On the first Tuesday of each month at Port Elgin Legion, Saugeen Shores Men’s Probus Club, holds its monthly meeting that features a guest speaker.
This year’s March meeting hosted Saugeen Shores Police Chief, Kevin Zettel, who brought the local police current standings and report to the meeting while answering many questions from Club members.
Zettel began his policing career in Guelph 22 years ago. A native of Walkerton, he began his career in policing with the Guelph Police Service in 2002 and commuted to Guelph for his shifts. He was also a member of the Walkerton Fire Department for 12 years. At the end of 2003, he transferred to Saugeen Shores Police Service and was promoted to Uniform Patrol and Criminal Investigation in 2007 and then to Sergeant of that Division in 2010. In 2018, he was promoted to Inspector in charge of Operations.He was promoted to Deputy Chief in January 2020 and then promoted to Chief in November with his formal swearing-in on November 18, 2020.
Chief Zettel and the service oversee some 170 square kilometers on the Lake Huron coastline in Bruce County that includes the amalgamated municipalities of Port Elgin, Saugeen Township and Southampton.
Under the provincial Police Services Act, each municipality must have an independent Police Services Board (PSB) responsible for providing adequate and effective policing for the municipality it serves.
Saugeen Shores Police is made up of 26 officers and 18 civilian members which, as the municipality grows requires additions to the service to be able to keep pace with the population growth.
Chief Zettel said that there has been a steady increase for calls and service over the years.
“In 2023, we had 12,738 incidents with 3,624 charges laid and over 800 arrests. Saugeen Shores is the fastest growing community in the region and is projected to continue this growth for the foreseeable future. With growth comes an increased strain on front-line police resources reacting to calls for service, community patrols and proactive crime prevention initiatives.”
Zettel explained that there are several areas of specialities within the Service, that include the Criminal Investigations Unit, K9 unit, Intoxilyzer Technicians, Bicycle Patrol offiers, Sexual Assault Investigations, Domestic Violence Investigations, Scenes of Crime Officers (SOCO), Use of Force Training and Mental Health Crisis Response Training.
“We also have a Victim Services worker 24 hours a week who can deal with a victim in crisis regardless of the circumstances and it frees up our officers and we hope to see that increase.”
According to Zettel, police services throughout the province are finding it difficult to hire new recruits. “Sault Ste. Marie for instance is offering a $30,000 bonus for recruits who commit to five years, and they still can’t find new hires.”
“We are now looking at hiring a Special Constable who will deal with all the technology that we use today such as the digital management system. Our vehicles are now literally offices where they have license plate readers, laptops and printers, while our officers can still be out on the street.”
He added that the Police Service has several partnerships with community groups that include Service Clubs, Special Olympics, the Town, the Chamber of Commerce, Crime Stoppers, Victim Services and Schools.
“We also take part in community events such as Shop with a Cop, Toy and Food Drives and beach patrols, and our community is awesome in coming together for support. Some years ago, the Southampton Rotary and churches established the Benevolence Fund, where we have funds available to help out people who are in crisis.”
“We also help out surrounding services when called upon and we can also call on them when needed. For instance, we don’t have a homicide investigator, so we can call on the OPP who have that specialty.”
“There is a new Community Safety and Policing Act that will be coming out on April 1st,” he said. “It will be the biggest change in policing since the Police Act of 1990. It will include more transparency, suspending officers without pay and will give more power to special constables, among other things. It will be sweeping changes that the public won’t see but will be about governance and processes for police services. There are more than 270 policies currently that will all be re-done.”
Next month’s guest speaker at Probus will be Saugeen Shores Mayor Luke Charbonneau
