The Essex County OPP Detachment Board - North held their first annual meeting Monday evening.
This new board, which replaces the Police Service Board, combines Essex, Tecumseh, and Lakeshore as a single entity to contribute to their community's safety and well-being by working with local citizens and organizations to make sure their community receives the appropriate policing it needs.
While the meeting was brief, and a way for the new members to meet one another, there were discussions around potential initiatives and upcoming events.
The OPP gave a monthly overview for March 2024, which saw a 14.4 per cent increase in Total Calls for Service for each municipality compared to March 2023, a 45 per cent decrease in Mental Health Response Unit calls compared to the year prior, and an average of 33.9 recorded vehicle stops per day in March 2024.
Gary McNamara, board member and Tecumseh mayor, started brainstorming during the meeting more ways the OPP and the public can coincide after multiple vandalism's to local parks.
"As we continue to develop our parks and so forth, is there an opportunity for doing kind of a tour, especially for the major ones that have been giving us a lot of issues, and I'm sure that in Lakeshore or Essex there's probably the same issue."
Essex County OPP Sergeant Jamie Smith says local initiatives, like public walks, can definitely be worked out.
"I know with the Community Safety Wellbeing walks, we've had one previously on St. Gregory's there, and we can set it up for other locations and lean on our partners in Windsor for that and bring out whoever you wish, if you want to provide a list to me, we can set something up to have that happen. I was fortunate to take part in that walk, and there was great information that came out of that."
Sergeant Smith says they are working on more patrol to help in trouble areas.
"With the summer months coming we'll be looking at those foot patrol in those areas, bicycle patrol would be nice. I know they're doing more training once again, it's just getting the bikes out there and that's going to be the push for this year in those park areas, so they're out there interacting with the public."
The meeting also saw the appointment of Paul Sweet, a community member in Tecumseh, as Chair of the Board, and Dave Kigar, a community member for Essex, appointed as Vice Chair.
Other board members include Tecumseh mayor Gary McNamara, Essex mayor Sherry Bondy, and Lakeshore mayor Tracey Bailey.
There will be six meetings this year and each meeting will be open to the public and live streamed.
For the time being the meetings will be held in Tecumseh on the second Monday every other month at 10 a.m.
The next meeting will be held on June 10.