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Vol. 14, No. 12, Wednesday, February 6, 2019 www.LamontLeader.com
New Lamont Petro Can broken into and robbed New business just opened in late 2018 MAUREEN SULLIVAN The new Petro Canada service station in Lamont was broken into at approximately 4:00 am on Feb. 2 by two men. Using a truck, they backed into the door of the store, breaking a cement security pillar. They stole the ATM machine, rifled through the drawers at the counter and stole all the cigarettes
on the premises. According to store clerk Tara Ellis, the men were caught on the security camera but were masked. Police later found the vehicle involved, but it was a vehicle that had been reported stolen and was abandoned. There is no comment from the Fort Saskatchewan RCMP at this time while the investigation continues.
The amount of rural crimes in Alberta has increased almost 40 per cent in recent years compared to urban crimes, according to a 2017 report, with almost half of Canada’s rural crime coming in either Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba. As well, rural crime is up over 30 per cent in Canada with 6,581 incidents per 100,000 citizens.
Front door of Lamont Petro Can.
Buses cancelled as cold snap freezes County Mundare on Feb 4 and 5 as temperatures plummeted to the high minus-20s with wind chills adding another drop of 10 degrees. However, the schools themselves remained open for students. “But public works in most Lamont communities indicated no issues with equipment or infrastructure failures. Plowing from the weekend major snowfall was proceeding according to schedule. Several community events were cancelled in Lamont including Snowplows were busy all over Lamont County like this one school curling and basketball games. on Main Street, Lamont. BY JOHN MATHER The first major cold snap of 2019 stopped school buses cold this week in Strathcona and Lamont Counties. Elk Island Public Schools cancelled all bus routes to all of its schools, including Bruderheim, Lamont, and
Tonight’s (Wednesday, Feb. 6) Lamont Bingo has also been cancelled because of the extreme cold. In Bruderheim, streets were being cleared, according to Chief Executive Officer Patty Podoborozny, but there had been one water line break. In Mundare, Chief Administrative Officer Colin Zyla reported everything was running smoothly and the street clearing was progressing nicely. Mundare School cancelled a basketball game on Tuesday and student skating was also cancelled due to the freezing temperatures. Lamont County’s director of Public Works, Chris Valaire reports all equipment is out busily clearing the roads. He said about 90 per cent of the roads were open following Saturday’s dump of snow. “We have 10 graders with wings, one
grader with an out wing, a sand/plow truck and some smaller equipment clearing driveways for seniors,” he said. “We’re certainly facing our challenges with a couple of pieces of equipment going down due to the cold, but all the staff is meeting these challenges head on.” He said the priority for roads is to get all school routes plowed first, and then move onto medical routes and the tackle the arterial routes. In Lamont Chief Administrative Officer Christine Beveridge said plowing of the streets was progressing well. “We’re dealing with our priority one and two areas right now,” she said. “Fortunately we’ve had no equipment issues, but we’re treating all the equipment with kid gloves. It gets used and then put away inside so no one is too rough with any of our equipment.”