Windsor's mayor says the city will never shut the door to conversations with the Town of Amherstburg when it comes to policing.
Drew Dilkens says he wishes the best for the town as they try to find a solution for policing in Amherstburg.
This comes after Amherstburg mayor Michael Prue announced during Monday's council meeting that the town has ended all conversations on renewing their policing agreement with the city - which is set to expire on December 31, 2028.
Prue stated these discussions came to an end after Windsor city council said they would not guarantee that an Amherstburg representative could sit on the Windsor Police Services (WPS) Board.
Dilkens says per the provincial Police Services Act, the city only gets to appoint one member of the public to the board, and it's unfair to guarantee that the one member would be from Amherstburg.
According to Dilkens, the original agreement stated that city council agreed to have Amherstburg's mayor as a member of the WPS board for the first four-year term, but after that it was up to city council on who to appoint. The city continued to appoint mayor Prue, but now wants to appoint a Windsor resident.
He says if having a seat on the police board is important to Amherstburg then they have to look for another option.
"So we only get to appoint one member to the board, and for us to guarantee that it would be someone from the Town of Amherstburg, which is really a community that is a tenth of the size of the City of Windsor, would be really unfair to the residents of the City of Windsor. And so I get that they're looking for that, I hope they're able to find it, and we're going to continue to provide strong, effective policing for the duration of the contract."
Dilkens says city council decided they want a member of the public representing the City of Windsor.
"The mayor of Amherstburg or their designate could be a non-voting member, so they still attend the meetings; they just don't vote. So they can still see what is going on and have a line of sight to the operation of the police service. And so, we only get to appoint one member of the public, all of the rest are either order-in-council appointments, which means provincial appointments, or they must be the mayor or city councillors."
He says the city remains open for discussions with Amherstburg.
"If they have a hard time finding what they're looking for with another police service, they are more than welcome to come back and have a conversation with us, we're never going to shut the door on the Town of Amherstburg," says Dilkens. "But at this point if they've cut off the discussions as a result of not being guaranteed a seat on the police board, then that's their decision and we certainly respect their approach."
Dilkens says the city has monitored their expenses to provide the service, and that it doesn't make sense for Windsor taxpayers to continue to support that service as there isn't enough revenue.
Windsor has been providing policing in the town since January 2019 after the Amherstburg council voted to approve a 20-year contract with the city and disband the former town police service.
Amherstburg stated during their Monday meeting that they will now look into reinstating their own service, as well as continuing discussions with LaSalle Police and Ontario Provincial Police.