The Town of Essex will be conducting a satisfaction survey of residents for Ontario Provincial Police services.
It follows a notion of motion brought forward by Mayor Sherry Bondy, which called on council to direct Administration to conduct a public satisfaction survey on OPP services being provided to the Town and report the results back to council.
At their regular meeting on Monday night, councillors spoke in support of the idea and supported it unanimously.
The Town conducted a survey like this during the last term of council to gain feedback from the public.
Bondy believes holding these kinds of surveys periodically is good to get a benchmark of how the community feels.
"I also think it would be beneficial for council to see our last results, and to see how we compare. We can really get a good survey this time, we can change up the questions, and then maybe even every two years we do it to see what the public feedback is. Police Service Board meetings now are not every month here in the Town of Essex," Bondy said.
She says those meetings are held every other month in the Town of Tecumseh, so there's an opportunity to get more information from residents through things like surveys.
"I really feel like there's less meetings, less oversight, so this is going to be a good gauge to get the pulse of the public. Then we can take it to the OPP and say 'hey look, this is what our public is saying' and if it's not favourable the OPP get it. And if it's favourable, to residents that complain to us about the OPP, we can say hey the majority of our residents are satisfied."
Councillor Katie McGuire-Blais believes it's a very good idea, but she wants to make sure that the survey questions are not vague.
"I find that when we put surveys out it's so vague that we're not really getting a good capture. So maybe before the survey goes public council can just take a quick look at it and maybe give some suggestions. We're the ones who are getting the complaints, and sometimes the survey doesn't always reflect what people are actually complaining about, so that would be my only suggestion," she said.
Administration officials will be meeting later this week with Bondy to look at comparable previous surveys along with surveys done by other municipalities, and then council will get a chance to look at what they come up with prior to sending it out to the public.