| Jan 19, 2012


Editorial by Jeff Green

About once every 12 to 18 months, Inspector Gerry Salisbury, the Commander of the Lanark County Detachment of the OPP, makes an appearance at a meeting of Central Frontenac Council.

Each time, he brings a set of statistics about the activities of the Sharbot Lake sub-detachment, and each time he makes the same commitment, to come to meetings on a quarterly basis to keep the townships in the loop.

Then he leaves.

Each year the OPP requisitions more money from Central and North Frontenac for what is called “status quo” policing, a system whereby the OPP determines what level of policing is required and also determines how much the policing will cost. This year the increase is about $60,000 for Central Frontenac ratepayers and there is a similar increase for North Frontenac ratepayers as well.

Until recently, there was a sergeant assigned to manage the Sharbot Lake detachment, so at least one officer was entirely based in Sharbot Lake, while the others were always liable to be called to Lanark County when needed. Sgt. Jim Birtch, the last person to hold this job, was transferred about a year after he took the job on, and just before he was set to retire. He managed to get back to Sharbot Lake last September to finish off his career running a local service.

When I talked to Sgt. Birtch in November, he intimated that he thought it was unlikely that he would be replaced, and he also said that there is a lot of policing to do in Central and North Frontenac.

Until a couple of years ago there was a community policing officer based in Sharbot Lake as well, and that was a real asset to the community, but that position is gone as well.

The situation is not much different in Addington Highlands, which is served by the Kaladar detachment, whose officers feel the same pull from Napanee that Sharbot Lake Officers feel from OPP headquarters in Smiths Falls.

Even in South Frontenac, where there is a policing contract with the OPP, which gives the township the ability to stipulate the level of service their residents will receive, the costs are so great that the level of policing the township can afford imposes some pretty strict limits.

The last time South Frontenac Council negotiated a policing contract was in 2008, and the contract carried an increase of 16.5%. Even then the township had to eliminate their own community officer position to keep from seeing the costs go up even more.

“In some sense people will say we are imposing the contract on you,” Sgt. Stevens-Baher, an OPP specialist in contract policing told South Frontenac Council at the time, “but this is what is needed to meet the standards that are required.”

“So what you are saying is, we have no control,” said Councilor Ron Vandewal.

Sgt. Stevens-Baher did not respond.

Ultimately we are all in the same boat as far as policing is concerned in this area, where local taxes pay for policing by the OPP. Costs go up, and it is the OPP itself, in its own bureaucratic way, that determines how much service will be provided.

Over time costs have gone up and services have gone down.

If there were another option, local municipalities would do well to consider it.

Perhaps a city police force, such as the Kingston City police, would like to bid on contract policing in Frontenac or Lennox and Addington County.

That would be a welcome development.

 

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