Red Deer RCMP has a new superintendant who said his first impressions of the City are positive and that he looks forward to his time here.

Warren Dosko has been with the RCMP 24 years and has moved around from his hometown in Craik, Saskatchewan to northern B.C. to the Northwest Territories and now to Alberta.

“There are lots of stickers on my furniture, it’s very well travelled,” said Dosko.

Along with Dosko, Red Deer recently got a new operations officer, Insp. Lawrence Aimoe.

Aimoe has been with the RCMP 27 years and has also moved his fair share of times including time spent working in Hobbema, Ottawa, Provost as well as at the RCMP dog kennels near Innisfail recently.

The two new additions to the RCMP in Red Deer said they look forward to the New Year and Dosko said he is keen to finding out about the unique problems in the City and ways to solve them.

“The approaches we take are very different in every community and there are always challenges and opportunities ahead. I think the services we are providing are outstanding,” said Dosko.

Aimoe said he is also highly involved in the City with the Friendship Centre as well as “everything athletics” around the City.

Dosko said a big part of the RCMP’s job is imbedded in social development.

“A lot of the root causes of crime stem from social development issues. My early indications are that there are a lot of good initiatives so we need to look at how do we enhance those and move them forward,” said Dosko.

Red Deer is not different from other communities in many ways according to Dosko who said that the RCMP needs to continue to evaluate the capacity of the community to address the unique issues that do exist.

“There are addictions and mental health issues like in other communities too. It’s not a matter of what the unique issue is, but what the unique solution is to the problem,” said Dosko.

Dosko said the specifics of the homicide rates in the City are not as important as the fact that the rate exists at all.

“Whether the homicide rate is high or low any rate of it has to be forefront in our minds and we need to look at the causes and how do we prevent those situations,” said Dosko.

Dosko said he doesn’t foresee any major changes and that any changes that may be made in the coming budget years need to be evaluated against the effectiveness and efficiencies of the changes as well as the benefit to the taxpayers.

Aimoe said that every place can always use more resources, but when it’s not in the cards to get them that it is most important to use the resources available in the best manner.

“The new mental health team has had really significant results in the City and is already taking cases that would go to the hospital and diverting them away so they’re helping the hospital too,” said Aimoe.

He also said one of the main commitments is currently traffic.

“Impaired driving has been a very big thing as it should always be. We’ve gone to enough of those funerals; we don’t want to go to more. So we’re out there doing check stops and taking impaired drivers off the roads.”

kpalardy@reddeerexpress.com