By Rosalind Russell – A new police board to oversee Ontario Provincial Policing in the LaCloche Foothills has been approved by the Ontario Solicitor’s Office.
Espanola CAO Allan Hewitt told council this week that the late Deputy Mayor Bill Foster was successful in his request that a police service board be set up dealing with local policing in the North Shore Corridor (Town of Espanola, and the Townships of Sables-Spanish Rivers, Nairn & Hyman, and Baldwin, as well as communities just outside those boundaries including Willisville and Whitefish Falls).
He says Manitoulin OPP oversees a wide jurisdiction, but Foster had noted that policing needs in the North Shore corridor were very different from the Manitoulin area.
To that end, he adds, the Ontario government has agreed to establishing the new localized board, so council unanimously supported the motion this Tuesday that Mayor Doug Gervais and long-standing police services volunteer Robert Towns sit as Espanola’s representatives.
Hewitt noted that the other communities still must name their appointees.
He adds the new LaCloche OPP Detachment Board will be established, pending the implementation of the new Community Safety and Policing Act, early in the New Year.
Policing will continue to be overseen by Manitoulin OPP, but that board will be separate and focused on policing priorities on the Island.
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