The mayor of Essex wants to conduct a public survey on how satisfied the community is with Ontario Provincial Police services.
Sherry Bondy, who is also a member of the Essex County OPP Detachment Board - North, presented her notice of motion during their council meeting on Monday evening, which will then be voted on during their next meeting.
The notice of motion asks that administration conduct a public satisfaction survey on OPP services provided within the Town, and for the results to be brought back to council.
The Town conducted this survey during the last term of council to gain feedback from the public, where one item that was considered was adding another officer for focused Traffic Patrol. However, that was turned down when it came to a vote.
Bondy says the last time the responses were very split in terms of satisfaction.
"Unless we do this again, we don't know if that has gone up, or gone down. So I really want public feedback. I do hear a lot of great things about the officers themselves, but generally speaking I think myself, and perhaps other members of council, we hear things like 'we wish we saw more police, we wish we saw them walking, riding their bikes, driving down our roads'."
She says during the last survey there were conversations to add another officer for focused Traffic Patrol.
"That was a pretty contentious vote in the last term of council, and that did not get approved. Myself - I supported it because I would love to have a focused Traffic Patrol Officer, but the other opinions on council were like 'we pay this contract, it should be enough', and I can't argue with that either."
She adds that she wants to be able to present these results to the OPP Detachment Board.
"I want to really touch base with our residents and say 'what are your thoughts now?', and then in the future if we get complaints I can say 'hey, 80 per cent of our population are happy, or 70 per cent', I want to have data from the community."
Bondy says she would love to see this become a yearly survey.
She says if it's approved by council, she's hoping to see the survey put out to the public by the fall as administration already has an outline of the survey from the previous term.
The notice of motion will be discussed and voted on during the June 17 meeting.