On the second floor of a building where most offices are without doors, the ceilings hang low and the carpets don't match, the chief of Grande Prairie's new police force gets down to work.

"Don't focus on the building," Dwayne Lakusta said in a recent interview.

The 51-year-old was picked more than a year ago to head up a new municipal police service in the city of 60,000 in Alberta's northwest, replacing the RCMP. It's to be the first new force in Alberta in more than 60 years.

With three decades…