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The Ontario Provincial Police will be the new police force in town in 2013 following a 8-1 vote at a Pembroke City council meeting last Tuesday night.

The council chambers were packed with a subdued audience while each member of council stood and gave his or her opinion on the matter. Yet, in the end, it all came down to dollars and cents.

The Pembroke Police Service has been policing the city for 134 years, but currently takes up 20 per cent of the city’s budget. The OPP has been in existence for 103 years, and while that is not as long as PPS, it still has a long and upstanding history. Members of both the OPP and the PPS sat quietly in the audience while council deliberated on its decision.

Councillor Les Scott took his time to tell council exactly how he weighed the options. From his studies, salary would rise to approximately the same amount, eight to nine per cent, in the next two years. When it came to service, Coun. Scott asked his relative in Carleton Place what the policing service has been like with the OPP since that town disbanded its own force years ago.

“He said he could speak on behalf of not only himself, but his brother that lives in Carleton Place and other aunts and uncles, and he said he has not heard one negative thing about response time. So from their point of view, [the OPP] is good.”

Coun. Scott also brought up the fact that he had become aware that there was an agreement between police and fire, meaning firefighters will receive wage parity. The OPP has an $83,000 difference in pay from firefighters, and if this agreement were true, all the money that the municipality could be saving with the OPP would go out the window. However, he said  upon research he found that there is no evidence of parity between police and firefighters.

As stated in the March 14 issue of the Leader,  the city would save approximately $1.3 million in 2012, $700,000 in 2013 and $409,000 in 2014 by engaging the OPP to do its policing.

“When you look at those numbers,” Coun. Scott said, “that helps me in making my decision.”

A new building will be needed, and by going with the OPP, there is a potential grant in store for the city of Pembroke to build the facilities they need. Members of council attended a meeting with the premier and were informer that there would be no more infrastructure dollars given out, meaning that if they did not go with the OPP, the city would have to pay for a new building entirely on its own. Council is looking to build a new building that would house the OPP and the fire hall in the city’s industrial park.

Councillor Pat Lafreniere was in total support of the idea to save money by switching to the OPP. She explained this would be the first of many cutbacks for the city, and that everyone had to start being more financially fiscal in the time to come.

“In my opinion, it is the option that offers the most savings, while maintaining the level of security our citizens want,” she said.

No Big Change

Other than a change in uniforms and vehicles, Coun. Lafreniere said the security and response time will be the same, and they will have the same number of officers patrolling the streets of Pembroke.

“Savings are to be had on legal, overtime, management and administration expenses, and this will not take away from ‘boots on the ground’,” she said. “Someone sitting in an office doing secretarial duties, whether they are sitting in Pembroke or whether they are sitting up the highway, to me has very little effect on the safety or the response time.”

Councillor Lafreniere mentioned the $2.4 million in savings over the next few years by going with the OPP could offset capital costs greatly. She said that there were a lot of perks that will come, and not with a price.

“We must seek out ways to be more fiscally responsible, because times are not getting easier, and we all know that. This may be the tip of the ice burg, we may have to look at other cutbacks along the road,” she said.

Coun. Lafreniere ended her comments about how their decisions must be based on finances and not emotions.

Deputy-Mayor Ron Gervais was the only member of council opposing the decision, saying while it would not be cheaper to go with the OPP, the city and PPS were one step away from truly working together.

“It is my understanding that when council requested a costing [plan] from the OPP, there was no question of the Pembroke Police providing apt and effective policing. The request for costing was about the cost for the rate-payers,” Deputy-Mayor Gervais said.

He said the city could still negotiate with the Laurentian Valley Township and continue to have its own police force. He also said that the Pembroke Police have created a feeling of community policing feel, and that the view from the vice-chair of the police board was that city officers go above and beyond adequate and effective for policing.

“I want to point out that whether it’s policing or water and sewer, it is the province of Ontario that sets forth the legislation,” he said. “I want to point out to the rate-payers that if you have am issue, in terms of how much gets downloaded onto a municipality, it’s not the city of Pembroke level that you need to address. We’re trying. You’ve got to talk to the province of Ontario.”

He was the only councillor who said that going with the OPP would not be cheaper, as the stand-alone costs are similar to what the city already has with PPS. In his opinion, he said one could not financially compare the PPS to the integrated model.

“The Pembroke Police provide policing that is far beyond what is provincially mandated at that level,” Deputy-Mayor Gervais said.

“To suggest that council has rushed it’s comments on this is clearly wrong,” he said holding up a large stack of papers and binders. “This is the information that council had to deal with to come to this decision.”

Council has been receiving cost information sine last June, and wanted to insure the city that this decision has been long thought-out and not quick in any way.

“I continue to worry about the increase [in costs] that will happen in 2014. I keep saying to many people, ‘I do not have a crystal ball, but I am concerned.’ We’ve seen in other public sector when there’s a [pay] freeze for a number of years, what happens when the freeze is up.”

According to Deputy-Mayor Gervais, the PPS would enter into a four-year contract, which is longer than average, and are available to negotiate a salary increase at a rate of three per cent per year for three years. A disbandment of dispatchers also would have saved the city money, he said.

“In the last 15 months, the [police] board has made significant steps to resolving outstanding HR issues … but the board is cognizant of the cost to the rate-payers and is moving to reduce HR costs to result in savings in years to come,” he said.

Deputy-Mayor Gervais said the PPS is on its way to make policing as affordable as possible for the people in the community, and that many members of the community wanted to stay with their own police service where they have some level of control.

“For all reasons, my vote is to continue with the Pembroke Police, trusting that the Pembroke Police Service, the board and the association will continue to work together to try and provide a fine level of service that rate-payers have come to expect,” he said.

Residents Concerned With Increasing Taxes

Councillor Dan Callaghan said in talking with city residents, their biggest concern was any rise to taxes, but by going with the OPP, there will be no increase.

“I stood here 12 years ago, and spoke in favour of keeping Pembroke Police Services, and that was an easy decision to do, because I wasn’t sitting on city council,” he said. “I went and spoke to people, and I asked them, ‘I’m going to be making a decision on March 20, how do you feel about it? How would you like me to vote’?”

The biggest concern he heard was that people wanted to know if they were going to be protected, and if city council could hold the line on taxes. In a letter he received from a resident, who is with the armed forces and has lived in Pembroke since 2010, the resident wrote ‘if this means that taxes do not need to rise again, then I am in favour of the OPP.’

“I can’t stop every cost,” Coun. Callaghan said, “but tonight we’re making a decision where we can hold the line on tax.”

Some members on council, such as Councillor Gary Severin, have served on the PPS Board, and he echoed the same feelings of sadness with his support of the OPP. However, he noted every member of the PPS will get the chance to apply for a position in the OPP, as long as they do not have a criminal record.

“I thought a great deal about this process, and certainly it is with a sad heart that I bring this motion forward,” Coun. Severin told fellow councillors.

Even with the almost completely one-sided vote, every member of council took their time to talk about how wonderful the PPS has been over the years.

“We’ve had a lot of successes, mostly successes, working with the police association during collective bargaining processes as well,” Coun. Severin said. “We’ve had some, a little bit of problems at times, but it’s been a great working relationship and certainly if the service does go, we won’t have this anymore.

“The first thing that comes to mind is continued human resources issues, and with that of course, escalating legal costs and some dissention in the ranks. It seems as thought the city has had more than enough of these problems,” Coun. Severin said.

Some of his main reasons for voting for the OPP was that the city will finally start saving some money, and that if the OPP was to take over in Pembroke, it will become the hub of the Ottawa Valley and help the municipality down the road if it starts talking about amalgamation.

Councillor Bob Hackett argued what many other council members said, basically they cannot afford the escalating costs, and that they have to find some other solution to this problem.

“We’re going to be right back here in five years – prices go up and costs go up,” he said. “I do believe that we received great service from the Pembroke Police, but we’re at a point where we are saying ‘can I afford it anymore’?”

Other Municipalities That Have Made The Switch Are Pleased With OPP

Mayor Ed Jacyno spent the morning before the meeting calling other municipalities that have made the switch from stand-alone policing to the OPP, and the reception was good, he said.

While costs were one of the biggest factors in the decision, Mayor Jacyno still wanted to assure the community that the service and dedication of its police officer, regardless of their uniform, would be acceptable and hard-working.

The town of Arnprior, after disbanding its force and contracting the OPP, reduced the number of police officers from 14 to 12 and saved $250,000 inclusively, he said.

“That’s a lot of money,” Mayor Jacyno said. “We could fix a lot of roadway, we could dig a lot of ditch.

“No barbs to the guys in the back,” the Mayor said while looking at the city police officers sitting in on the meeting. “It’s a matter of reality. Costs are costs, no matter where they are coming from.”

Mayor Jacyno explained that Pembroke is ‘not an island,’ and that 340 other municipalities in the province of Ontario have to deal with the high costs of policing. He also mentioned that most increased costs are not inline with the inflation rate, but rather supply and demand.

“Our treasurer, she didn’t sit down and come up with a bunch of bogus numbers to present to us to make the OPP look good and our guys look bad, that was not the reasoning,” he said. “We said to her, ‘give us the clear cut, informative figures that we can look forward to, to the future, not just tomorrow, not 2013, but for 2014 and perhaps beyond’.”

In his multiple examples, Mayor Jacyno showed how many other cities and town kept a majority of their police officers, saved money and in the end, kept the same great level of policing. He said when he contacted Mayor Gordon Sweet of Petawawa, who’s first reaction was ‘why are you waiting?’

“I sound like an endorsement commercial for the OPP, but I’m just repeating what other people have told me,” the mayor said.

Mayor Jacyno assured council that if things did not work out, in five years they could most certainly change back to stand-alone policing if they really felt they needed to.

“Do we have the vision to look forward? … Does it fit the community, not just tomorrow, but in 50 years or 100 years down the road?”

Like Councillor Lafreniere, the Mayor echoed that this needed to be a vote of financial responsibility, not sympathy. While tearing down an institution that had stood for over a century is a difficult decision, it means saving the taxpayers money, and that was their duty as city council, he said.

“I’m trying to do the right thing for my community,” he said. “Good leadership means you have to do the right thing.”

The only doubts that the Mayor had was that the OPP plans to only have two and a half administration workers, and he doesn’t understand how they can add more officer and have less people doing the back office work. But despite all of this, saving is the key in the decision, he said.