The Estevan Police Service is starting 2025 fresh with some new opportunities and new faces.
With Police Chief Jamie Blunden starting his first full year with the force he's looking to bring some different thoughts to the group.
"I think the word for 2025, for the Estevan Police Service, is going to be change. We've talked about that, especially in the leadership positions that we have presently. We just promoted an individual, one of the sergeants, Inspector Tyler McMillan started in February and he was just promoted to the inspector position."
"We've had a promotion process for the sergeant ranks and we've got two individuals, Dave Sinclair and Paul Shabbat. They're going to be starting out with the next few weeks as a sergeant and so that change is happening at the leadership ranks."
The change in positions means that some members of the EPS will be handling new duties over the force.
"The inspector itself is going to be a position where it's operational in the administration side of things. So Tyler has moved up into the executive ranks and you know he's going to be responsible for oversight in the operations side of things when it comes down to the members on the street and what goes on and dealing with all that administrative information and tasks that are at hand."
"The sergeants themselves are gonna be in charge of the platoons, so the sergeants oversee the members on the street and they're the working force in operations on the streets themselves, as well as the detective office, so they oversee operations on a daily basis, whereas the inspector is going to be overseeing operations from an administration standpoint."
Changes will also include some new faces with Blunden hoping to see recruits being sent to Estevan in the future.
"We also have a number of individuals that we've hired and we've got one individual that's field training right now fresh out of class. He just started in January on the streets and we've got two individuals in recruit class right now as we speak starting I think it was January 6 and they'll be coming probably most likely in June, July and start field training in June and July."
"We'll also be looking for about four spots to fill come July for the next class. More than likely, we may not get the four positions. But in saying that, we have four vacancies which will have to be filled. So change is the big word for EPS. We're really looking forward to it. We're excited about it and so hopefully everybody out there in the community gets to meet all the new recruits as well as the newly promoted individuals."
Some other hirings will be looked at by the EPS for other sections of their force.
"We're adding three positions that the province has just authorized us to have for this year. So they're paying for three additional positions. So we're probably going to add another drug unit member. We're probably going to add another PAC team member, and we're looking at our school resource officer/backfill assistance for the full platoons when they're short. So you know really positive change is going to be the big word this year."