RCMP Superintendent Steve Lee attended Cache Creek Council to assure them that the local citizens were safe despite the current low levels of staffing at the Ashcroft Detachment.Council heard recently from the Detachment’s Sgt. Dave Prentice that due to transfers and extended leave, they had only 5.5 of the usual 11 officers available. Council wrote to Solicitor General Rich Coleman asking for either a reduction in the town’s policing bill or more police officers.He said the Village was concerned that the remaining officers would face burnout.Lee told Council that it was a quiet time of year, with nothing too serious happening locally.The Southeast District is only district that’s had reduction in serious accidents, he said. And since there has been a noticeable reduction of traffic on Hwy 1, the district was reallocating resources to where it’s needed, although he did not explain what was being reallocated or what figures were used to determine that traffic was down.“I have some concerns about that,” said Coun. Ida Makaro, who replied that she could just “look outside her door” and see that traffic volume on Hwy 97 hadn’t changed in the past few years.“We’ve worked very hard in the tourism area to keep the numbers up,” she said.She also took exception that Hwy 97 figures were ignored.