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Rick Webb reflects on his time on Police Services Board

Suggests more diverse community representation, new police building downtown and policy changes on disciplinary matters

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Rick Webb’s third term sitting on the Sault Ste. Marie Police Services Board will end this year, capping off six years of public service as a Board Member and Chair of the Collective Bargaining Committee.
With only one meeting left in his term, he issued an open letter to his colleagues on the Police Services Board and Sault Ste. Marie City Council through local media.
Beginning with a wide extension of appreciation, he commended other board members, Chief Stevenson, Deputy Chief MacLachlan, and Officers of the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service whose work is “essential to the community’s safety.”
While recognizing achievements in local policing, Webb also laid out three specific areas for improvement, noting, “We still have much work to do.” In a recent interview with Sault This Week, Webb expanded upon his open letter and reflected upon his time with the board.
First, Webb calls for the board to “be more diverse and representative of the community.” He has asked city council to replace him with another community representative “from the indigenous community or a person of colour.”
While he’s “encouraged” by the progress of the SSMPS in its diversity of new recruits, Webb hopes greater diversity in governance will ensure that the entire community will “remain confident that we have everyone’s interests at heart.” Hopeful that a new community representative will benefit the board, he looks forward to someone with “new perspectives on policing and governance.”
When asked why increased diversity on the board is so important, Webb says, “It helps give different communities comfort, and some assurances that we care about them.”
Second, Webb would like to see a new SSMPS headquarters built in the downtown area, describing the “sad state” of the current headquarters located on Second Line.
“You could easily put six or seven million into that building and not even know that you did it,” he says. He highlights its mature age of six decades and believes it’s “at least 25 to 30 percent too small.”
Another drawback is the fact that the current headquarters is “not conducive to community policing.” Ideally, a new downtown headquarters “would facilitate foot patrols, door knocking and community engagement by front-line officers and the leadership team where the city needs it most.”
He wants such a project to be completed within the four-year term of the recently elected council and mayor, adding: “We ask police officers to do a difficult job and we should be giving them a proper facility that addresses their needs.”
Third, Webb expressed a need for policy changes related to disciplinary measures when officers violate applicable rules and regulations.
Specifically, he calls for “expanded powers to the Chiefs of Police.” Poor behaviour should be swiftly addressed “so that the acts of a small few do not reflect on the majority of professionals working in policing.”
Webb expands this point by explaining, “The current [disciplinary] processes take far too long and extend a greater employment security, if you will, than probably any other sector.”
In addition, he’s blunt about suspended officers continuing to receive their salary. In his words: “If you’re suspended, it should not be with pay. That is not appropriate, in my view.”
Webb believes he’s not alone in that view. According to him, a majority of Ontario chiefs of police and board members are unlikely to support suspended officers receiving pay. The problem, as Webb sees it, is that applicable legislation “makes it bureaucratically very difficult to quickly and decisively deal with these issues.”
Although Webb was speaking generally and did not mention specific cases, at least one SSMPS Officer is currently suspended with pay.
Const. Craig Johnson was criminally charged with public mischief in early 2021, accused of falsifying a traffic complaint. Public data from the Ontario government shows that Const. Johnson’s salary was just above $100,000 for the year 2021. Recently, another SSMPS Officer was criminally charged, this time with dangerous driving causing bodily harm and criminal negligence causing bodily harm.
Const. Bradley Nickle has subsequently been “assigned to administrative duties,” according to Lincoln Louttit, manager of Corporate Communications, Planning and Research.
Const. Nickle’s salary was over $110,000 in 2021.
Reflecting on his six years sitting on the board, Webb is incredibly appreciative.
He says he’ll miss the “many good, heartwarming, small stories that the people there do.” This aspect stood out to him as something special, as “not everyone gets to see that.” Likewise, he’s supportive of the leadership at the SSMPS, who are “steering the service… in the right direction.”
What he didn’t expect when he became a board member is the degree of involvement required and the powers invested in municipal governance as it concerns policing.
For example, most public boards are not directly involved in collective bargaining, whereas police boards are. Further, some limited police operational matters may also require the board’s attention. Because such boards are “asked to do quite a bit” by those who serve on them, they need to be “high functioning, collaborative groups of people.”

daxdorazio@gmail.com . Find his blog at www.daxdorazio.com .

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