Melancthon seeking costing from Shelburne Police

September 16, 2016 · 0 Comments

By Michelle Janzen

Could the Township of Melancthon soon be serviced by the local Shelburne Police Department?

At Monday night’s Council meeting, Councillor Randy Chambers gave a verbal update with regard to Melancthon’s previous request for police costing.

In recent talks with the Mayor of Melancthon, it was discussed that a study would be required to develop and fully understand the parameters of exactly what they are asking for in terms of Policing. Councillor Chambers said he feels the study should be funded fully by the Township of Melancthon.

“As this is something that is totally new to us, on August 30, we met with our Police Advisor, who advised that type of arrangement is quite common and that there are many other communities that do the same thing,” Councillor Chambers advised. “The Chief of Police, Kent Moore has been given the names of those municipalities and is in the process of contacting them to see how their agreements fwork with the hosting police services and the adjoining communities. He will be reporting back to the Police Service Board on September 22.”

With that, Chambers went on to ask “At this point in time we have not received all the information needed to determined what costing would be to Melancthon, however we are committed to moving forward to get this information and would like to know how Council feels about proceeding.”

Mayor Ken Bennington thanked Mr. Chambers and said “I am in favour of discussion to continue.”

“Has the chief had any preliminary thoughts in terms of staffing,” asked Councillor Wade Mills.

“No, and that’s one of the things that we need to do,” Mr. Chambers answered. “Rural policing is different with the highways and such, and that is one of the things that Chief Moore will be finding out from other services and how they have managed it. The key thing to me is that it has to provide some benefit to Shelburne, however it’s too preliminary to say anything more at this time.”

Councillor Walter Bonatto said he agreed with Chambers, stating he feels that there does need to be more investigation before a decision is made.

With that, Mr. Chambers stated that he will bring the finding of the Police Service Board’s September 22 meeting forward to Council for follow up at that time.

Next, Chambers brought up the Police Accommodations with Council.

“When we last spoke about police housing, the Police Service Board asked the Town of Shelburne to create an action plan by November in terms of moving forward and wanted an update on where that stands, by bringing it to Council’s attention” said Mr. Chambers.

There was some new information offered.

“This can be put back on the agenda for the next meeting, however I do have somewhat of an update,” said John Telfer, CAO for the Town of Shelburne. “There are several options available to us and some of them can be discounted quickly by price or practically. So, staff has been actively pursuing this based on what we saw on the resolution by the Police Service board, and have been diligent in this process.”

Councillor Chambers said he hoped there was a resolution on the horizon.

“I am hopeful that at the Police Service Board meeting on September 22 we will have our 2017 budget complete as well as a 10 year financial forecast to give to the Town in moving forward,” he said.