Smalltown police force outfits new patrol vehicles, with help from an Enbridge Safe Community grant
Cage partitions, light bars, and police radio consoles are not the kind of features that come standard off the lot. Nor are they the kind that come cheap.
But they’re exactly the features a police department needs to take a new set of wheels and make it suitable as a patrol vehicle.
So when the Town of Cavalier, N.D., bit the bullet and invested $52,000 in two brand-new Ford Explorers to help keep the community safe, Police Chief Adam Ziegler knew the department would have to dig deep to outfit the cars for service.
“The cost of the cars came out of city budget, but the (police) department would certainly have to foot the bill for as much of the equipment as possible,” says Ziegler. “With a small budget like ours, that would have been a hardship.”
That’s when Enbridge stepped up with a Safe Community grant to help outfit the much-needed new police cars. In 2014, Enbridge sponsored the purchase of the light bar for the first new patrol car. This year, the department received $1,000 towards outfitting the second car for service.
“My equipment budget this year is $1,500. The money from Enbridge is a huge help – a thousand dollars for a department like ours could go towards a lot of other things,” says Ziegler. “It gives us flexibility to purchase equipment for officers or upgrade some of our medical kits or evidence kits — things that help us to serve our community better.”
Meg Morley, a senior public affairs advisor with Enbridge based in North Dakota, says making a difference for emergency services departments in communities like Cavalier, which often have small tax bases, is exactly why the Safe Community program exists.
Safe Community awards grants to local first-response organizations in the communities near our projects and operations. The program was launched in the U.S. in 2002, and Canada in 2009 – and has invested about $7-million in safety equipment, professional training, and educational programs for the heroes who keep our communities safe and secure.
With 826 miles of pipelines making up our North Dakota system, Enbridge is the leading energy transporter in the Bakken region, which surpassed a million barrels a day in crude oil production midway through 2014.
“I’m from this area and I know how these small communities rely on these departments. I know what a strong need that is,” says Morley. “Smalltown community police departments are just integral to creating a feeling of safety throughout the county – and they do so much with, really, very little.”
Creating a safer community in Cavalier is something Ziegler says is made easier through support from Enbridge. “Enbridge has always there to offer support when we need it, and that has made a real difference to us,” he says.
