Belleville approves Belleville Police Services Capital Budget as-is including $100k for armoured vehicle

Belleville Council approved the Belleville Police Service’s (BPS) 2026 Capital Budget in its entirety. The approved budget totals $1,194,887, covering fleet renewal, information technology, and facility fixtures.

During the 2026 Capital Budget meeting, the deliberations on the 2026 Belleville Police Capital Budget focused on the purchase of a “Community Rescue Vehicle” (CRV) – an armoured tactical vehicle – which would cost $206,670, of which they have received $107,000 from community donations and are requesting an additional $100,000 from the City.

Belleville Police did not provide an example of when an OPP armoured vehicle had been needed and utilized in Belleville when asked and wants to explore generating revenue by selling its services to neighbouring communities

Councillor Paul Carr asked Chief of Police Murray Rodd if the risk has every reached a point where the OPP’s armoured vehicle was brought in:

From what I read I got the impression that the vehicle would be used particularly in high-risk situations and certainly if there’s firearms involved given the ballistic protection nature of the vehicle. Just curious, over the last say two years and I know you have the stats and I recall some information that you presented to us uh under your 2024 annual report regarding firearms calls and things of that nature. I also know that Belleville Police was working until recently in conjunction with the OPP under project renewal. Certainly a lot of firearms involved there.

In the last two years where you’ve had firearms calls or you’ve done a a joint forces action under project renewal, was the risk ever to the point where a Community Rescue Vehicle could have assisted? And then if so, was there opportunities when you sought out mutual aid from the Ontario Provincial Police considering there’s two or three of those vehicles sitting at Lennox and Addington detachment in Amherstview?

Councillor Carr

We have a come as you are party approach to this. We can’t schedule it. We can’t understand when it’ll be required and this is a officer safety as much as it is a public safety implement. The opportunity presented itself. As you can see, the value that we’re presented with is $206,670 of which our budget will be responsible for $100,000. That unit is just under $600,000. So if there was a time to buy it, it was now. We’re building up our capabilities to be compliant with all aspects of the new Community Safety Police Services Act. And our members are very active on gun calls. And the other thing that we’re being confronted with are people smashing into our cruisers in attempt to flee police and or just confront police.

So this vehicle has a a strategic place in our tool belt and it’s it’s slightly cheaper than a new Tahoe would be without upfitting. So this is the time for us to bring that into our suite of capabilities.

The other thing is we have many stories of our officers deploying containment teams or immediate response or reaction teams or arrest teams and they’re doing it with walking behind a shield through open ground without cover or concealment.

This can deliver our members strategically where we need them where there is no cover of concealment to make them safe so we can get on with a negotiation or whatever has to happen next. Whatever our situation is, our officers are our priority so we can keep the community safe and that’s the our thinking behind this modest investment.

Chief of Police Murray Rodd

Notes

• An armoured vehicle is not a requirement to be compliant with the Community Safety Police Services Act.
• Vehicle contact incidents:
  • P.C. Sarley used his cruiser to block a delivery truck driving dangerously on September 12, 2024.
  • Belleville Police responded to a report of a possible impaired driver on October 14, 2025 and after approaching the vehicle, officers noticed a male asleep behind the wheel and when they awoke him, he reportedly drove his car into the nearby police cruiser and fled the scene.

I appreciate the the extra rationale, but I want to go back to my question regarding the firearms calls over the last two years.

Councillor Carr

I don’t have those numbers in…

Chief of Police Murray Rodd

But just in terms of and you mentioned that there’s some calls where it’s come as you are. So, and I understand that search warrant or warrants have to be executed in a timely fashion and sometimes you have to go when the iron’s hot, so to speak.

But were there any incidents where a mutual aid was considered? And was it utilized?

Councillor Carr

They haven’t come. They’re considered. They’re considered, but usually we have the capability locally to meet anything unless it’s a hostage rescue scenario. We are capable and qualified and certified to meet any of those risks under the current legislation. And because of that, we as you say, planned and deliberate things like search warrants. We do pick the time and place most often. Sometimes there’s an exogen or emergency aspect to that, but many times it’s simply we’re scrambling, we’re going and we’re deploying.

And so one of the examples that was brought to my attention very early was a point and scenario where there was no cover, concealment. We had to deploy and strategically get people into place. And this is simply in my mind no different than bunker gear for a firefighter or personal protection equipment for member city workers. We are making sure that our members can get as close and as safe to deploy to affect the lawful purposes of containment, negotiation, subsequent arrest, evacuations, and I do know we’ve conducted evacuations since I’ve been here simply going door-to-door with shields when we could be potentially mustering people in different ways and and better ways, quicker ways, safer ways.

Chief of Police Murray Rodd

Councillor Carr pressed the Chief on if there had been situations where the risk required an OPP deployment:

I’m not questioning the capabilities. What I what I’m trying to understand is that in terms of evaluating the risk and obviously history will tell you what that risk is for going forward. So in terms of – you’re going to have firearm calls, you’re going to have high-risk warrants, you’re going to have all the things that that have been had in the past. I guess what I’m trying to wrap my head around is the fact that you haven’t been able to identify a situation where – “look we think the risk is high, so one of these vehicles is required. We don’t have one” – say in the last two years – “we need to contact the Ontario Provincial Police and have a mutual aid option here. And I know the OPP will respond out to other municipalities and mutual aid these type of equipment when that happens.

Has the Belleville Police Service ever been in a situation where that mutual aid has been deemed necessary because of the level of risk involved?

You’re talking about the future risk, but I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that has the risk been to the point where it’s like, you know what, for everybody’s safety, community and officers, we need to access this resource because of the risk that’s being faced. Have we had circumstances in our community where we’ve got to that risk level where we’ve said we need an OPP deployment, mutual aid, no different than partnerships through project renewal. Have we had those circumstances?

Councillor Carr

In fact, I’m just going to pause for one second. Can you assist in this deputy?

Chief of Police Murray Rodd

Yes, we have had multiple incidents where you don’t just ask specifically for this.

The OPP doesn’t work that way. If you want assistance with the OPP, you have to ask for the entire team, an incident command team. We’ve had several incidents where we’ve had to call them in. I don’t even know if they brought that or not, but they have brought in their whole team and shut down areas. I was a negotiator on one, for example, on Bridge Street. Also on Dundas Street. We also had one where it was a full scale, had to use all their resources.

What we have found in the past and moving forward is the availability of those resources through the OPP has been decreasing in terms of asking them for assistance sometimes because they only have so many resources throughout the entire province. And we are being asked now as a police service to assist other services example: Cobourg. And looking at revenue opportunities for that as well because they are asking us for assistance with our Emergency Response Team our K-9 team. This would also be an advantage for that as well. And we’d be looking at revenue streams for that.

Deputy of Police Sheri Meeks

Belleville Police did not provide operating cost estimates for the armoured vehicle

Councillor Carr asked Chair of the Belleville Police Services Board what the operating cost of the armoured vehicle would be:

Could you advise council as to what the operating impact would be in terms of some of these items have cost associated with it that’s going to trickle over into operating budget. One in particular is this Community Rescue Vehicle. Given the uniqueness of the vehicle, I don’t think you just roll into your local dealership for an oil change and a tire rotation. And there’s obviously operating costs attached with that and other items in your capital budget that will have an operating component.

Do you have any idea? Has the board been advised or deliberated as to what that operating cost would be?

Councillor Carr

Well, I can’t provide you numbers. Just quickly looking through some of this equipment certainly there’s it it rolls over into operations with things like redaction or maintaining we have an area where if we confiscate guns from I’ll say perpetrators of crime they have to be kept in a locked box so nothing can be deleted remotely and then there is an operating cost to when they are wiped clean and we take the information off that. So there is a lot of I’ll say backroom stuff that goes on with a number of these pieces of equipment but I can’t give you an exact number, but this is policing today. You need the equipment and then there is a whole team that supports what that equipment does for evidence, trial preparation that kind of thing. 

Chair of the Belleville Police Service Board Heather Smith

The Chief of Police stepped in to answer the question:

That is a Ford diesel. That is not a military pattern special. We can take it to a Ford diesel mechanic. That platform, the vehicle is totally refurbed and good for a decade for major components and it’s very low kilometers at this point. That’s exactly what it is, a plug-and-play for local purpose, not required to go to any major destination or have any real special mechanical support.

Chief of Police Murray Rodd

Do we have an idea of what the operating impact is on the overall capital budget of all the items requested? And then specifically what’s the operating costs on the CRV?

Councillor Carr

Oil changes as scheduled. It doesn’t require seasonal tires because they’re purpose-specific tires. The vehicle is going through a [retrofit] now in terms of being in new condition. Comes with modest warranties at the beginning, but it is not going to have thousands of hours a month use. It is for emergency deployments and/or rescues and training purposes. So, it’s not a daily runner. It’s not going to be out on on the street 24/7. It is a response vehicle. And so it’ll have the same maintenance and repair as anything else in our fleet only less hours and less road time.

Chief of Police Murray Rodd

Belleville Police Service Board did not have an understanding of the operating budget impact of the capital budget

So getting back to the full budget, we don’t have an understanding of what the operating impact is on the capital request here.

Councillor Carr

I guess one way we would manage that is contribution to reserves which will have an impact in our operating budget. We haven’t addressed that here but certainly the contribution to reserves will be part of that operational piece.

Chair of the Belleville Police Service Board Heather Smith

And most budgets should have a contribution to reserve anyway. So when you do have capital expenditures, you can draw off it.

Right now I see that the police reserve is in a significant deficit. Drawing on money you don’t have.

For example, if council were to approve a playground, the playground’s going to automatically have an operating cost. Grass has to be cut. Wood chips have to be resupplied. There’s going to be some effort involved on behalf of staff and that comes with an associated cost. Perhaps maybe going forward having that operating budget impact would be good to know – this is what you’re spending on the capital, but some of these expenditures are going to spill into an operating budget component.

Councillor Carr

Belleville Police service member has ‘great sphere of influence’

Councillor Kelly asked the Chief why the community donations stopped at $107,000:

We were in for $100,000. We figured that that was a modest [request] considering that most communities don’t fund raise for equipment like this. Most of it would be on the police budget. We saw this opportunity to get a retrofitted almost new unit and we have an individual on the service who has a great sphere of influence and community leaders who understand our mission came out to support us and meet us halfway and went more than halfway.

Chief of Police Murray Rodd

Belleville Police are responsible for court security and prisoner transportation services

Councillor Kelly asked why the prison transport van was so expensive:

And this is the small one. The big one is coming.

Like anything else, it has to go away for maintenance and repair and upfitting from time to time. Sometimes there’s critical safety issues that have come to light with the larger van that we have and we have to have some capacity and capability. There’s no loner prisoner van place you go to. So we had to have a van independently to be able to support our mission. We’ve had days last week – 18 prisoners I believe – 28 prisoners in one day. That would that would represent potentially two runs with with our big truck. It will be several runs with our little truck and without this van it’ll be multiple runs with the Tahoes tying up multiple officers or special constables. We are tasked with court security, as you know, because of the provincial location of our court. We are the only people who do that business substantially at that location.

Our regular larger prisoner transport van which is very purpose-built for segregation purposes so you can categorize prisoners etc. You know about those things. It is what it is. We have to comply with those standards. We have to make the trips. We have to have everybody at court for the same start time and it’s a big overhead. We’re tasked with it and we need the capability on a daily basis because we moving prisoners around seven days a week potentially.

Chief of Police Murray Rodd

Belleville Police uses SUVs and trucks because the market is not making sedans, they can handle rural road conditions and have space for equipment used

Aside from the Community Response Vehicle, I noted that the vehicles that are in line for replacement that we are ordering larger scale vehicles. They’re not the typical sedan that we would see traveling around. Is is that purposeful in terms of the use of these particular vehicles and where they would be deployed?

The second half of the question is with the community safety and well-being approach. Would these larger vehicles be deployed into zones like the rural area of the city more frequently than a sedan?

Councillor Kathryn Brown

The Tahoe has been the primary fleet vehicle. Then we’ve phased in the F-150 pickup trucks because the market is really not making sedans at the current time. Chargers may be coming back, but they’re not currently being produced. Ford’s not producing anything that we would want other than the Explorers, and they’re extremely almost a disposable vehicle, if I could say that. They’re high maintenance, very high cost of ownership, maintenance and repair.

I think fit for a purpose in our jurisdiction with the rural requirements to get down roads that you know may not be addressed the same as in their urban setting.

And the equipment space it takes to equip an officer. There’s very little consideration for the ergonomics of the officer because there’s so much technology and equipment and so the bigger vehicles are are fit for purpose.

Chief of Police Murray Rodd

Belleville Police cruisers have been deliberately rammed

Mayor Ellis asked about the retail price of the armoured vehicle and what would happen to the donations if they didn’t purchase it:

Approaching six when you upfit it.

That was the proposition. We put a a stake in the ground saying this will be our investment. If we don’t get it this year, we’ll get it next year. We’ll never get it at a better price than this year because nothing’s getting cheaper.

One of the driving factors since I’ve been in Belleville, I’ve never seen so many police cruisers being deliberately rammed. We had two this morning deliberately rammed. If we don’t do anything other than use it to save an bring somebody to a halt, it’ll be an investment well made because someone’s going to get hurt. We’ve had people return to the scene of a murder with a rifle to deliberately ram a cruiser. We are targets of opportunity for the mentally ill, the violent, and the extremely violent. And I’ve never seen this in my entire career. It’s a new phenomena. It’s happening everywhere.

To Councillor Chatten’s point, we are responsible to have the capabilities to do our mandate every day. This is just an opportunity and instead of a Tahoe, we’re we’re making the strategic choice to run a Tahoe a year longer and have this capability in our arsenal.

…

Some of them – two – have been written off, but others off the road for days at a time. So that’s why we need a fit-for-purpose fleet that’s available to replace on a daily basis because literally today I just was told we had two. I don’t know the extent of the damage yet that’s being assessed but we have vehicles constantly being repaired.

Chief of Police Murray Rodd

For comparison, a Chevrolet Tahoe costs $65k outfitted with light package, $135k with complete package.

Councillors’ statements

Councillor’s Chatten and Enright-Miller were both in favour of the armoured vehicle purchase:

While past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior and citing examples where a rescue vehicle should have maybe already been in play for officer and public safety. Fact is policing is largely reactive in nature and identifying data-backed trends in an uptick of violent crime across the province. We do want to be sure that our servicemen and women are well protected from potential threats. I’m personally very happy to see the advent of new tools like the Community Rescue Vehicle being rolled into the considerations for this budget. And I think that that outside of the box thinking of how to ensure better safety protocols across both policing and for the community. Um it’s imperative. So I want to thank you for for including this for thinking to the future. The fact is violent crime is on the rise across Ontario and at some point we need to be sure that we’re ready for it.

Councillor Lisa Anne Chatten

I just wanted to point out that this budget was was very meaningful and thought out. And if you notice that all of the ratings are at a five and a four. The other stuff has been paired out because we know it’s a tight budget year, but these things are a necessity to keep our our sworn members safe and also a requirement under the legislation. I mean, there’s a lot of things in this budget that, you know, [are] mandated to have. We can’t do without. We have to make sure that our staff is is well equipped to do their job.

And on the CRV, we talked about stats and when it could have been deployed, could it have been used – they never know when they get into a situation how it’s going to blow up and when it’s going to blow up. Just to have something like that in the toolbox like the firefighters do have certain things in their toolbox that they may not use on the daily, but its there in case we need it.

And now that we have some funding from from people outside with generous donations now is the time I think to bring this forward.

Councillor Barbara Enright-Miller

Later in the meeting:

It’s a piece of equipment that would be in their arsenal to use and we can say that we could borrow one from somewhere else, but again when you’re in a situation where you need to borrow such a vehicle, who knows if it would be available, who knows the circumstances, and these are high-risk times when something like that might be needed. Could be a matter of life and death. So, I think that now is the time to add this to the fleet, especially when there’s other funding resources that are going to help to provide it.

I am cognizant of taxpayers’ dollars but if this saves some lives for us down the road, I think it would be money well spent.

Councillor Enright-Miller, who sits on the Belleville Police Services Board

To that about Cobourg wanting to utilize it. I’m hoping that the Police Board comes up with some sort of a charging for Cobourg to use it. So maybe in the long run we’ll reap some benefits by having it and we can drop it out to Cobourg, whoever may need it, because if we get the OPP they charge us. So let’s make sure that we charge the other ones. 

Councillor Thompson

External boards require the same amount of scrutiny as City spending: Councillor Carr

Later in the meeting, Councillor Carr expressed concerns:

External agencies can’t be any different. They require the same amount of scrutiny. In this particular instance, it’s a separate board.

The rating in terms of this Community Rescue Vehicle, the rationale is three sentences. So you’re bringing in this type of equipment.

Apparently, the ERU’s been requesting an armored community rescue vehicle for the past 8 years. That’s fair. I haven’t come across agencies and staff that don’t request more equipment all the time. Services across the province have this capability already and it’s been proven invaluable.

And then talking about the firearm incidents that ERU has been involved in. I asked the question about – stats driven – about whether or not there have been cases where the risk has been so high that it’s like let’s take a pause, let’s make sure we have the equipment for that safety and we’ll utilize partners. That didn’t seem to be the case, save and accept maybe one particular incident where it turned into a crisis negotiation, which is good to see. It’s always better to deescalate than use force.

And then the final rationale is other services also found it to be a community outreach tool. When we’re talking about expenses of this type, like having a vehicle so kids can touch it at Touch-a-Truck event or to say, “Geez, that’s cool. I want to go work there.” Great maybe for PR, but again in terms of the practicality of taxpayer dollars.

My concern too is the survey that the responses were mixed. Certainly I’ve heard from residents both have reached out to to me directly or at our recent town hall that expressed concern not wanting tax dollars to be spent.

As the chief pointed out, it’s not a requirement of the Community Safety and Policing Act.

I guess part of my other concern too, Councillor Enright-Miller is the Vice Chair. Mayor, you you sit on the board and we do have a council appointee. So one could say we do have the majority control on the Police Service Board.

We’ve heard from the chief recently that the OPP has withdrawn resources through project renewal, which is concerning because those partnerships are critical and project renewal as a joint forces has been very successful in taking very dangerous street drugs off our community streets which we know has effect just not on the initial crime of drug activity but the residual effect of drugs in our community and the the crime that comes with that. Now hearing that there’s hesitation from the OPP to provide resources and as I pointed out, East Region for the OPP has a TRU team, an ERU team, and an SRU team. And they’re based out of Lennox and Addington detachment in Ammerstview. They have a number of vehicles there. And what’s interesting is if our friends to the west had a situation that required that type of protection, the OPP is going to drive right through our community on the 401 to respond to that incident uh in Quinte West. I guess I’m suggesting perhaps maybe the Police Service Board should be reaching out to either the OPP directly or to the Solicitor General to make a determination as to why there seems to be this withdrawal of partnership.

I look at our fire service and yes, we have equipment that we have to supply to our fire service, but we also have the capability through mutual aid that when we do have those incidents that there’s that partnership that occurs. I can’t say how many times where we’ve seen Quinte West or Tyendinaga Township respond and then equally our fire service will respond in kind in order to ensure that there’s adequate fire protection in managing the risk. My concern is is at the end of the day these are all taxpayer dollars and the fact that there seems to be this withdrawal from the OPP is concerning.

The other thing that’s I find interesting is the suggestion of this vehicle – the Belleville Police Service should be purchasing it with funding that’s going to be provided by the taxpayer and some donations, but we have now the town of Coberg already soliciting, hey, we would like to have access to that vehicle. Again, I agree with partnerships, but here we are where Belleville’s being asked to buy the asset that’s then being shared to those communities. So, I just find the patchwork approach to policing to be problematic. And here’s a prime example where certainly some concerns are raised.

And again, I believe in justifying expenditures based on metrics. I have to say I do have some concern with respect to taking on this type of equipment.

And then the last thing I’ll just say is what concerns me is – and I mentioned it in a question – that there was there was no ability to give an answer in terms of the capital impact on the operating budget and that’s concerning, because at the end of the day the Police Service Board is going to come back here and ask for an operating expenditure to fund the operation and having that at least now to understand that these decisions that we make here have that operating component.

Staff in every internal department where they provided equipment, they’ve also talked about the fact that this is what the operating cost is going to be to understand that there is a ripple effect on the expenditure. And that’s not to say that you know we’re going to say no because of that, but I think it’s imperative that council who at the end of the day makes these funding allocations has eyes wide open as to what that decision is today on the capital, what that impact will be on the operating, and I think that bar needs to be – it’s already established internally – we need to make sure that we’re stressing to our external partners that that bar is expected.

Councillor Carr