One theme dominated a meeting of the Belleville Police Services Board Tuesday.
And that was a shortage of police officers.
Police Chief Mike Callaghan said the service was on track to receive 29,500 calls for service this year which would be an almost 25% increase from two years ago.
Callaghan says officers are becoming unable to to work properly due to the demands.
“When we look at the amount of paperwork that is involved for each call, we’re decimating our ability to respond to 911 calls.”
The Chief says he’ll be proposing the hiring of eight more officers to be in place sometime next year so the service can go back to offering a proactive police model along with simply responding to calls.
