HORNEPAYNE — It’s all about communication.
Hornepayne’s council received a visit by OPP Sergeant Kevin Fellinger at its regular meeting on Aug. 14, where the sergeant responded to local concerns about a lack of police presence and long response times.
Fellinger said the biggest challenge right now is recruitment – with the Superior East detachment running at 70 per cent frontline availability and a lot of ground to cover.
“Superior East incorporates the communities of Foleyet, Chapleau, Wawa, Dubreuilville, White River, Hornepayne, and other small communities.
“Our highways extend from Highway 11 and 631 is our boundary, just west of the White River all the way down the Montreal River on Highway 17 up to Foleyet.
“We’re over 1,000 kilometres of highway. Summertime is our busiest time with travel – traffic complaints, impaired driving, motor vehicle collisions. A huge part of our manpower has been assigned to dealing with complaints that come in on Highway 17.
Even operating at 70 per cent availability, Fellinger noted things like vacation time, officers getting injured, and maternity leave all present further challenges when it comes to consistent staffing.
“We have to manage it from a people perspective. I have many members that have worked 14, 15 days in a row where we’re mentally checking in on them to make sure they can still do their job properly,” he said.
He added that it has been particularly difficult to fill vacancies at the OPP station in Hornepayne — in contrast with the main Superior East detachment in Wawa.
“There’s a lot of incentives to attract people here and we are advertising. In fact, we just advertised . . . putting it out on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram – trying to attract people to come to the North. There’s affordable housing, a good commute, and it’s a great place to live with our outdoors and everything it has to offer,” he said.
He said the challenge with the Hornepayne detachment is that officers must sign-on for a three-year duration, which doesn’t allow for much flexibility when it comes to exploring lateral career moves and other areas of law enforcement such as forensics, emergency response, and tactical response.
“There’s unfortunately not a lot that happens in Hornepayne when it comes to those specialty calls for service. Even if they are in Hornepayne, most of the calls that they would attend would take them into more populated areas of Sudbury, North Bay, etc.,” Fellinger said.
He also indicated a generally negative perception of police services – due to social media and public opinion – has discouraged youth from taking an interest in the profession.
Fellinger said he’d like to see OPP officers visit schools in the area more often to increase visibility and educate about services in the community.
Mayor Cheryl Fort agreed, adding that it’s important to build that relationship with people at an early age, Fort said.
“People need to know where they can go for safety and trust their officers in their community. It’s (about) knowing who’s in your community.”
In November Mayor Fort and Chief Administrative Officer Aileen Singh last met with Sgt. Fellinger to bring their concerns along with residents’ concerns to his attention.
At the time, Fellinger indicated there were “no immediate solutions” to bolstering recruitment efforts.
He reiterated as much at the council meeting on Aug. 14, saying the Superior East detachment is doing everything it can to attract new recruits.
“I can understand that the community is quite concerned about the current state of our policing and I, too, share your concerns. I’m born and raised in the Superior East . . . I care for every one of these communities. I wish we could be everywhere at all times,” he said.
“Currently, we are doing our best in terms of allocating resources . . . I don’t want you to ever feel that there’s no police here and no police are coming.”
Fellinger concluded by saying his door is always open and that he will continue improving communication with council about community needs.
“If I can find somebody from Hornepayne that’s interested in policing I will mentor them and get them there,” he said.
