The chief administrative officer for the City of Sault Ste. Marie says the Police Services Board should start putting away cash for a new police headquarters now and not bank on receiving any funding from the province or the federal government.
In a presentation made during a police board meeting last week, Malcolm White advised board members that similar capital projects in Ontario remain at a standstill due to funding shortfalls.
“The landscape right now is, there isn’t really a lot of government funding for police facilities — that’s why you see, even in northern Ontario, police services that are a lot further down the road and are ready to build but they’re stuck against a wall of having no other sources of funding except the municipal tax base,” said the city’s CAO. “I’m not sure that’s going to change and certainly it’s something we can always lobby for, but you need to prepare for the eventuality that that’s not going to be there.”
White suggested that funds should be earmarked in future police services budgets over a number of years.
“What that does is that it starts building that into the budget, so that it’s not a big sudden shock when we do get to the point of taking care of a new facility,” he said.
The existing Sault Ste. Marie Police Service building on Second Line East was panned during a police board meeting last month, with board members describing the facility as "woefully inadequate," and that it "doesn't fit the needs of the service that we have today" after being taken on a recent tour of the police station, which originally opened its doors to the public in 1968.
Police board chair Lisa Vezeau-Allen said during last week’s board meeting that talks surrounding a new headquarters for Sault Ste. Marie Police Service have been ongoing, with police staff currently looking at other reports regarding the planning stages for new police facilities in St. Thomas and Thunder Bay.
Vezeau-Allen reiterated talk around the police board table that a new police service headquarters should be constructed with the future of policing — in addition to a projected increase in population by as many as 10,000 people within the next 15 years, according to the city’s CAO — in mind as talks around a new facility evolve.
“It’s not just one bricks-and-mortar solution — I think it’s taking a look at, okay, this is how we’re doing policing now. How are we going to be doing policing in 20 years with population increase, with different technologies that can be used in policing and how does that look?”
The chair told board members that creating a strategy for communication and consultation with the public is still needed in order to forge ahead with the project.
“We still haven’t done that yet, so I think that’s really important for something of this size,” she said.
Sault Ste. Marie Police Service Chief Hugh Stevenson offered to begin the process of searching for a third party to conduct a needs assessment which would include community consultation.
“I think if you would give me the authority to do that, I would more than happy to start that process — get a third-party assessment, I’ll report back to the next board meeting to say this particular group has been chosen to do it, with the board’s input of course, and we’ll go from there,” he said.
A motion passed at last week’s police board meeting gives Stevenson the go-ahead to seek out a request for proposals regarding consultation on a new police service headquarters. The request for proposals will be circulated to board members before it’s made public.
The next Police Services Board meeting is Sept. 29.