High River."

It will also help with parking violations, speed violations and schools zones.

"The RCMP they are tapped out in this town so this is a little bit more of an enhancement with that. I am ecstatic that this agreement is done and we have the right people handling it."

Anyone with complaints can still call the commissionaires at 403-888-0267 or email bylaw@highriver.ca.

The agreement begins June 4th but it will probably take till the end of August or early in September to get everyone trained.

Once training and equipment requirements are completed, an announcement will be made to residents within the Town regarding the new contact phone number for complaints and/or information requests for Foothills Patrol Community Peace Officers.