The future of the Wingham Police Service is in doubt again, after North Huron Council passed a motion to reconsider an earlier motion of support.
A motion to reconsider passed by a 7-0 vote, as councillors felt North Huron ratepayers, especially those in the Wingham Ward, are feeling the pinch after voting earlier to keep their local police force intact.
North Huron passed its 2018 budget that reduced a proposed 18% spending increase down to just over 13%, but pushed all of those extra monies to 2019 and 2020.
For a home in Wingham assessed at $200,000, the municipal tax increase will be 7.18%, Blyth will see a 2.5% increase, while East Wawanosh sees a 2.0% municipal tax increase.
Council only passed this year's police budget so proposed budget estimates the next two years would only be passed in those years.
Reeve Neil Vincent briefly left the Reeve's chair to speak on policing in North Huron. He said it was not fair to staff for council to keep asking them to re-analyze the possibility of the Wingham Police Service covering Blyth and East Wawanosh. Vincent says too much time was spent on this five years ago and he does not want to see a repeat.
Wingham Police Chief Tim Poole was at Tuesday's meeting and says the service, the police association and police board all maintain that one police force should be covering the entire municipality, whether that's an expanded Wingham Police Service or the Ontario Provincial Police.
The four councillors from Blyth and East Wawanosh attempted to make a motion to "bury the idea of these Wards being covered by an expanded Wingham Police Service forever", but it was noted in discussion that this motion was not possible.
