Mayor’s motion to halt spending $173M on policing centre fails at committee

The Region of Waterloo Budget and Strategic Planning committee met on Tuesday, as part of final budget deliberations.

The agenda contained 32 councilor motions with various asks of the spending plan. Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic tabled several motions, but one in particular took up a significant portion of the discussion.

Specifically, the cost of the proposed regional emergency services communications center. The Waterloo Regional Police Service’s capital budget is asking for $173 million for the new facility.

Mayor Vrbanovic believes the ask is too high, the building too large, and the tax base can’t support that kind of spending during an affordability crisis.

The motion called for the WRPS operating budget to be approved, but the Capital budget be returned to the police services board to be reworked to bring the costs down.

During the debate on the motion, Regional Chair Karen Redman said based on expert advice, the communications centre is needed.

“And the reality is, techniques and technology are moving ahead, and that’s why when we had an external consultant come in, they talked about the fact that this is what we need to invest in now, for this region to stay on the cutting edge of solving crime.”

Councillor Doug Craig echoed those sentiments, adding constituents want safer streets, and that’s what the hub will accomplish.

“It’s very clear that this service, and safety in the community, which is something I hear about all the time, is a number one concern of a lot of people. Not only safety, but our road network safety in our neighbourhoods and bringing this all together will only improve safety.”

But the fact remains, $173 million is a lot to ask when ratepayers and municipalities alike are struggling with affordability.

Craig said when it comes to financial constraints impacting municipalities, he looks to Queen’s Park.

“We shouldn’t leave the province out of this, and the lack of support we’ve got from them. Because a lot of the concerns we have are built on (the province) downloading problems they’ve put on us.”

Craig went on to highlight the impact of provincial downloading on municipalities.

“If the province were to pay for all its downloaded programs, that would be $217 million. And, the impact on each individual in the region would be a decrease of $659. But, we ignore that and try to squeeze and manoeuvre within a budget that is very constraining.”

In the end, the committee defeated Vrbanovic’s motion, 9-7, with both Craig and Redman in favour of approving the police services budget.

In a statement to 570 NewsRadio, Vrbanovic said:

“The motion I proposed is very clear that we send the budget back, indicating we do not support the police capital budget, but support the operating portion of the budget as the ask for the over-sized communications centre is not reasonable at this time, especially with many competing capital needs. I believe we all can agree we need a new communications center, but something that is right-sized to meet known current needs and not possible future needs of a future operating model we don’t know today.”