High River Town council got an update on June 11 from Staff Sergeant Robin Alexander about plans for the department and how they will be measured.

He says there are four major things they want to accomplish in the community this year.

First up is to have the officers go to more community events and build relationships with the residents of High River, Blackie and Cayley.

"The purpose of that is to build trust," said Alexander. "Between the police and the community residents so they are comfortable talking to us and they are comfortable telling us what is going on and have some assurance that we are going to follow up on the information they give us. That is key to any policing service."

Second is enforcing traffic laws especially in school zones.

"I don't know how much enforcement has been done in the past, how much presence or viability, but I am on social media all kinds of complaints about that so we are going to continue to put pressure on that area."

He says they will also put pressure on distracted driving because it is becoming one of the leading causes of collisions.

Area three is addressing drug use and sale.

Alexander says drugs are a problem in every community and the High River RCMP are making fighting it a priority.

"The concern is drugs are becoming more and more lethal. So we are going to continue to target our drug dealers and develop intelligence and wherever possible arrest and lay charges against those people."

He says anyone who thinks there are no drugs in a small community is mistaken because they are everywhere.

And the fourth area the department is working on is trying to protect against property crimes.

'We've taken a bit of a different approach this year. We have taken one individual who has been significantly involved in property crime and we are trying to turn that persons life around."

Alexander says the four themes are broad but he has to come up with tangible outcomes for them.

'At least it measures that we are working towards something and that is the value of it."