The Municipality of Brockton intends to, once again, try to examine the possibility of creating a Bruce County police force.
A motion to direct the mayor and staff to discuss a county-wide police service with the County of Bruce has been on Brockton's agenda each of the last two meetings, being deferred to Tuesday night's meeting on March 12.
In February, Councillor Chris Oberle brought forward a motion to seek cost proposals from neighbouring police services which was defeated, with Mayor Chris Peabody noting at the time he intended to push hard to improve on an existing agreement with the Ontario Provincial Police which expires at the end of June.
Brockton currently pays $1.9 million for OPP coverage. It is unknown what a county-wide police force would charge the municipality annually.
Mayor Peabody also said he is concerned about possible mergers into regional governments.
"What if they were to take a look at that type of merger in Bruce County. Why not start off with the simpler issues that might it could merge, and policing would be one of them for sure," he said. "Those mergers down south of us? Yes, that is something I'm very concerned about. For example, I would not want to be part of a Grey-Bruce merger on a single-tier government. As I've said, I feel Owen Sound, as the only city in the area, would suck up a lot of services. If those two county governments were merged, Walkerton would stand to lose a lot in the way of County jobs if Owen Sound, being the larger center, was the capital. So I'm interested in looking at partnerships in Bruce County."
Brockton council will examine the motion directing the mayor and staff to discuss a county-wide police force with the County of Bruce at its meeting on Tuesday at 7 p.m.