THUNDER BAY — The Thunder Bay Police Association and the Thunder Bay Police Services Board are trying to improve their working relationship.
That's not going to happen, however, by the TBPA attending the TBPSB's regular, public meetings.
"We feel a public forum is not the best way to engage in conversation about issues and topics that our members face on a daily basis," said police association president Clark McKever.
In an interview with Tbnewswatch, McKever insisted that the association's relationship with the board is already good.
"I believe this association has a better relationship with the board than it ever has been," he said.
Police board chair Celina Reitberger said "We reached out to them to give them the invitation to come to the meetings, but they prefer to meet elsewhere."
Reitberger said she's OK with that.
At the board's Nov. 19 meeting, she moved to reconsider a motion to send a letter to the police association asking why it won't attend board meetings.
The letter will be revisited next month, but Reitberger told Tbnewswatch "If somebody doesn't want to come to your meetings, you can't force them."
The Thunder Bay Police Service and the police services board both fell under intense scrutiny in investigations concluded last year by the Office of the Independent Police Review Director and the Ontario Civilian Police Commission.
The board subsequently acknowledged that systemic racism exists in the police service, and apologized to the Indigenous community.
The police association, however, issued its own statement saying it stood by its members, and did not accept accusation that they are racist.
At the same time, it said it took the two investigators' reports very seriously, and understood "the expressed concerns of the Indigenous community."
McKever, who took over the association's leadership in May, said that after recent changes in the executive "We looked at what the value was in going to [police board] meetings on a regular basis...and everything getting lost there. They go on for a long time...We felt value in having meetings with them on a real basis, where we have one-on-one sitdowns."
He's pleased, he said, that some individual board members have already gone on ridealongs with officers, and have visited the police station "to look at the issues that we need to discuss back and forth."
McKever said he's unsure why the association's non-attendance at police board meetings this year has become such a focus.
"At the end of the day," he said, "I have the utmost respect for them and their roles, and I believe that they have the same for us."
He hopes to arrange an informal get-together of the full membership of the two boards "just to sort of be able to talk."
Reitberger said she's happy to accept the invitation.
"I think it would be a good chance to meet with the board as a whole and talk frankly and openly about moving forward," she said.
