By Staff
December 8th, 2022
BURLINGTON, ON
The Councillor and the Chief.
Ward 2 Councillor Lisa Kearns spent a few minutes with Halton Regional Police Chief Steven Tanner and had this to say:
“Great conversation with Chief Tanner about the efforts that make Halton Region an enviable place to work, live and play.
“Halton remains the SAFEST place to live in of all Canadian municipalities with a population of 100,000 or more.
“Through the work over 1000+ members of Halton Police Services, it has maintained its position of having the lowest Crime Severity Index (CSI).
“Certainly there are evolving challenges and terrific opportunities ahead as we look to this new term of Regional Council.”
No mention of the size of the police budget and how it will impact the budget Kearns is going to have to pass early in the New Year.
Ward 2 Councillor Lisa Kearns with Regional Police Chief Steven Tanner
The Region do have a say in the budget and are expected to ensure service is appropriately provided. Why did the Councillor not hold a public meeting with the Chief and allow Ward 2 to ask the Chief questions related to safety of our communities that have been ignored for far too long. That would have been both useful and appropriate. Closed door meetings with a Chief of Police are bound to raise eyebrows especially when the Chief refuses to meet with Ward two residents who have worked with police to make Halton safer but are shut out when elected and appointed individuals are involved in the situations that affect public safety.
Police services and councilors should not be doing photo ops together. The reason for this, is council should maintain an arms length with different institutions like policing services. When you build these relationships, it could get in the way when discussing budgets, recruitment and complaints. Policing services is not governed by the region, however the money is coming from the region, so regional council should have a say on how they are spending that money.