Specialized police services will come with cost: Dilkens

Windsor's mayor says if any municipality requires specialized police services from his city's department, it will come with a price tag.

Following his inaugural meeting as chair of the Windsor Police Services Board Thursday afternoon, Drew Dilkens reiterated the towns of LaSalle and Amherstburg could see huge benefits from a regional police service led by the Windsor police department.

"When you look at training, when you look at specialized units, when you look at [drugs and morality], or you look at the bomb squad, tactical unit and the effectiveness of being able to respond to a community's need, pretty much within 15 minutes, that's what we can provide as Windsor Police Service," Dilkens said.

The towns of LaSalle and Amherstburg currently contractsome of those services out to Windsor and the Ontario Provincial Police.

In the case of an emergency where LaSalle or Amherstburg requires a specialized service from Windsor such as the bomb squad or tactical unit and the service is not covered by a pre-existing contract, Dilkens says sending out those services will now come with a cost.

"If we're talking about providing tactical response to Amherstburg or forensics to LaSalle, those are specialized services that there should be a fee that follows," he said.

Previously, Windsor's police chief says the city has not charged for those services. When pressed to give an example of when such a service would have been provided free of charge, no recent example could be provided other than the deployment of a forensics unit to LaSalle more than four years ago.

"If it`s not directly charged back then all of us as taxpayers are paying for it. So as a city of Windsor mayor, as a taxpayer in Windsor, I don`t want to pay twice," Dilkens said.

LaSalle Mayor Ken Antaya says if Windsor wants to start charging them for specialized services, the town can always call on the OPP.

"Considering this is Thursday and this all came to my attention, basically in a very brief conversation with Mayor Dilkens on Monday evening, and it`s evolved into retraction of services that we don`t even use, is kind of comical," Antaya said.

Regional police force

The City of Windsor is currently working out how much it would cost to take over the Amherstburg Police Service. The town is also in discussions with the Ontario Provincial Police.

Dilkens says it would make more sense for LaSalle to join in as well.

"If we're looking at delivering some sort of regional policing model it would make more sense to have LaSalle included because they're the path to get to Amherstburg," he said.

LaSalle's mayor says the town is satisfied with its police force.

"I'm not going to force by the economics of a municipality on either side of us on determining what level of service we're going to provide here. We're very happy with the level of service that's being provided by our police," he said.