The Town of Midland is taking steps to access records it says were never properly passed on when the police force was disbanded and taken over by the Ontario Provincial Police.
Council voted in favour of allowing staff to pursue legal action against two former employees at Wednesday night's meeting.
Town officials claim encryption codes for data were not provided when records were transferred.
Midland Mayor, Stewart Strathearn, tells CTV News today that "two individuals, the former police chief, who was in command, and self-admitted afterwards, the IT manager, Mr. Gordon, encrypted the data, which basically denied access of that data and precluded the town from meeting some of its legal obligations."
Ward 2 Councillor, Bill Gordon, was employed as the IT specialist for the former Midland Police Service and recused himself from the vote last night. He has said he thinks the OPP should review some of the operationally sensitive material before it goes to the town. In a social media post from Aug. 8th, Gordon stated, "I am committed to providing the OPP access to the former Midland Police Service data so long as they agree to review and redact any 'operationally-sensitive data' from the hard drives BEFORE turning them back over to the Town of Midland."
Council also voted in favour of asking the integrity commissioner to investigate.
The OPP says it has all the records it needs for policing and everything was appropriately transferred to its force.
