Police board meetings to be webstreamed

By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express

Those wanting to take a look at what happens at police board meetings won’t have to worry about getting up early on Monday mornings anymore.

Approved at the April meeting of the Durham Regional Police Services Board, the board has approved a six-month pilot project that will see meetings streamed online.

This amounts to seven scheduled meetings in total being broadcast online.

Rather than installing camera equipment in the police service’s boardroom, meetings will be moved to regional council chambers, which already has the equipment installed.

“It’s much more accessible to the public, the public can come in and watch this process,” Councillor Bill McLean, a Pickering councillor who also sits on the board, said during regional council.

At the final meeting of 2017, currently scheduled for Dec. 11, the board will decide whether to continue putting the meetings online or revert back to holding the meetings away from the cameras.

Before the start of this pilot project, police board meetings were sparsely attended, aside from members of DRPS. The meetings are typically held at 8:30 a.m. on Monday mornings, once a month.

During the six-month pilot project, meetings will be streamed online at drps.ca and durham.ca.