The Town of Battleford hopes to broadcast its upcoming council meetings online for the public to see during the pandemic. (File photo/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Going Virtual

Town looks to broadcast council meetings live online during COVID-19 pandemic

Apr 2, 2020 | 3:00 PM

The Town of Battleford hopes to broadcast future council meetings online during the pandemic.

The next meeting takes place April 6. The town will post a link on its website when all the details are finalized.

Mayor Ames Leslie said the town needed to move to provide online council meetings due to COVID-19 precautions.

“I think it’s just for the comfort of the staff and council itself,” he said. “Everybody has a different comfort level of even the six-feet [space requirement between individuals]; some people don’t want to be in the public in general. It’s the best way to appease everybody’s feelings during this situation we’re in. If we have the capabilities to do it virtually for a couple of meetings, then we’ll definitely look to accommodate that.”

The previous council meeting was moved from the council chambers at the Town Hall to the Alex Dillabough Centre meeting room where there is more room for people to have space between one another, with some restrictions. The new COVID-19 measures limit the amount of people that can assemble in one place to 10 individuals now, making it impossible for the town councillors, administrator, and staff, in addition to the public as well to attend at the same time.

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“When you have seven councillors and an administrator, you’re at that max of ten pretty quickly,” Leslie said. “So it doesn’t leave any room for the public to be there.”

He added as a municipal government, the town needs to provide public access to its meetings, because the 10-person maximum in place would put the town over the limit if it tried to have everyone meet together in person.

The town is looking at different options about how it will incorporate the public into the online meeting set-up process. CAO John Enns-Wind is leading the initiative.

Leslie said the town is looking at potentially having a split crew, with some connecting from home and others while present in the office – such as perhaps the mayor and administrator being in the office for the meeting while councillors and staff participate through a virtual presence via the internet.

The public would be able to connect to take in the proceedings from home.

“I think as many of the people we can keep home and not have in harm’s way, we’ll take that approach,” Leslie said.

The town is conducting some trial tests with its Internet technology company later Thursday and Friday to make sure everything is in order.

“Once we know it works we’ll forward on some information to everybody,” the mayor said.

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow