West Grey 'bucks trend' by keeping municipal police force

There’s plenty to be happy about if you’re West Grey Police Chief Robert Martin. West Grey Council has voted to keep him and his 21 officers on the job for the foreseeable future.

“Municipal policing has been here since 1892. We’re looking forward to continuing to be the preferred policing choice for our municipality,” said Martin.

In a unanimous, 7-0 vote, West Grey Council has decided not to switch to the OPP, and stick with, what they know — the West Grey Police Service.

“If you want good community policing, then you need a good community municipal police force to do that for you,” said West Grey Mayor, Kevin Eccles.

A consultant’s report showed that the first three years of switching to the OPP would be more expensive than keeping the West Grey Police Service, but budget projections suggested keeping West Grey police could end up costing taxpayers as much as $10 million more over the next 15 years.

Eccles said the projections didn’t sway him or members of council, who have heard some reservations from other municipalities who switched from their municipal force to the OPP.

“It’s not the community policing they had, and to get any further than that, it’s going to end up costing them more in the long run,” explained Eccles.

Maintaining their municipal force bucks a trend of switching to the OPP. In 2000, there were 16 municipal police forces in rural Ontario. Today, there are only four.

“We’re not a presence that shows up when you need the police. We try to be as visible as we can be in the town, and we serve our town’s needs very well,” said Martin.

The next order of business is a new police headquarters. The current West Grey Police Service Headquarters were designed for five officers — West Grey has 22 officers. Cost estimates from last year peg the cost at anywhere from $8 to $12 million dollars.

“It’s too small and it doesn’t meet the needs of a modern police service,” said Martin.

“It didn’t matter whether we went with the OPP or with West Grey, a building was going to be required,” said Eccles.