{"id":640975,"date":"2026-05-01T14:54:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T14:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/640975\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T14:54:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T14:54:22","slug":"ottawa-police-board-to-hold-first-in-person-meeting-in-3-years-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/640975\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa police board to hold first in-person meeting in 3+ years"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time in more than three years, the civilian board that governs Ottawa’s police service is set to meet in person.<\/p>\n

City councillor Marty Carr, the vice-chair of the Ottawa Police Services Board, said that will happen June 22 in city hall’s Champlain Room.<\/p>\n

That meeting will be hybrid, she said, giving members and the public the option to be in the room or remote.<\/p>\n

The last time the board met in person was in November 2022, one month after police Chief Eric Stubbs was hired. It went virtual after that.<\/p>\n

From April 2020 to March 2022, the board also met virtually because of the\u00a0COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Carr said there are advantages to resuming meetings in person. She listed better engagement with the public and easier interactions between board members and police service leadership.<\/p>\n

“I personally think it’s a meaningful step in returning to that kind of public presence that really strengthens our board accountability and community engagement,” Carr said.<\/p>\n

\"Alta<\/p>\n

Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr said having police board meetings in person is better for transparency. (Patrick Louiseize\/CBC)<\/p>\n

After the June meeting, Carr said the police board will decide whether it wants in-person meetings to be the norm going forward.<\/p>\n

Inadequate staffing<\/p>\n

Carr said staffing is a main reason the board has been meeting virtually. She said it only had two board staff compared to a city council or city committee meeting which takes up to four staff.<\/p>\n

“We did not have the board staff in place to be able to offer a hybrid option,” she said.<\/p>\n

That explanation doesn’t sit well with Robin Browne, the founder of the advocacy group 613-819 Black Hub and one of the advocates unhappy with the format<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Robin<\/p>\n

Robin Browne, founder of 613-819 Black Hub in Ottawa, said he is unsatisfied with the reason given as to why the board is holding its first in-person meeting in years. (Guy Quenneville\/CBC)<\/p>\n

“All the other city committees can pull this off. So what is it with the board that they can’t, [that] they don’t have the staff to run in-person meetings,” he said.<\/p>\n

A vocal critic of the police force, Browne has attended every meeting for the last four years.<\/p>\n

He also staged a protest at that last in-person November 2022 meeting and successfully sued the board in small claims court after it amended its bylaws in 2023 to require advance notice from speakers hoping to delegate at its meetings.<\/p>\n

The deputy judge found the way the board was flexible with its rules for some speakers in line with its agenda and less flexible with critics breached their right to freedom of expression.<\/p>\n

Brown said he sees these past years of virtual gatherings as the board’s way to limit public engagement.<\/p>\n

“The results have been very clear. It’s like strangled-off delegations, right? Often I’m the only person delegating because I’m the only person who’s jumping through all the hoops every month,” he said.<\/p>\n

As for that upcoming June meeting, Browne said he intends to be there.<\/p>\n

“It’s going to be very interesting to be there face-to-face with the board members after all this time,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time in more than three years, the civilian board that governs Ottawa’s police service is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[116110,239102,49,48,239100,20739,197322,203929,239101],"class_list":["post-640975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-board-members","tag-board-staff","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-marty-carr","tag-ottawa","tag-police-board","tag-police-service","tag-robin-browne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}