A final plea has been made to not venture down the road of an OPP costing study.
Three delegations were made to Dryden Council Monday night.
The cost of the study was the main theme as it’s not known how much the City will have to invest in staff time and consulting fees.
Judi Green is Chair of the Dryden Police Service and she questioned why there won’t be public input accepted at a Thursday vote on the issue.
Green says they will fully cooperate with any decision made by Council.
Inspector Ann Tkachyk made a passionate presentation on the impacts of proceeding.
Tkachyk says the City will lose all governance and the ability to control police budgets if they go down the OPP road.
She stresses the Dryden Police budget only represents 18% of the entire City budget and that has remained stable over the years.
She notes the OPP budget right now is $1.07-billion.
Tkachyk adds adopting an OPP model would bring the police coverage area to a total size of over 20,000 square kilometres, opening up the possibility of no coverage right in Dryden.
She says the DPS attends to all sorts of calls and the OPP model wouldn’t ensure coverage in Dryden 24-hours a day, 7-days a week.
Tkachyk says they take pride in meeting face-to-face with the people that they serve.
Scott Silver is the President of the Dryden Police Association and he is warning of repercussions if Council moves forward with an OPP costing.
Silver says adopting an OPP model would result in costly severance pay and pension pay-out’s for officers and staff who don’t transfer.
He stresses officers want to work for the municipality and are happy with the status quo.
Silver says talk of a study has created morale issues among officers, civilian staff and even the people they serve.
He notes OPP officers are among the highest paid in Canada, while Dryden Police officers are on the low end of the scale.
All three presentations talked about the great relationship Dryden Police have with the OPP and the high respect they have.
However, the importance of community policing and the unknown costs were reasons presented to vote against a study this week.
