“I actually was recording it and you can audibly hear me at the end of it, after they voted unanimously I was definitely overwhelmed with emotion.”
That was the reaction of Jodi Marissen when at the April 15 meeting, members of St. Thomas city council unanimously endorsed a motion declaring intimate partner violence to be an epidemic in the city.
That motions was based on a letter sent to council by Marissen – and supported by similar correspondence from St. Thomas Police Chief Marc Roskamp – urging council to take that step on behalf “of all the vulnerable women and children of the City of St. Thomas . . . on behalf of the abused women and children of the City of St. Thomas . . . on behalf of the women and children of the City of St. Thomas who have died at the hands of their abusers.”
Tag Archives: Status of Women
With our beautiful consolidated courthouse comes ‘a substantial hit to our operating budget every year’
The city’s portion of the cost of providing court security and prisoner transfer (CSPT) has been steadily increasing since it first received money from the province beginning in 2012.
That year, the province contributed $75,224.
The net budgeted costs to provide the service this year is just over $1 million, with the province providing the city with a grant of $713,000 to offset the expense. That works out to just under 70 per cent of the total cost, down from 74 per cent last year and 83 per cent in 2018.
That diminishing financial support was the topic of discussion at a council meeting earlier this month when members unanimously supported a motion to craft a letter to both the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and MPP Jeff Yurek outlining concerns on the mounting court security costs and to seek their assistance in having the province review this matter.
