The following Police Commission meetings are open to the public. Minutes of these meetings are also available. See the column to the right for more details.
Upcoming Meeting Dates:
Thursday March 18 at 5:00 pm in City Council Chambers
Click here to view the agenda for this meeting.
News Release:January 7, 2010 (10-501)
Open Police Commission meetings now at City Hall
Effective January 2010, the Medicine Hat Police Commission will hold open commission meetings at city council chambers and will expand the format to allow for community consultation.
The Commission wants to make every effort to ensure the interests and concerns of the community relating to policing matters are heard. Chairman Ryan Jackson says that “both the Commission and the Service are making every effort to be more open and accessible to the community”. Chief McGrogan supports the changes noting that “it has been very difficult to host members of the community in our police service board room and until we have a community board room on site, council chambers is the next best location”.
In addition to the change of location, the Commission will expand the agenda to give an opportunity for community members to ask questions. If required, one follow-up question will also be allowed. A maximum of five minutes will be allocated for each issue.
The next meeting of the Medicine Hat Police Commission will be held at 5:00 pm on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 in City Council Chambers. The agenda for this meeting can be viewed here. Parking underground at City Hall is recommended for those attending the meeting.
Police Commission Meetings
Medicine Hat Police Commission Chair, Ryan Jackson and Police Chief, Andy McGrogan are excited to announce a significant change to the delivery of Police Commission meetings. The change was initiated as both the Commission and the Executive of the Police Service wish to be more transparent and communicate more information with the community.
In the past a great majority of the Commission agenda was discussed during the closed meeting and both parties see no reason why many of the agenda items could not be discussed during the open meeting. While some matters, outlined in Police Commission Policy, will remain on the closed agenda, such as matters relating to; discipline, personnel conduct, personal information of an individual, contract negotiations, security of Police operations, or requests for access to information under the FOIP Act, most other information will now be discussed during the open meeting.
A present barrier to the open meetings is that they are held in the Police Service Administration boardroom. Although the public are welcome to attend, people must sign in and be escorted through secure doors to an internal board room. Chief McGrogan is aware that this probably doesn't feel that inviting and the Service have been looking for ways to change that. Part of a recent facility needs assessment of the present facility identified a strong need for a "community boardroom" located directly off the front lobby.
Open Commission Meetings will now commence at 5:00 pm on every third Thursday of the month. The next Commission meeting date is March 19, 2009. The open meeting agenda is posted on this page of the Police Commission web site.
For more information please contact:
Mr. Ryan Jackson
Chair
Medicine Police Commission
Ph: 403-502-8908
Meeting Minutes
Minutes of the Medicine Hat Police Commission meetings from the 2009-2010 years are available by clicking here.
Archived Minutes
Minutes from previous years are available by clicking here.