Former police officer joins call to tighten lobbying leash on city-funded boards

Article content

A former London police officer has thrown her support behind a push by two councillors asking city-funding agencies not to use taxpayers’ money to lobby city council for bigger budgets.

Cop-turned-professor Lesley Bikos wrote a letter to the strategic priorities and policy committee supporting a motion crafted by councillors Skyler Franke and Corrine Rahman.

Article content

The motion, to be presented to city politicians Tuesday, comes in response to a Free Press freedom-of-information request that revealed the London police board paid Navigator, a Toronto-based public relations firm, $104,662 to help create its communication plan and provide material for the board’s proposed police budget.

Bikos, who researches law enforcement and has been an outspoken critic of London police since she left the force, also is calling for the removal of all members of the police board and a full review of the four-year, $672-million police budget approved by city council earlier this year.

“It is not the role of the London police service board to be a cheerleader for police. It is an oversight body. This expectation includes how it influences council to spend public funds during budget processes,” Bikos writes in her four-page letter to the committee.

Board chair Ali Chahbar has defended the decision to hire Navigator, saying it’s not unusual for boards to hire consultants or other experts to provide professional services. But the revelation the board used taxpayer money to help pitch its budget to the public and politicians drew criticism from councillors and citizens, citing concern other city-funded organizations don’t have the ability to pay outside agencies to help secure larger budgets.

Article content

Article content

Bikos echoes that concern, saying the money the board paid Navigator would be “transformative” for many city-funded organizations.

“Instead, these organizations had their budgets cut or reduced . . . To take funding away from organizations that provide life-saving community care, libraries, transit, education, food security, and housing in favour of mass police funding does nothing to solve the serious problems London is facing,” she writes.

The motion from Franke and Rahman asks council to direct administration “to work in good faith in their interactions with the city and that the use of municipal funding intended to support lobbying efforts including advertising or communication materials to solicit engagement with the municipal council be prohibited (or avoided).”

Franke, however, has acknowledged council doesn’t have the legal authority to dictate how city-funded boards, agencies and commissions spend the money council gives them.

Bikos questions why past police boards didn’t hire public relations firms to help with budget messaging, and she wants council to investigate why and how Navigator was hired.

Article content

Former board chair Susan Toth, who resigned from the board in 2022, previously called the decision to hire Navigator “unprecedented” and urged action be taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

In response to Bikos’s letter, Chahbar said the board is focused on improving public safety and the results are already showing.

“While we respect the right of people to their opinions, make no mistake, this board is laser focused on modernizing our police service and bringing public safety back to our city and we will not be deterred in this regard,” he said.

“The investments in policing contained in the budget are already paying early dividends. Shootings are down. Violent crime is down. Fatalities on our roadways are down. Our crime severity index was reduced by 14 per cent, which represents the single largest reduction in crime severity across Canada and there are more officers on the streets than we’ve had in years. We understand that the cost of the police budget is large, but Londoners know all too well that the cost of inaction is far larger.”

The motion will be presented when city politicians meet as the strategic priorities and policy committee Tuesday. It would then be scheduled for a final, formal vote from city council Nov. 5.

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

Article content