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Consider the future of policing carefully, Orangeville

April 13, 2017   ·   1 Comments

By Joe James

There has been a great deal of debate lately regarding whether the Town should go OPP or stay with its own police service.  Most of the debate is now becoming centered on the cost to each household. I would like to touch a little bit on that financial debate, but, more importantly, I’d like to put forth a view from a different perspective – that of the town’s community and culture as it relates to its police service. I was a sworn police officer with Orangeville from 1989 to 2010 and believe I can offer a unique view from within.

Firstly, let’s take a quick look at the present financial debate. At the last meeting the treasurer put forth numbers that show a projected cost over the next 3 years that show a significant savings. After hearing some of the questions and answers after that presentation, it’s clear that those numbers are projections based on guesses. Some of the comparator Towns used are inappropriate and no one knows what that cost will actually be in 4 years.

Each community has its own policing needs and expenses for a given year and a budget that goes along with it. You cannot base projections on simply population size. I’m not a financial analyst but it’s not rocket science to figure out that you can’t just throw out numbers from one town and have it relate to another.

There are certain expenses in each budget that are required and necessary, determined by our current Chief Wayne Kalinski. I’m sure that as a Police Chief responsible to a Police board, money is not spent frivolously.  Mr. Kalinski is accountable to how the budget is applied. If you consider how we try to run our own households, it’s not much different.  We pay the necessities that we have to like heat, hydro, food etc. We try to put some aside in case of emergencies and pray that we can afford to fix whatever problem arises. We try to enrich our lives affording other costs of entertainment, such as holidays and other family outings. Sometimes we do extra so we can afford more. Sometimes we get less. It’s different every year. Some years we win, some we strive. Although the police budget has different expenses than our households, the Chief knows what they are and I’m confident that he and the Board members try to plan accordingly.

There is some control over this budget and I would be more interested in knowing how that money is managed rather than farming the whole thing out to a provincial body for which we will have far less influence and control. As they say: the devil you know is often better than the one you don’t.

We elected our council so that they can make decisions that affect us all. We can influence them to pay more attention as to what the police budget is spent on. Right now our police service isn’t bankrupting us. We presently get excellent service.  We know that. What we don’t know is what quality of service we will get if we transition over to the OPP. I can guarantee though that it won’t be as personable or as readily available as the OPS.

The OPP has already said they will have a certain number of officers in Town but will spread them out to the surrounding areas if they have to. And there will definitely be times they will have to do that. The bottom line is we are not going to get all the bells and whistles we currently receive, such as officers on beat duty, officers in schools, specialty programs specifically designed for Orangeville needs. You are going to get bare bones policing, unless you request and subsequently pay more – ask our friends in Caledon about that.

Should we switch, the first thing you’re going to notice is that response times are less consistent. When is the last time you paid less and got more. We are getting extras now that you won’t truly recognize until they’re gone.

I would suggest there are a number of ways to decrease our own budget, or add more revenue to it without straining the specialized services we are used to. If you analyze things you will notice there can be ways to adjust and save. If we simply hand the whole thing over to the OPP they will be telling us what they need, not us telling them. It won’t be our service any longer; it will belong to the Province, an entity that the last time I checked was over $300 billion in debt. Do we want to start drinking from that trough?.

Now, the more important issue I’d like to address is that this is our Police Service. As citizens or as business owners in the community we are part of it. It’s ours! I started working for the Orangeville Police Service in 1989. The service was small, maybe 12 to 15 officers and 7 civilians. It was a small town service.

During this time all of the officers lived either in Town or just outside of it. Their kids went to our schools and played on our local hockey and lacrosse teams. The local police often coached the teams. They shared the same doctors, shopped at the same stores, ate at the same local restaurants and basically lived and were part of the same community. There is a well know principle taught about policing at the Ontario Police College and that is that “The people are the police and the police are the people.” They are supposed to be part of the community. In 1989 they were. This type of community police service is worth its weight in gold. It’s what other services strive for.

Around the year 2005 I was given the opportunity to create and implement a youth bureau within the service. A program was developed that was a cross between social work and police work and family intervention plans were implemented. This allowed for me to go directly out to a  family and  establish a partnership with them to create an intervention that would make a difference in their young person’s life. The program was very successful and the service received an Award from the Ontario Crime Commission for the Prevention of crime. That program was the only one in Ontario and would not have been able to be implemented if we were not operating our own service where decisions can be made by us internally. We also delivered the Drug Abuse Resistance Education Program (D.A.R.E.) to all of the elementary schools in Orangeville and to the High Schools. The cost for that was $30,000. We raised that money from local sources because we partnered with service clubs and corporations. We also created a non-profit organization from a group of citizens to fundraise for a youth shelter.  We handed out “Blue Zone” t shirts to skateboarders who skated in the proper areas of town.  We solved that nuisance by being creative and developing programs that specifically targeted problem areas. We worked hard at solving social problems not because we were assigned it but because we were part of the community and effected by the same problems..

Recently, Police Chief of the Toronto Police Service Mark Saunders announced a program designed to facilitate beat officers building more relationships in local neighbourhoods in order to become more community based. We had that here in Orangeville for years. We are starting to have it back again. The essence of that cannot be undervalued. It truly is a very effective way to police a community. If people know you up front and personal then they are more likely to support you.

I was very proud to be a member of the Orangeville Police Service. The service had an excellent reputation in the community and abroad and there was a unique way of doing things, an Orangeville way.  That continued right up until around 2006. Between 2004 or so to around 2010, things changed at OPS. We had 2 changes in police chiefs and the overall management of the service. In my opinion that is when things started to go astray. There were a number of decisions made during that time that reorganized the way the service operated. There were many decisions made during this time that produced a very low morale with the service. During this period at least 10 officers, myself included, left the service to explore other opportunities. When you take that many officers out of a community you cannot replace that experience or the relationships they have built over the last 20 years. You can hire a 15-year veteran from another department but you can never replace those connections that the officer he has replaced has built up over a lifetime of living in the community. When Orangeville lost those officers, they lost their culture. They lost the Orangeville way of doing things.

During those years, if examined you will find the highest rate of stress leave ever in the service. You will find the highest rate of officers leaving and the highest rate of officer’s charges with police act offences and the highest time of dysfunction within the association.  This all came at a huge financial cost to the municipality.

Although I no longer worked for the OPS I was privy to what was going on and it was not good. The dark ages were upon them with no sign of light at the end of the tunnel. A few more officers left and a few more were threatened with insubordination and most just carried on because, after all, it’s their livelihood but the majority were not happy.  That process seemed to continue right up until the hiring of this present Chief.

Since Chief Kalinski arrived I have been hearing a different tune. I know that he has repositioned some people. He seems to manage his officers internally and he is viewed as respected and supportive to his staff. It is no accident that there has also been a change in our Mayor and that there is a better working relationship between the police Chief and the Police Services Board and that Board has also changed. Politically it’s been adjusted so that more positive potential can be brought to the surface. Prior to this, the Board, the Chief and the Mayor were constantly on the defensive. They had to be, the service was in disarray and in conflict with the Town. That seems to have been eliminated.

I suggest that we give this man a chance to show that he can continue to navigate this service towards an even higher standard both financially and operationally. He seems to be doing the job the way it’s supposed to be done. There are many other opportunities available to increase proactive and preventative policing programs and the service has the potential to reclaim its identity. The culture is beginning to be renewed again.

And our civilian employees cannot be under rated. Many of them have 20 or more years of dedicated service.  Some of them have been there since the Chief Holden days. They have also been part of the community and establish those same positive relationships in the community. They know the people and deal with them everyday up close and personal. If the town goes OPP they have clearly stated they will not be continuing their employment. They may have some positions (they are saying 10) to which they can apply but generally there is no commitment to hiring them.

I suggest to you that’s like getting kicked out of your family and then told well you can apply to come back in but we already have a lot of members that can fill those positions, do try though. Some of these civilians are close to retirement and will have their pensions greatly affected by this decision and likely will be out a job. Ethically that is just plain wrong. It’s blatantly unfair! For the service, its association or the Town to support throwing these people and their families under the bus for a promise that may be in fact very empty 4 years from now would be completely disloyal to those that have served the municipality well for several years.

In ending, I would just like to say let’s not throw out our baby with the bath water. The police service is presently in a good position to redefine itself, to become even better than it is. The major internal problems that existed are under control. Going forward I think we should stay the course, fine tune the budget and recapture the Orangeville Police identity and long standing culture and re-commit to supporting all that it can be. Historic charm/Dynamic future! Does that mean anything? Or is it just an empty slogan? Does the police service have any less value than an historic building? It should this one is full of people that live and serve our community when we need it the most.

Thank you

Joe James

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