Kensington looking to review police services
KENSINGTON – The Town of Kensington is eyeing an in-depth review of its policing services.
The town council recently directed staff to start searching for federal or provincial funding streams to help pay for a future review. As the endeavour is still in such an early stage it is still unclear when it will take place.
But assuming the funding is secured, and council decides to move ahead then the resulting report, it could help decide what policing will look like in the town for years to come.
Will the community stay status quo and keep its police department at its current staffing levels? Could Kensington expand its department and extend police services to neighbouring communities? Or is retiring Kensington Police Service and contracting the RCMP the better option? A review will hopefully help answer those questions, said Geoff Baker, Kensington’s chief administrative officer.
“At the end of the day, I think council, myself and, I think, residents as well, are generally satisfied with the level of police services we provide locally. [The review] is not really about that. It’s to really get a true assessment of where we’re at, where we want to be, where we should be and then what are the options to get us to that level of services,” said Baker.
Despite its potential impact on the future of the department, Kensington Police Services Chief Lewis Sutherland said he does not necessarily see the review in a negative light.
He’s confident that his department is serving the community to the best of its abilities and providing good service-fordollars to the taxpayers.
“I’m very proud of our department and our members. We work hard here every day to make this a very safe place to live and work,” said Sutherland.
Kensington is home to about 1,600 people but is a service hub for several rural communities around it. It’s also a busy thoroughfare in the summer for visitors and Islanders alike.
Originally founded in 1926, Kensington Police Services is the last holdout of a number of town-operated police forces across the province. Those other small forces were phased out in favour of service agreements with the RCMP while the cities of Summerside and Charlottetown retained their own independent forces.
In 2017 the provincial government accepted a comprehensive police service review for the entire province, including the three municipal services and the RCMP.
That report examined some options for the future of policing on P.E.I., including status quo, installing a provincial police force or going wholly RCMP, but did not make a recommendation one way or the other. However, it did make several other recommendations that have been adopted and continue to be rolled out over time, including moving all police services to one radio system.