Faced with OPP price hikes, mayors talk regional policing

[Michael Jack]

As local municipalities face steep increases in Ontario Provincial Police service costs, local mayors have begun talking about a regional municipal police force.

While the obstacles to such a force are many – not least of them the skepticism of many of those local mayors – a preliminary discussion of the idea is likely to happen at Brockville council before the end of the year, Mayor Matt Wren said Tuesday.

A week earlier, the joint services committee of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville backed a motion to begin those discussions, starting with sounding out the individual municipal councils.

The motion by Front of Yonge Mayor Roger Haley called for the discussions between the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, Brockville, Gananoque, and Prescott, about creating a joint services subcommittee “to study the possibility of developing a regional police force in Leeds and Grenville.”

Haley’s motion notes that “municipal policing costs are an increasing concern to all municipalities,” and “regional policing is an issue that could be further explored as a means to deliver cost-savings to municipalities and taxpayers.”

The joint services committee brings together the counties and the three separated municipalities of Brockville, Prescott and Gananoque to cover areas of joint administration.

In the Leeds and Grenville area, two of the separated municipalities, Brockville and Gananoque, have their own municipal police forces, while the remaining municipalities are policed by the OPP.

At last week’s meeting, Haley reiterated a complaint heard by municipal officials across Eastern Ontario, about the steep increases in policing costs coming down from the OPP. He said Front of Yonge’s bill is going up by 21 per cent.

“Had they done it in stages, maybe then it wouldn’t have been so much of a big hit,” said Haley.

He noted this is not the first time the subject of regional municipal policing has come up as an alternative to the OPP.

“The reason we brought this about, years ago, was so we could have some kind of control over what’s happening,” said Haley. “We have no control right now.”

“Year after year, we get hit with these increases,” he added.

“We’re paying for 1.1 officer, and it’s over $400,000.”

Gananoque Mayor John Beddows said he is happy to bring the discussion to his council, though his municipality is “satisfied with the status quo.”

Brockville Mayor Matt Wren said policing has been a sensitive topic in his city, but he was backing the motion because he did not want to prevent the discussion. Wren has also briefed city councillors, police services board chairman King Yee Jr., and Brockville Police Chief Mark Noonan on the coming talks.

A communitywide debate over replacing the Brockville Police Service with an OPP service contract happened in the previous decade, starting in October 2012 when then mayor David Henderson said he planned to seek an OPP costing, and ending in February 2017, when council opted to stick with the municipal force.

As the community with the largest municipal police force in the Leeds and Grenville area, Brockville comes at this discussion with a fundamentally different point of view, Wren told his colleague at joint services last week.

“If the motion is suggesting that we create a subcommittee to open-mindedly explore other options, it will be very difficult for the City of Brockville to be at that table with the same sort of open mind,” he said.

Brockville has the oldest police service in Ontario, added Wren, and “the community’s not going to let go of that very easily.”

But Brockville would be open to expanding the Brockville Police Service’s coverage area, added the mayor.

“We would want that on the table at the committee as a point of consideration rather than just dismantling it and starting over,” said Wren.

Rideau Lakes Mayor Arie Hoogenboom said talk of a regional police force should be restricted to the United Counties, among rural municipalities facing the same challenges with the OPP.

Hoogenboom, who was once the top administrator in Smiths Falls, cited his experience with separated municipalities running their own police forces.

“When you’re trying to put a rural policing service together with an urban policing service, the rural per-capita cost will go up, because the cost of policing in an urban centre is higher per capita than it is in the rural centers,” he said.

United Counties Warden Nancy Peckford, the North Grenville mayor, also had qualms about the idea.

North Grenville feels “quite well served” by the OPP, said Peckford, who was hesitant to discuss change.

Haley said the point of the motion was to start discussion about some alternative to the increasing costs of OPP policing.

“At the end of the day, if it’s a counties police force, so be it,” said the Front of Yonge mayor.

“I just want the discussion to happen.”

Leeds and the Thousand Islands Mayor Corinna Smith-Gatcke said the joint services committee is not the place for such a discussion, and worried about the cost of allocating staff time.

As for the other separated municipality in the discussion, Prescott Mayor Gauri Shankar told fellow joint services committee members he is “willing to have that conversation,” but expressed skepticism.

Shankar said that, looking at the past 10 years, Prescott’s OPP cost is actually down.

“I just don’t know how we can afford the capital cost of creating a new Leeds-Grenville police division, let alone the costs associated with it,” said Shankar.

The Fort Town’s OPP costs are up 18 per cent this year over last, he believed, but overall, they are still about 25 per cent below where they were a decade ago.

At Tuesday’s Brockville council meeting, Wren said he is working with the city clerk about the best timing to bring the matter forward.

“I’m sure it will be within the next 30 days or so, before the year-end, likely,” he said.

Rzajac@postmedia.com

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