HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2016-10-26, Page 88 Huron Expositor • Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Huron East set
to compare costs
from Strafford
Police to OPP
Shaun Gregory
Huron Expositor
Policing costs are con-
stantly increasing, the prov-
ince has recently been rec-
ognizing this unpleasant
financial fact, and so has
Tuckersmith Coun. Ray
Chartrand and with saying
that, he has requested that
council check to see if the
grass is greener in Stratford.
The municipality of Huron
East has received their esti-
mates this year from the OPP
and discovered that costs
have risen by a small margin
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Three Huron East council members. From the left is CAO, Brad Knight, the Mayor, Bernie MacLellan and deputy mayor, Joe Steffler
at last week's council meeting. Coun. Ray Chartrand put a motion forward to examine Strafford policing costs. They were not that
favourable of the topic.
of $8,000. This is an amount
that council can deal with
rather well, compared to the
$192,000 spike from the pre-
vious year.
As soon as the CAO of
Huron East, Brad Knight
informed council of the
report, Chartrand immedi-
ately responded.
After reading an article by
the Expositor about policing
costs, Chartrand said that
interest was sparked. He
went on to say that it would
be wise for council to see if
Stratford Police are willing to
provide an approximation of
costs relating to potentially
policing Huron East.
"Let them give us the
price, compare that to what
we are paying the OPP and
see if there is a major differ-
ence," Chartrand stated at
the bi-weekly Huron East
council meeting October 18.
With the method the OPP
use to patrol the area,
according to Chartrand, the
financials are his main con-
cern, but what also troubles
him is the wait time. In some
cases, ratepayers can be in
the range of 30-45 minutes
waiting for services.
"They might come from
Sebringville, Goderich, they
might come from Clinton,"
indicated Chartrand. "Stratford
is 25-30 minutes away and
they have a huge police force,
there might be an opportunity
to hire them for service."
McKillop ward rep, Kevin
Wilbee believes this process
may take months and Strat-
ford Police will be "reluc-
tant," to deal with such
requests.
Sharing similar opinions,
as Chartrand was Seaforth
councillor, Bob Fisher, who
also wondered about a
county force.
This had been brought to
County council a "few times"
before, responded the Mayor
of Huron East, Bernie
MacLellan, he said they had
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the desire to have all the
municipalities under one
contract. This procedure
would then give leeway to
better pricing, he said.
"Now that they've
changed the pricing model,
the OPP themselves state,
that it makes no difference
whether it's a small contract
or large contract. You are
basically paying what you
are paying," said MacLellan
about the New Billing
Model, which provides a
more apparent cost recovery
practise by making sure all
municipalities pay a reason-
able share.
MacLellan attended an
OPP session the Friday prior
to council and during this
time they discussed overall
service levels, how they do
things as well as their actual
cost per house charge.
"The actual price per
house is dropping, the over-
all bill isn't," said the mayor,
a number that works out to
about $350 per household in
Huron East.
Currently MacLellan said
the OPP are in the middle of
arbitration relating to new
contracts.
"We have no idea what
that's going to mean to us,"
he said.
After Chartrand put the
motion to check Stratford
Police prices, the deputy
mayor of Huron East, Joe
Steffler had a confused look,
he said this was talked about
before and for a private
police service the costs were
"astronomical."
"The set up cost for the
cars, equipment and build-
ings, as far as the countywide
police force, I don't think it's
a very good idea," com-
mented Steffler. "Most of
towns under 10,000 have
OPP because (of) the cost,
it's not because they are
doing a better job."
Fisher replied to Steffler's
comments and said he's
aware of the costs that entail
with starting up a police
force, "but if you had a
municipality who are paying
$1.5 million or more, that's
$14 million being spent on
policing in Huron County,
that seems an awful lot for
56,000 people."
Most of council voted in
favour of asking the Stratford
Police for an estimated cost
for service, the Mayor
requested that motion be a
courtesy call, just to see they
if would actually consider it.
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