The long-awaiting motion by Coun. Mark King asking staff to begin looking at the costing of OPP in lieu of the North Bay Police Services hit the council floor on Tuesday night, but not before a public presentation.
However, unlike previous public presentations, which spoke out in favour of investigating possible savings of switching to the OPP, this one, by Garth Goodhew, suggested that taking that path could incur great consequences for the North Bay taxpayer.
“I believe some people believe the OPP will naturally be cheaper and looking for costing is a simple and innocent thing to do,” he said. “My view is that asking for a costing is a huge deal, it can be the first step in costing taxpayers millions, costing good jobs in our community and disrupting citizens.”
Goodhew said the motion was premature and the goals of the motion were vague.
“A costing for what,” he asked. “What service model; what services do you want to include; any new services; would you be discontinuing certain programs,” he asked, referencing the significant amount of resources spent on support for the mental health crisis.
He mentioned how OPP wouldn’t be hiring all the current staff from North Bay police and the severance packages for remaining members could be in the millions. Overall, Goodhew wasn’t entirely against the costing of OPP, but would rather the process be investigated first before committing local staff to more than a year in hours, costing taxpayers, to find the details for members of council.
The motion seconder, Coun. Chris Mayne confirmed the timeline, saying the costing process could take one or several years to complete thoroughly.
Before voting, Coun. Mike Anthony made note of his preference to work with local police and the board to find solutions to the cost to taxpayers.
“I’d like to see some saving in how they are operating and maybe some different ways in operation,” he said. “However, I’d like to see some information on OPP costing and we might find some saving in how they do things.”
Contrarily, Coun. Jeff Serran said the motion was putting the cart before the horse in looking at costing right off the bat and that he’s heard of other communities having issues with the rising costs of using the OPP.
“I will not be voting in favour of this motion,” he confirmed.
And while King expected more support at the council table for his motion, he saw only the support of his seconder, Coun. Mayne, and one more member of council, Mike Anthony.
“There are some people that don’t have a backbone,” King said after the motion was defeated. “They are not prepared to stand up for change and I’ve watched it constantly where people just aren’t prepared to take the steps that change what we’re doing as a city.”
And while King was frustrated with the results of the motion, he wasn’t entirely surprised and a motion to reconsider was brought into play, returning the motion for a vote in two weeks’ time.
“The next step I’ll take at this point is to see if I could move forward with a motion to move this to a plebiscite in the November election,” he explained. “There are a whole bunch of issues that spin-off of this. I’ve watched the addiction; I’ve watched it steadily on Main Street and everybody seems to just want to turn a blind eye to it. I don’t want to.”
Before the motion King had stated that he believed he was intimidated in his workplace a week prior as a result of the motion he brought to council last meeting (but would not go into detail as to what was said and by whom) and was also extremely disappointed by the lack of support by certain members of council.
“There may have been mortal mistakes made here tonight by at least one individual,” he said. “There very well could be campaigns run against certain people running for council.”
