Some members of Quinte West council don’t like the current lease the city has with the Ontario Provincial Police in the building
the city built for the organization several years ago, but there’s little they can do about it.
The current lease stipulates the OPP pay a nominal rent of $2 a year for use of the city-owned building.
On Wednesday, Councillor David O’Neil said the OPP payment of $2 a year to use the $12.5 million building was not fair.
“It seems to me the money’s flowing the wrong way,” said O’Neil.
However, the lease was recently automatically extended until 2030 and the OPP can extend
it for two more five-year terms if it wishes.
Councillor Shelley Stedall said it was in the city’s best interests to outline its concerns to the Solicitor-General in hopes
the province would open negotiations on the lease.
Meanwhile, some on council agreed with Councillor Jim Alyea that in 2016 council took the best option available to it when
deciding to build a new building as the police station at the time was in dire need of repair and not big enough.
Alyea maintained that taxpayers would pay for policing one way or another, suggesting if the OPP’s rent was increased
that cost would simply be added to the annual policing contract paid by the city.
These days, the province offers a program whereby it enters into an agreement with a private builder to deliver
a turn-key building which the province will then own and maintain for the OPP.
That kind of public-private partnership did not exist when decisions regarding the Quinte West OPP building were
being made in 2016.
