Haldimand "Unfinished Police Business"
It seems that Haldimand County is having problems securing a new police force. But that shouldn't have been a surprise to either Council members or Staff members of Haldimand County. I am sure that many of you remember when we went from Regional to OPP, that process was far more complicated than just sending out a few letters and asking another force to take over our services.
Haldimand County Staff states that according to the Police Service Act they can only contract a force that is adjacent to the Municipality. So in light of this they seemed to have had only two options, Niagara or Hamilton. I have done a bit of investigating this myself, but so far I have not seen the information that the County is talking about, so here is the link if you wish to research this yourself. http://www.canlii.org/on/laws/sta/p-15/20040503/whole.html#BK6
During the election campaign in 2006, a few candidates "promised" if elected that they would investigate the possibility of replacing the OPP here in Haldimand County. Now as far as promises go I would have thought that they would have done a little bit of investigating before they "promised" the residents anything on such a serious matter!
Now in saying that, there was one candidate that I know for a fact did investigate other options for policing in Haldimand County. Councillor Buck Sloat did in fact do his homework on this issue. In October of 2006, during the Ward 2 debate in Cayuga Councillor Sloat informed the residents he had already met with Chief Mullen of the Hamilton Police Department. As a result of Sloat's meeting with Chief Mullen, Hamilton was ready to take on policing in Haldimand County whenever we were ready. Now this never hit the newspapers, and most residents were not aware of this information. In fact I made a phone call to Mayor Trainer the next morning to ask about the details of this meeting with Chief Mullen, and she was totally unaware of these talks. So your guess is as good as mine.
My question is this, if in fact Councillor Sloat told the truth, what has changed since October 2006? The newspapers reported recently that Chief Mullen was "not" interested in taking on Policing in Haldimand County.
As we are already feeling a huge cash crunch in Haldimand due to the lack of "growth", and that did not just happen yesterday, why proceed any further with looking for a new Police Force? This is only wasting everyone's time, there are more serious issues in Haldimand County to deal with.
The fact is that the Province is paying for the OPP in Caledonia, so what are the real issues here for even proceeding on with this exercise.
If the County is going to proceed with any issue in policing it should be demanding that "6th" line be Policed!
I totally agree, there is no the money for a new police force.
ReplyDeleteBesides other municipalities will look after there areas rist and we would be secondary.
Corrected Post Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteI totally agree, there is no the money for a new police force.
Besides other municipalities will look after there areas first and we would be secondary.
October 13, 2007 5:35 AM
It would be interesting to ask Grice what he thinks about Sloat's meeting with Mullen.
ReplyDeleteAs I recall Grice also made this election promise.
What has Grice done to get policing on 6th Line?
Now that the Provincial Election is over, maybe our Council will get off their butts and pressure the Province!
ReplyDeleteThis whole deal was nothing more than an exercise to make the people think that this County was actually doing anything.
Sue of Caledonia
Well I did some more reading and low and behold I found it! Here is what the section says;
ReplyDeleteMethods of providing municipal police services
5. (1) A municipality’s responsibility to provide police services shall be discharged in one of the following ways:
1. The council may establish a police force, the members of which shall be appointed by the board under clause 31 (1) (a).
2. The council may enter into an agreement under section 33 with one or more other councils to constitute a joint board and the joint board may appoint the members of a police force under clause 31 (1) (a).
3. The council may enter into an agreement under section 6 with one or more other councils to amalgamate their police forces.
4. The council may enter into an agreement under section 6.1 with the council of another municipality to have its police services provided by the board of the other municipality, on the conditions set out in the agreement, if the municipality that is to receive the police services is contiguous to the municipality that is to provide the police services or is contiguous to any other municipality that receives police services from the same municipality.
5. The council may enter into an agreement under section 10, alone or jointly with one or more other councils, to have police services provided by the Ontario Provincial Police.
6. With the Commission’s approval, the council may adopt a different method of providing police services. 1997, c. 8, s.
Now in looking at the map it seems that the County has overlooked Brant County. I do believe that Brantford does have there own police force.
6th line IS policed by the OPP
ReplyDeleteIf any of you people would talk to the OPP and SN Police you'd know that.
Man, you people are misled individuals.
Anonymous if the OPP are policing 6th Line maybe you could get a picture of a patrol car patrolling the road.
ReplyDeleteThe OPP will respond to emergency 911 calls along with Six Nations but there has been no Press Release from the OPP saying they are now policing 6th line.
When they relinquished the right to patrol 6th line they issued a Press Release saying such. Do you not think they would issue a Press Release saying they have again taken over responsibility for 6th line?
It seems that all this Council seems to do is try and make us believe that they are doing something for us.
ReplyDeleteDo we really believe that this was just more than an exercise to please those that made the promise in the first place?
We are not all as stupid as Council would makes us out to be.
To the 7:03 pm post:
ReplyDeleteShow me video of how many times the OPP patrolled 6 th line before?
It was very rare because there are hardly any homes there and the facts state that there was never any actual calls to any of the residences there to begin with except for very, very rarely.
Some of you people make me laugh with your propoganda.
The fact remains and you admitted it that the OPP will and do go down 6th line when required to do so.
You people have wasted so much time and energy complaining about something that has no basis of fact.