Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Members of the public and Greater Napanee council alike had their chance to weigh in on the three-year-old issue of area rating police costs at a special meeting held Monday night.
In anticipation of a large turnout, the chosen venue was the Strathcona Paper Centre-though in hindsight the cramped quarters of town hall would easily have housed those in attendance. The purpose of the evening wasn’t to make a decision-no motion was made other than to receive the public deputations-but rather to gather further input on the issue of policing costs.
It was at the SPC back in 2016, in front of a much larger crowd, that current deputy mayor Max Kaiser (then a councillor) passed the following motion: ‘That this new taxation policy consider ‘Method 4’ of the Taxation Policy Review Committee Final Report insofar that we take the area-rating of fire services, streetlights and sidewalks as included in the report; And finally that we not leave the OPP issue alone, such that we seek dialogue as to whether or not the “calls for service” for the OPP can be area-rated within a given municipality; and that we seek that decision within this term of Council: And that the phase-in period be changed to five years, with the first year having already been done.’
Familiar points were made in the open discussion: policing is offered at the same level across the town’s boundaries. The biggest sticking point was response time and where the calls came from. Its been argued that areas such as the hospital, high school and arena are located within the ‘urban’ area, but are also frequented by members of the ‘rural’ population and therefor benefit from police responses to those areas. Another point presented was policing done to protect downtown businesses also have an indirect benefit to the entire population.
“I, like probably everyone else up here, just want to put this thing to bed,” said councillor Terry Richardson. “It’s time to move on to the next phase and I think there’s bigger fish to fry. I personally would like to take a look at the contract with the OPP in which we’re all going to win if we can save some money. I think there’s deficiencies there that we should be looking at.”
Councillor Dave Pinnell Jr. said the town could look to MPAC to do the area rating for them.
“I’d like to see something be done where the tax rates be identical,” said Pinnell Jr. “If we move forward with the Phase 5 (of the Taxation Review Committee’s report) we would be very much closer than we are now. I believe the assessments should dictate what your taxes are. If you were to build the exact same home and put it on the exact same size lot, in town or in a rural area, they would be assessed two different ways. If the tax rate were the same, there’s where your difference would be.”
Kaiser stood by his motion of three years ago.
“I’d really like to see this put behind us,” said Kaiser. “To a large extent I think we did that in 2016 when we adopted the policy we have. I hope that policy stands. The only question in my mind right now is is this council interested in area rating policing or not…If there’s no interest to do that, then we’re done here”
Mayor Marg Isbester noted she was disappointed in the public turn out to the meeting, but still called the discussion ‘wholesome’ and ‘informative’ though she had hoped to hear the rural side of the coin. She theorized that the low turnout was a sign that people were generally content with the policy.
“I have to agree it has come time to put it to bed,” said Isbester. “For us to make a decision, whether it’s arbitrary or not. We still are having a terrible time getting any level of any ministry to give us a solid answer on how we could area-rate policing costs.”
Isbester said they will make a decision at a future council meeting, though no specific date was set.