The Town of Essex is asking for resident feedback on the quality of policing within the community.
The 2024 Community Policing Survey is now available for residents to fill out their experiences and perceptions of the quality of policing from the Ontario Provincial Police.
Like many municipalities in Ontario, the Town currently receives policing services through a contract with the OPP.
This short survey asks residents to rank on a scale how satisfied or dissatisfied they are with the OPP in terms of overall quality of service, the visibility, or presence of OPP in the Town, the OPP's ability to work with the community to solve problems, among others.
The Town last offered this survey to residents approximately four years ago.
Sherry Bondy, Essex mayor, says it's important for residents to voice their opinion.
"And this is just one other service that the municipality provides through a contracted service, so we want to see if residents are happy. And if they're not happy, or if they are happy, we can bring those results back to the OPP."
She says past surveys have shown a split of satisfaction.
"And when we did it before it was pretty split, it was 50 per cent of residents were really happy with the OPP, and 50 per cent of them wanted to see more of them, more of them in the community. It is one of our biggest budgetary items, so having the community involved in this budget item is really important."
Bondy says the results of the survey will be shared with the public.
"We all need to have access to this information. Any time you're going to improve a service, it's good having feedback. We know that the OPP are a superior force in terms of if there was an emergency, or we have the boats, the helicopters, the dogs, but we want to make sure that we're having that community policing feel as well."
The survey will be available to residents until November 29.
A link to the survey can be found by clicking here.