Town of Amherstburg Ordered to Conduct Further Records Search

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The Information and Privacy Commissioner Ontario issued ORDER MO-3934-I regarding the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act request to the town for correspondence regarding the police costing from the town’s CAO (and his staff) to the OPP.

ORDER:

  1. I order the town to conduct a further electronic search in response to the appellant’s request using the email addresses of the EA and any other staff in the CAO’s office.
  2. I order the town to conduct a further search of its electronic and paper record holdings for records that may flow from the May 8, 2017 email referred to in paragraph 24 of this order.
  3. I order the town to provide me with an affidavit sworn by the individual(s) who conduct(s) the further searches by August 10, 2020 describing its search efforts. The affidavit(s) should include the following information:
    1. the names and positions of the individuals who conducted the searches;
    2. information about the types of files searched, the nature and location of the search(es) and the steps taken in conducting the search(es);
    3. the results of the search(es); and,
    4. if the search described in order provision 2 does not yield any further results, an explanation.
  4. The information should be provided by way of representations with the affidavit that may be shared with the appellant unless there is an overriding confidentiality concern.
  5. If the town locates additional responsive records as a result of its further search, I order it to issue an access decision to the appellant in accordance with the requirements of this Act , treating the date of this order as the date of the request.
  6. I reserve the right to require the town to provide me with a copy of the information it discloses to the appellant in accordance with this order.
  7. I remain seized of this appeal to deal with: any outstanding issues arising from order provisions 1 to 3; and, if the parties are unable to resolve them, any additional time that may be required by the town to comply with the order due to the current COVID-19 situation.

Windsor Police Service Board Ordered To Disclose Additional Police Proposal Records

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The Information and Privacy Commissioner Ontario issued Order MO-3927 regarding an Appeal of Windsor Police’s decision to withhold access to parts of its policing proposal to Amherstburg.

Read Want The Windsor Policing Proposal? Pay For It for a detailed background that began in June 2018. Mayor DiCarlo advised the Windsor response would be made public.

Windsor Police relied on several reasons for its decision, including discretionary exemptions: sections 11(f) (economic and other interests), 6(1)(b) (closed meeting), 8(1)(c) (reveal investigative techniques and procedures), (e) (endanger life or safety), (g) (intelligence information), (i) (security) and (l) (facilitate commission of an unlawful act).

ORDER:

  1. I do not uphold WPSB’s decision that section 52(3) applies to pages 23, 24, 28, 29 and 32 of the record and order it to issue an access decision with respect to the these pages. For the purposes of the procedural
    requirements of the access decision, the date of this order is to be treated as the date of the access request.
  2. I uphold the WPSB’s decision to deny access to the information on pages 45 and part of 47 (the code information only) on the basis of section 8(1) (l) of the Act .
  3. I order the WPSB to disclose the following pages of the record: 33, part of 47 (the non-code information), 48, 49, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 122, 130 and 131 by providing the appellant with a copy of these pages by July 7, 2020.
  4. In order to verify compliance with order provisions 1 and 3, I reserve the right to require the police to provide me with a copy of the access decision and the records sent to the appellant.
  5. The timelines in order provisions 1 and 3 may be extended if the police are unable to comply in light of the current COVID-19 situation. I remain seized of the appeal to address any such requests.

UPDATE: Windsor Police Service Information and Privacy Co-ordinator requested a 30 day extension from July 6, 2020.

Police Costing Comparison Amherstburg And Orangeville Part 4 Mayor’s Statement

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Part 4 of this series was delayed pending the outcome of my January 17 request to Mayor DiCarlo. A simple question resulted in a complicated process without an answer; more on that below and in a future post.

Orangeville Mayor Brown issued a formal Statement on Orangeville Council’s OPP decision the day after and it is posted on the town of Orangeville’s site.

January 17 to DiCarlo, one of the questions submitted regarding the Windsor Police takeover was: would you please provide me with any official statement you issued as mayor regarding the vote in favour of the windsor police takeover.

January 20, Mayor DiCarlo’s response was: Unfortunately I do not keep personal records of the information you are requesting as the Town is responsible for such.  Please forward your requests to the CAO’s office.

January 20 to DiCarlo: just to clarify, i’m not requesting personal records and i do not believe the town is responsible for an official statement you may have issued as mayor. my question is simply did you issue one in relation to the windsor police takeover?

January 20 from DiCarlo: I understood what you were requesting. Any official statements I made would have been forwarded by/through the Town, not me personally.  I don’t keep copies of those.  If they were made to the media, they would be available in the media.  I do not keep a record of all of my media interviews. I cannot provide records of information I do not keep.  However, the parties I referred to do keep those records, thus my referral to the CAO’s office.

January 20 to Miceli: since the mayor has referred me to contact you, i’m requesting any official statement the mayor issued regarding the vote in favour of the windsor police takeover.

January 27 to Miceli: followup

February 12 to council: request that council consider creating a protocol to answer inquiries from taxpayers and media; mentioned a couple of examples of exchanges with town employees, including Miceli not answering January 20 and 27 emails.

February 12: DiCarlo forwarded request to council to CAO Miceli with an FYI notation.

February 18 from Miceli, in part: I will request that all information you seek be made through MFIPPA process and the Clerk will determine the appropriate dissemination of information. This is the proper way to handle your requests.

February 18 to Miceli: not all requests require a formal FOI request when dealing with an open government; since I believe one is unnecessary in this instance, my requests stand. the mayor claimed you have the records so you will have to decide whether or not to honour my requests. 

Police Costing Comparison Amherstburg And Orangeville Part 3 Council Motions Requesting OPP Costing

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Any municipality wishing to request a contract proposal for the provision of policing services by the OPP must submit a council resolution requesting a proposal for the cost of OPP policing to the Ministry.

Orangeville
First request:
January 2014 Council Resolution to request costing proposal from OPP.
April 2017 OPP Costing Analysis presentation to Council.

Second request:
December 2018 Council Resolution to request a costing proposal from OPP.
January 2019 Town’s request approved and an initial meeting with OPP was held.

Amherstburg
December 2014 Resolution to obtain an OPP Costing.
January 2017 Resolution, in part, to work with the OPP on the OPP costing.
No initial meeting with OPP was held.
Fall 2017 cancelled.

Police Costing Comparison Amherstburg And Orangeville Part 2 Police Complement

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  • Orangeville Police Complement            OPP Proposed Complement
  • Chief                                1                         Superintendent            0.58
  • Deputy                             1
  • Staff Sergeant                  2                         Staff Sergeant              1
  • Sergeant                          6                         Sergeant                      6
  • Constables                    31.8                       Constables                35
  • Overtime Equivalent         1.1                       Overtime Equivalent  1.1
  • Total Complement       42.9                      Total Complement 44.6
  • Amherstburg Police Complement          Windsor Police Proposed
  • Chief 1                                                        Shall be 30 full time including
  • Deputy 1                                                     the Officer in Charge.
  • Staff Sergeant 0
  • Sergeant 6
  • Constables 23
  • Special Constable 1
  • Total Complement 32                               Total Complement 30

Police Costing Comparison Amherstburg And Orangeville Overview

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theburgwatch compared the main framework of police costings in Orangeville and Amherstburg.

Disclaimer: this Amherstburg Orangeville Comparison Police Costing is provided for informational purposes only. theburgwatch.com makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.

Mayor DiCarlo’s Response RE Windsor Police 1 Year Anniversary Comment

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As mentioned in the post, Windsor Police Takeover One Year Later, theburgwatch requested DiCarlo to expand, specifically, on what the ‘quite a bit of service’ is and submitted the following to him:

“according to an am800 article re the one year anniversary of the windsor police takeover, you mentioned, “From what I can tell, on the surface, we’re actually getting more for our money which was really the key that we were looking into this for. Initially, it was really just saving money, but it looks like we’ve added quite a bit of service for cost savings.” for the burgwatch, would you expand, specifically, on what the ‘quite a bit of service’ is.”

A.  “I spoke to all of the news outlets about this issue, so I’ll have to try and recall the context.  That I remember for that particular article, the context of the statement was in relation to feedback received from residents regarding the increased presence of police officers across the town.”

Mayor DiCarlo Pleased With Windsor Police

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Blackburn News reports how pleased Mayor DiCarlo is with the Windsor Police takeover.

DiCarlo is quoted in this article, “We have access to a lot of services that we never did before. Obviously Windsor Police is a much bigger operation with a lot more to offer,” said DiCarlo.

Have we not always had access to a lot of services?

It was my understanding that since the Amherstburg Police Services Board was obliged to provide adequate and effective policing we either had all the services that were required or had access to them through the OPP and/or Windsor.

Obviously, the OPP is an even bigger operation that also has a lot to offer but no OPP costing was obtained for comparison sake.

While the article also mentioned, “the town realized a half a million dollars in savings by switching over to the Windsor Police Service,” we never knew if we might have saved significantly more through a switch to the OPP.  After all, one of the corrective actions listed in the Deloitte Report 2014 was, “look for shared service opportunities with neighbouring municipalities,” which could have easily meant to share OPP policing with the majority of Essex County.