Some Yellow Grass residents attending a public meeting on the town's police changes were concerned with the level of policing the town will receive once the RCMP takes over.

Around 30 to 35 town residents attended the meeting at the Legion Hall on Wednesday evening, said police commission member Bob Grassick, adding the commission expected there to be more people out to ask questions.

The meeting was intended to be purely informational regarding how and why the town's police force was being amalgamated with the Milestone detachment of the RCMP. A constable from the detachment was on hand along with town officer Const. Jim Heron to answer questions.

"Most people were worried about what kind of police coverage we were going to get, and would it be as good as what we had before with our own constable," said Grassick, adding some voiced the feeling this move should have been put to a town vote.

The town was told by Saskatchewan Justice that as the population dropped below 500, they were not allowed to keep their own town police force any longer. Grassick said there are only about 10 communities in Saskatchewan with their own police, and Yellow Grass was the smallest community.

One comment he heard during the evening was, "You can't really put a cost factor on safety," to which he answered, "Unfortunately you sometimes have to."

In this case, the town will pay a per capita fee of $15.61, which is a far cry from the cost of policing on their own, said Grassick; he noted in past years the per capita cost sometimes reached $100 or more. He estimated policing by the RCMP will save Yellow Grass around $30-40,000 a year.

Const. Heron has to take course upgrades and pass certain tests; once he does so, he will become a member of the Milestone RCMP, still living in Yellow Grass but working out of the detachment office and patrolling the district as well. Const. Heron told meeting attendees he may know about the tests later this month. He is currently on a two-week vacation, although the Milestone RCMP took over Monday.

Grassick said police won't always be in town, but Yellow Grass will still have a resident police officer (if Const. Heron passes his requirements), so he considers it "a good tradeoff" - especially considering the amount of money that can be saved and applied to other areas of the town's budget.