Hours after passing what the Police Services Board called a “needs not wants” budget at its meeting, members of the board presented the 2026-2029 Belleville Police Service Strategic Plan in a presentation to Belleville City Council on Monday.
Chair of the Belleville Police Services Board Heather Smith was joined by the Chief of Police for the Belleville Police Service Murray Rodd in presenting the plan, outlining priorities in the plan based on consultations from multiple groups within the community.
“The process behind this plan was thorough and inclusive,” Smith told council.
“It included external and internal consultations, review and consideration by the Police Services Board and senior year leadership team, collaboration to identify key areas of focus and priorities, review with stakeholders across community then the design and publication phase and a commitment to quarterly progress reviews, which will ensure transparency and accountability.”
Following these deliberations with community members, Smith says several themes emerged from the conversations including that communication within the service and with the public must improve.
She says that residents want police to be more visible and approachable, and that the most pressing issues are homelessness, mental health, addictions and traffic control.
Chief Rodd says that with commitment comes cost.
“We’ve developed this with the community, for the community,” Rodd said.
“Delivering this plan requires resources, people, technology and funding. Community safety is not free, but it is essential, and (council) had a chance, no doubt, to read the document to make sure that we are accountable internally and externally, one with the other, and to council, to the community.”
After the presentation, Councillor Paul Carr asked Chief Rodd if “bending the cost curve of policing” was taken into consideration, citing a quote from a recently-approved strategic plan from the Peterborough Police Service.
Rodd says that the difference is Belleville’s labour costs weren’t known at the time necessarily for the whole organization, and that Peterborough had already right sized substantially their organization.
“They have a lot more known quantities, and their needs were assessed very rigorously through organization reviews, building space reviews, a new police station on the budget, those kinds of things, and Belleville is not Peterborough, and we’re responding to the environment we’re operating in and the needs of this organization,” Rodd explained to Carr.
“So as we move forward on the technology side, on every other aspect of it, we will obviously want to be economical and efficient. But most of all, effective and compliant with the legislation.”
Council voted to receive the presentation.
