Sonny Spina grilled after requesting details on police patrols downtown

During his first meeting as a member of the Police Services Board, Ward 1 Councillor Sonny Spina was assured he would be provided details on downtown patrols this summer — including deployment numbers — while the board goes on its regular two-month hiatus until September.   

But not without some pushback from a pair of board members.

When Spina initially asked for details on downtown patrols — a request prompted by complaints of lagging police response times made to him by members of the public — Sault Ste. Marie Police Service Chief Hugh Stevenson didn't have a problem with it.  

“From an information perspective, no problems,” said Stevenson, during Thursday’s police board meeting. “I’ll have the deputy have reports available and we can send them out to you over the summer months to show you where we sit with that deployment.”

“Do you have a business in downtown Sault Ste. Marie?” asked police board vice-chair Ian MacKenzie. 

“I don’t have a business, no,” Spina responded. “I work for a business that’s downtown.” 

MacKenzie followed up that question by asking Spina if Norpro — the company Spina has worked for as its head of security since stepping down from Sault Ste. Marie Police Service in 2021 — works in the downtown area. 

“Not really," he responded. "Our office is, yes, but we don’t generally operate downtown."

“I’m suggesting that there might be a conflict there, if you’re asking for a policing report for downtown,” MacKenzie asserted. 

“No, I don’t have a business that I operate downtown,” replied Spina. “My question arises from complaints I’ve received from citizens on…requesting police presence downtown and lack of fast response time.” 

The Police Services Board heard that Spina wants to make sure, from a city council perspective, that Sault Ste. Marie Police Service is “covering the needs of the citizens” after listening to their concerns around police presence and police response time downtown. 

“When citizens are calling me and asking me about response times, and I want to be able to respond to them that we have actually done something or at least brought it forward to the board to allow administration and the police service to be fully informed on what we are seeing and what we are hearing,” Spina said. “We are representatives of the people, and we have to bring those concerns forward.” 

Police Services Board Chair John Bruno also expressed some concern with what seemed to be a benign request from the city councillor.  

“We do not have a responsibility of operations,” Bruno piped up. “I think that’s clear from everybody here. As the chair, we direct the chief only and only the chief, and I think no one here can call up and say: ‘Please do this and please do that.’ And that’s the rules that are laid out to us.”

Bruno ultimately concluded that Spina can have access to details related to downtown police patrols, but only at the discretion of the police chief. 

“As far as citizens complaining about the response time, the police have been investing — and I think we’ve had this conversation many times — I think with all the new measures we’ve employed, or going to employ as well, we’re going to try our best we can,” Bruno said, adding that “we feel good about what’s going to happen between now and September.”  

In May, the police board heard that Sault Ste. Marie Police Service will double its bicycle patrols downtown this summer as part of a broader effort to increase its visibility in the downtown core. 

The police service will also implement its Dynamic Patrol in the city’s downtown core this summer. Two officers on a regular shift will be assigned to downtown — known to Sault police as ‘zone two’ — seven days a week.