Civic Affairs

What was arguably the most pertinent comment arising from city council's regional policing debate last night came from Councillor Mary Jean McFall.

One could feel a certain sense of relief from the gallery, and a sense of frustration from the contact committee table, when discussion at Monday's meeting turned to the prospect of a moratorium on OPP costings.

I had one of those “What-The” moments last night.

“Perfunctory” is one of those words we no longer use enough in conversation.

As in: “One would expect Brockville's study on regional policing would be a perfunctory affair.”

The funniest moment in Tuesday's brief discussion of the looming council cut motion concerned, inevitably, the mayor.

On the subject of the Ontario Provincial Police dialling in the last contact committee meeting, I see retired city cop David Mitchell was also unimpressed.

In a previous post, I suggested the OPP's use of the teleconference model at their August 26 meeting was bad optics in a community that is, quite frankly, still being sold on the idea of trading in the city police for an OPP badge.

This talk of cutting at city hall has a familiar ring to it, even if it is happening a little earlier in the year.

The problem with big problems is people tend to look for big solutions.

Sometimes, though, the solution isn't a big solution, but a large accumulation of small solutions.

When we posted our latest story last night about the aftermath of Brockville's Tomlinson decision, I tweeted the following: