King Township council creates mayor's taskforce in response to release of high-risk offender in community

YorkRegion.com
Dec. 15, 2015
By Tim Kelly

The unprecedented arrival in King Township last week of a high-risk offender has spurred council to create a special mayor’s taskforce.

Councillor David Boyd, the father of two young children, will chair the taskforce. It’s expected someone from the public as well as a member of township staff will also be on it. Pellegrini, a father of five, will be an ex-officio member.

It was revealed by York Regional Police last Wednesday Keith Theodore Constantin, 35, was living in Schomberg after being released on probation after serving a four-year sentence for sexual assault with a weapon and an 18-month sentence for breach of a curfew condition. He has prior criminal convictions for sexual assault, sexual assault with a weapon, assault with a weapon, assault, robbery and possession of explosives.

The revelation spawned a public outcry and, prompted by discussions between the mayor and York Region Police, a meeting that drew hundreds was held at the Trisan Centre in Schomberg on Sunday.

“When you have a community up in arms...yesterday I would say we hosted close to 600 people at the Trisan Centre in a very difficult situation where folks wanted answers and we didn’t have all the answers people wanted,” said Schomberg Councillor Bill Cober on Monday night.

Boyd said the taskforce, which was only created Monday, will adapt to some of the issues the community raised at the public meeting Sunday.

“We just want to make sure the township is putting every effort at holding the facility where the offender is living held to the highest level of accountability.

We also realize some of the decisions are made at the provincial level and based on the feedback from our community, part of the role might be to format a response to our MPP or to the Minister of Correctional Services so that the people’s voices of King are heard loud and clear and safety of the community is paramount in expressing the discontent of the community,” said Boyd.

He added one of the key elements of the taskforce is to make sure the facility audit carried out by York Regional Police ensures community safety.

Asked if this is the most important job he’s going to be doing in the near future, Boyd said it was.

“In the near term this is going to be a very important role. It’s important to the members of the community and it’s an extremely sensitive issue.”