The cost of OPP police services is once again, getting under the skin of South Bruce Peninsula council.
Councillors have learned that OPP are charging within their billing formula for assessed trailers, even though the trailers are seasonal.
Mayor Janice Jackson says the municipality is getting “Billed for everything under the sun and we’re not giving up the battle to have the police costing brought into control.”
Jackson says even though there’s no access to the trailers eight months of the year, they’re still the victims of a flawed billing model.
For instance, the mayor says even though they have the same population as Georgian Bluffs, South Bruce Peninsula is charged twice the amount for OPP services.
Right now the municipality is in the middle of a 5-year contract costing close to $2.5 million a year.
That prompted Councillor Craig Gammie to resurrect the concept of the municipality creating its own police force.
Gammie says, “Then we would set the number of officers and how they would work.”
He believes they could come up with something that would be more economical and yet efficient for the taxpayers.
Council agreed to write letters of concern to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) and the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) for help in addressing the problem to the province.
AMO has a conference coming up this August in Ottawa.