Leamington to issue Request for Proposal

LEAMINGTON — The long-awaited report from MPM Consulting was shared with Leamington Council members at their meeting on July 14.

Michael Mitchell, from MPM Consulting, outlined four options that council has with regard to policing in Leamington, after the expiry of the current OPP policing contract next May.

Mitchell, citing results from the recent public opinion survey about OPP policing in Leamington, offered statistics and possible scenarios for each option.

Leamington council gave notice last month to the OPP that they were seeking to explore other policing options.

"It's been 11 years and it's time to re-examine policing services," Mitchell said. "It's good management practice."

The town signed a five-year contract originally and then renewed in 2015.

The former Leamington Police Service operated with an average of 39 uniformed positions and about 10 civilian staff.

According to Mitchell, OPP reduced the 24-hour station to an eight-hour-a-day station around 2015 and made no commitment for number of uniformed officers.

Mitchell read over 500 public survey responses and came to his conclusions, partly based on those responses.

He outline four viable options for Leamington to move forward with.

Option 1: Maintaining the status quo and allow OPP to continue once the contract expires. Without a contract and under current legislation, the OPP would be obligated to provide police service after the contract expires. This option might be the least expensive of the four, according to Mitchell. It would also allow for certain amount of familiarity with the officers currently on the job staying here.

Option 2: Requesting quotes and proposals from specific individual municipalities. The advantage to this would be that Leamington would have significant input in the contract. There would be no police services board, but the municipalities who won the bid would have control over the level of service.

Option 3: An outright Request for Proposal (RFP), which would go out to any municipality interested in providing policing. Leamington would be able to set the minimum level of service, number of officers and other aspects in the verbiage of the proposal. There would also be no police services board for this option, and a new group of officers from another municipality would be on the job.

Option 4: Likely the most expensive option. It would be the formation of a brand new Leamington Police Service. To re-establish a Leamington Police Service, it may take up to $7 million annually, as opposed to about $5.4 million currently, when you consider the capital costs of new cruisers and equipment and hiring of officers. One thing in favour, is that the current police station belongs to the municipality, so there would be no cost for a building.

The advantages of re-establishing a police force here are the control and oversight that a Leamington-based police services board would have. Also, all employees would be dedicated to Leamington, meaning that they wouldn’t be required in other parts of the county during peak hours.

On the flip-side, there would be a significant cost for infrastructure and the municipality would assume all liability related to policing.

According to Mitchell, there has not been one Ontario municipality that has gone back to their own police force after contracting the OPP, although several have looked into it.

Surrey, British Columbia reverted back to a municipal police force recently from RCMP.

In discussion, Deputy Mayor Larry Verbeke supported Option 2.

Councillor John Jacobs spoke on his opposition to all proposals, citing them as cost prohibitive.

“I cannot support any of this and will be there to say ‘I told you so’ in the end,” he said.

Jacobs said that 510 responses to a public survey is not a large enough percentage of the constituency to get an accurate picture.

Councillor Bill Dunn supported option three, as did John Hammond.

Mayor Hilda MacDonald spoke last with the explanation that they have asked OPP management for an itemized list of what the municipality was getting and got no resonse from them.

“We’ve done our due diligence,” she said.

MacDonald referred to a recent Zoom meeting with an OPP regional commander, who was surprised to hear that Leamington was unhappy with the level of service.

“We have an obligation to show our people what they are paying for,” she said. “To sit back is not acceptable.”

With that, council took a vote and Option #3 passed by a 5-1 count. Councillor Jacobs was the only vote against.