OPP north detachment board to receive regional stats

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Essex County Ontario Provincial Police officials will soon provide regional policing stats following a request by Lakeshore Mayor Tracey Bailey during Monday’s detachment board meeting.

Bailey’s motion called for county-wide policing data — that would not only include the three north communities of Lakeshore, Essex and Tecumseh but also the south communities of Leamington, Kingsville and Pelee — to be provided to the north board.

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Those municipalities are policed by the OPP, while Windsor provides contracted policing to Amherstburg and LaSalle has its own municipal police force.

Currently, police officials provide data to the board on things like impaired driving charges, violent crimes, property crimes, drug crimes and police initiatives.

“The challenge is for me that I’ve seen the reports prior and the reports prior would tell us what was going on in Lakeshore and in Leamington and in Essex independently,” Bailey said.

“And so what that allowed us to do is really break down the data and know what’s going on as a region in our communities.

“So for me, I thought it was missing,” she added. “I’m hopeful that we will be able to get county-wide data so that we know what’s happening as a region.

“We know how we’re shifting and we know where our crime is happening. As well, if OPP is shifting resources out to other areas — so if they’re needed somewhere else more so — it may speak to the fact that there’s not officers on the ground in a municipality for a duration of time if there’s something big happening in another municipality or town.”

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Bailey agreed with Essex Mayor Sherry Bondy that it’s an opportune time to have regional statistics.

“I think there’s a lot of discussion around Essex County (about policing),” Bondy told fellow board members.

“I think it’s timely that OPP ensure that the reports that we’re getting look from a regional lens, because I think that’s what the community is starting to say is that we want to know what’s happening, kind of as a group,” Bailey said.

Amherstburg is considering its policing options after Windsor gave notice that it will not renew its contract, which expires Dec. 31, 2029, with the town.

Amherstburg Mayor Michael Prue asked Essex County Council to hire a consultant to study the viability of a regional police force but received little interest.

“I at the county opposed the motion for the exploration of policing because I was supportive that OPP is that regional force currently and it is in place in a number of our towns and municipalities,” Bailey said.

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“So it makes sense to me that if we could regionalize our lens that we would have essentially a regional force that was serving all of us, and that tied back for the data.”

In other news, the board launched a new website at www.tecumseh.ca/town-government/committees-boards/essex-county-opp-detachment-board-north/

where the public can see the board’s meeting calendar and agendas.

An official logo is in the works as well.

jkotsis@postmedia.com

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