A look at the outside of the Cypress County office building in this 2025 file photo.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
Cypress County received Tuesday an update on its fourth quarter for several sectors of community services, helping to plan for the future.
The recreation department reports it has managed to identify all facilities and amenities operated by each community group in the region, as well as establish a 15-year history on grant and capital project funding.
Others costs, as well as self-generated revenue, have also been taken into account, says Jody Phillips with Cypress County, who delivered the report.
“The county website has been expanded in the recreation group so that all of the community groups within the county can submit information such as rates for their buildings or program information, so that’s been rolled out to all of the groups that they can send their information and have that county wide exposure,” said Phillips.
Currently, the county is engaging with these groups, for the purpose of generating recommendations toward a new funding model.
For agricultural services, supervisor Lisa Sulz says the fourth quarter is largely a quiet time of year as far as calls for service, but 2025 was strong overall in regards to rental equipment.
There was one report of a wild boar, says Sulz, but this did not turn out to be an actual boar. What did occur was nine different dutch elm disease traps, 23 invoices sent out to private landowners for weed control and roughly 184 miles of ditch and road sprayed to combat for Canada thistle.
As part of the annual sweep, 257 sites were checked for rats along the Saskatchewan border, though no rats were found. The autumn also saw work to combat an infestation of saltlover plants near Sandy Point.
Health and safety reported a higher number of near-miss incidents compared to last quarter, but this is a positive indicator, says health and safety manager Serafina Morris.
“Near misses are situations where no one was injured, but a hazard was identified, and increased reporting reflects improved awareness and willingness to report hazards early, before injuries have occurred,” said Morris.
The focus for health and safety in the quarter was reviewing existing documentation, identifying gaps and beginning updates for development of materials needed to support core audit readiness. An audit is on track for completion by the end of first quarter 2026.
Dunmore continues to be the primary callout for service with emergency services, success as the secondary call to support other stations was also touted. Motor vehicle collisions and medical first response made up the majority of calls for service.
This is closely followed by alarm bells, which are most often false alarms but are treated like real emergencies each time, requiring full response.
Emergency services reports about 1,100 training hours for members, with nearly 500 certification training hours and nearly 300 community event hours.
