The new leader of the Lloydminster RCMP has been introduced to the municipal government.
Inspector Neil Pearson came to the Border City towards the end of 2016, arriving on the job on Dec. 12. He was the replacement for Staff Sergeant Brent Sawatsky, who had been in temporary command of the detachment since early August, after he came in to replace former Lloydminster Inspector Suki Manj.
He attended the Jan. 16 meeting of Lloydminster city council, and was formally introduced to the councillors by City Manager Glenn Carroll towards the end of the meeting.
Prior to commanding the Lloydminster detachment, Pearson had served as a district commander in the Arctic, as well as serving in smaller detachments. He also worked in Lloydminster previously, as a member of the detachment back in 1995.
“It’s a little bigger to the west,” said Pearson, when asked about what changes he saw in the community.
“The road to the airport used to be the end of town when I was here.”
Pearson also said he finds Lloydminster a positive place.
“It’s a very positive community, very supportive of the police, and I feel that detachment policing is the foundation of what we do,” said Pearson.
“My job is to make sure that we provide quality service, investigations, to the people of Lloydminster and the area.”
Pearson had good things to say about how policing in Lloydminster has been handled in recent years, and said that the current programs in place for offender management and comparative statistics were good to have in place.
“We’re doing a good job of trying to keep a lid on things, it’s not bad here,” said Pearson.
“I’ve already looked at the offender management programs, we’ve refined those a little bit, made them more manageable, tweaked a few things. We won’t tell everything we do, but we’ve tweaked that.”
Over the next two months, Pearson said that he’ll be working on the detachment’s performance plan, with an opportunity for citizens to provide input on what they want the police to do. His goal is to provide a quality service for the community.
“If they have any issues, they can certainly bring it (up) for us.
“It’s a good place, there are good people here. We deal with the not so good people here sometimes, but the majority of people are solid.”