SUBMITTED PHOTO Sandy Redden is the new chair of the Medicine Hat Police Commission chair.
The Medicine Hat Police Commission has a new chairperson.
Sandy Redden, a speech language pathologist who’s served as the commission vice chair for the past few years, was sworn in at the Jan. 16 MHPC meeting, replacing outgoing chair Greg Keen, whose term expired at the end of 2019.
Her responsibilities include ensuring meeting agendas are prepared, that they include all the topics they want to discuss and engaging with the community writ large.
“It’s a little bit overwhelming, because we’ve been working on a number of goals for the last few years,” she told the News.
Chief among these goals is the MHPC strategic plan, which has been in the works for the past couple years, she said.
“It’s always a process,” said Redden. “We were partly there, but it didn’t work out.”
A key component of the plan is to make the MHPS “a little more independent” from the MHPS, she said.
This involves getting more assistance from outside the police service.
For instance, all of the MHPC’s calls go through the MHPS, which is something Redden would like to see changed.
“It’s harder with a smaller police service,” she said. “Calgary and Edmonton have a lot of employed staff and we don’t need that, but we do need some support to find that balance.”
Another major responsibility is recruiting a replacement for Medicine Hat Police Service chief Andy McGrogan, who retires in November.
“We’re just in the initial stages. I’m looking at competencies and then we’ll go ahead and move towards the advertising and recruitment piece of it,” said Redden.
In addition to Redden, the commission swore in new member Miles Thorson.
