THUNDER BAY — The Thunder Bay Police Service Board (TBPS) re-elected Karen Machado as chair and Denise Baxter as vice chair.
The positions were re-elected on Tuesday during the boards regular monthly meeting.
It is the second time the board members have taken on these roles since they were appointed last June.
Machado said it is humbling and she appreciates the board’s confidence in her.
“I think we’re all committed and it’s a good work we’re doing and have done, and we’ll continue to do,” said Machado.
This year, she said she expects the usual challenges of staying within budget and doing what they need to do.
Under these challenges, she explained she has several questions that need answering, including defining what their mandate of efficient and effective policing means and the ways to do it.
“We’re working on our strategic plan, so there’s a lot about consultation going on to help us,” added Machado.
Hearing the community’s voice has also raised questions for her about what the community wants, where they need their priorities to be and how to lead the service to get where it needs to go.
“Of course, like anything, you’re going to get a lot of conflicting stuff, so it’s a matter of aligning the realities and the perceptions with what we can do and what we can’t do based on budget, based on legislation and based on capacity,” said Machado.
Baxter originally joined the board, serving a two-year term as a community representative on the Thunder Bay Police Services Board Governance Committee in February 2023.
It was four months later that she was named vice chair.
“I guess I’m quite happy about it, I will say. We’ve really had a good trajectory of a lot of work getting done and I’m really appreciative that the board has seen fit for me to lead the work that we’re doing at the board level but also at the governance committee level,” said Baxter.
This year, she said they’re moving forward with all the mandates handed to them through the new policing act.
“We also have a staff that we’ve hired to give us some support with that, so we have actually been able to get a lot of policies written over the past couple of months now that we have done a reset on that,” said Baxter.
“And certainly, the work that our previous committee members did in setting direction was really important and now that that ground-level work has been done, we’re getting into the writing, so I think for us being a governance board, having those policies really grounded and then connecting to the work of the services is really critical.”
Baxter added the board is also in the process of selecting a couple more governance committee members.
She said she thinks it is really their work to have good processes in place so that no matter what appears, what comes and happens in the city and what happens outside the city that influences it, there is a really good structure and a process for handling things as they come.
“I think there’s really no magic crystal ball for the future, but what we can do best is be well prepared,” said Baxter.
