One of the key problems with this motion is that it is not supported by evidence. While studies have shown some efficacy of CCTV in selected locations (like parking garages), the overall utility of the technology in public spaces, and for dealing with violent crime, is entirely inconclusive. This, despite the same argument being used to justify massive investments in surveillance infrastructure in some jurisdictions around the world.

The bigger issue though, (beyond cost and lack of evidence that they work), is the impact to the free enjoyment of public space without being monitored. CCTV puts everyone under scrutiny, an unacceptable intrusion into the public life of the city.

To that end, the VPSN Board wrote to City Council to state that we are strongly opposed to the Council Motion under consideration. CCTV Cameras for the Purpose of Public Safety and Deterring and Solving Violent Crime.

The use of CCTV in the fashion described in the motion will be ineffectual and costly. It has the potential to infringe on people’s enjoyment of public spaces – placing all people in these places under the constant surveillance of closed circuit television.

With reference to Part B of the motion, we also note that as recently as 2018, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner wrote to the City Manager to indicate that they were not supportive of the City deploying CCTV on Granville Street. The rationale that then Acting Commissioner Drew McArthur provided is worth revisiting here – as they are clearly applicable to the broader geographic scope envisioned in this motion. Paraphrasing McArthur:

1. CCTV has not proven effective in deterring violent crime;

2. The purported benefits of CCTV technology do not justify the loss of privacy;

3. There are other, less privacy-invasive options that should be explored to support public safety objectives;

4. CCTV is “not necessary to achieve the goal of deterring property damage and violent crime.” (Reference: Deputy City Manager’s Memo to Council, April 25, 2018).

The VPSN believes that a city that aspires to be livable, vibrant, and equitable does not need to go down the road of surreptitiously watching its citizens. One proven answer to concerns about public safety is to further activate the public realm – putting more eyes, not surveillance cameras, on our streets and public spaces.

Photo by Flickr user Pete (Comedy_Nose)

The issue was of interest to us because we see a lot of unrealized potential for Granville. It is one of our city’s most celebrated streets, and yet it seems – despite a costly make-over – in 2008-9 – to miss the mark. It’s definitely not a street that feels welcoming to all residents – or even functionally useful for them. One of the big issues, of course, is the concentration of night-time uses, and the often less-than-savory spill-over effect from the concentration of bars and clubs in the area.

But while the Council motion looked strong in a number of ways, it also contained a proposal to install surveillance cameras, as a way of monitoring public activity on the street. Having looked at CCTV in detail over the past few years, this caused us concern. Surveillance cameras, it is often suggested, are a way to reduce criminal activity and wrong-doing. The evidence tends to suggest that this isn’t actually the case. More often, they become a costly intrusion into public life, with little actual return on investment. Even worse, they put everyone in the public – including the vast-majority of law-abiding residents – under unnecessary scrutiny.

With that in mind, the VPSN wrote a letter to Council to note our concerns. Here’s an excerpt:

Like many people in Vancouver, the Vancouver Public Space Network is interested in potential improvements to public space and public life on Granville Street. We support the general spirit of the motion that is being discussed at Council today.

However, we are writing in particular, to note that we are strongly opposed to Part B of the aforementioned motion, wherein it is proposed:

THAT Vancouver City Council direct staff to work with the Vancouver Police Department, Bar Watch, and other relevant stakeholders to determine the viability, budget, and timeframe for reactivation of the Street Surveillance Camera Network.

As we have noted on a number of occasions with the City (dating back over a decade), the use of CCTV in the fashion suggested by this motion has proven to be costly and ineffectual in many other jurisdictions around the world.

On the contrary, evidence shows that in the majority of instances, surveillance cameras do not have a statistical impact on either the overall prevention of crime, or the ability of police to solve a greater number of crimes. Many of the assumed or anecdotal benefits simply do not bear out when subjected to closer study. Most recently, the Acting Privacy Commissioner of BC has also questioned the legality of similar proposals in other municipalities.

Alongside this, CCTV cameras do come with a more problematic cost when used in public spaces: they place all users of the street “under the gun” of closed circuit television. This notion of continuous surveillance is an unacceptable intrusion into the public life of the street.

If the City’s goal is to improve public life and safety on Granville Street, there are numerous proactive measures that can be taken. Introducing CCTV along the street is not one of them.

We encourage you to strike Part B of the motion, but encourage you to explore other ways to improve Granville Street.

Should the City wish to pursue enhancements to the street, we suggest a focus on matters related to street design, transit planning, licensing considerations and more. Indeed, many of these ideas are mentioned elsewhere in the motion.

(As an aside, we aren’t totally certain what the motion means by “reactivation” – as the only ongoing electronic surveillance consistently conducted on Granville took place during the Olympics).

On the positive side, we are pleased that Council did not pass the motion as it was written. Instead, the final recommendation called on City staff to consult with a number of organizations (including the VPSN) around the efficacy of CCTV, along with other safety measures that could improve the street. The full text of this motion is as follows:

THAT Vancouver City Council direct staff to work with the Vancouver Police Department, Bar Watch, BC Civil Liberties Association, Pivot Legal Society, Vancouver Public Spaces Network, Downtown Business Improvement Association, BC Law Society, and other relevant stakeholders, including the Granville Entertainment District Safety and Security Working Group (GED SSWG), the Provincial Government, and other B.C. municipalities exploring the use of CCTV, and ask the Provincial Privacy Commissioner to give us an assessment of the use of CCTV in the Granville Entertainment District and to review the efficacy of using Street Surveillance Camera Networks to support safety measures and to deter property damage, theft, violent behavior and consider other methods that could achieve these outcomes minimizing impacts on civil liberties, and report back to Council by June 2018, or sooner if practicable.

We look forward to this further discussion, along with other, less intrusive ways to enhance the safety of Granville Street. We’ll provides updates as these discussions take place.

Photo by Jason Thibault, Massive Kontent (Creative Commons)

A couple months ago, we shared our thoughts with you on the extension of ICBC’s intersection camera program. As part of a $23 million program, 140 new cameras have been introduced to intersections around the province. The cameras have started to be installed now, and publications around the province are covering the story. The CBC published this map: showing new cameras as they are being installed, including two sites in Vancouver (Hastings and Renfrew; Knight and 49th). They also have included a pdf provided by ICBC on all the intersections that will be surveilled.

The map hasn’t been updated in a little while, because it doesn’t account for the new cameras at Main and Terminal (see photos).

The boxy surveillance systems, which carry all the baggage of dubious effectiveness and alarming infringement on the civil liberties of people moving about in public that we’ve mentioned before, are also, well, just a little bit freaky. They certainly make a stark and jarring imposition on public space, and are likely discomforting for the many people, especially those panhandling or offering squeegee services right in the intersection. These folks aren’t running red lights, but their image is still being captured by these cameras.

Have you noticed the new cameras? How do you think they affect how people treat the space around the intersections?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world… a crowd gathers for New
Year’s celebrations at Mrs Macquerie’s Point in Sydney Australia.
Submitted by VPSN member Lisa M.

A late year greeting to all of you from the gang at the VPSN. This is it: day 365 of 2010 and we’re a mere few hours away from a brand new year. We hope you’re having a grand time with you various celebrations.

We wanted to take this opportunity to send you out a quick thank you for all your support this past year. 2010 has been an exciting one for us – and a busy year for public space related issues in the Vancouver. We had the opportunity to be involved in a great number of initiatives, and it’s been fun take this holiday period to reflect on the public space ‘scene’ in Vancouver over the past 12 months.

This time last year, Vancouverites of all political stripes were gearing up for the Olympics, planning a range of activities. In addition to some pre-Games advocacy work around Olympic gathering areas, corporate signage and the deployment of surveillance technology, the VPSN also launched our blog during the 1^st month of 2010 – using it to report out on urban issues – starting with the Game’s related transformation of the City. Since that time, we’ve seen our readership grow in leaps and bounds… and it’s been a great tool to connect with residents of the City about civic affairs issues.

2010 was also a big year on the active transportation front. The Olympic transportation plan marked a watershed moment for shaping urban mobility during the Games. But that was only the start! The Vancouver Courier recently declared their ‘Newsmaker of the Year’ to be the bicycle – no small tribute to the many initiatives that have taken place concerning the humble two-wheeler this year. Chief amongst these was the installation of the Dunsmuir viaduct separated bikelane in the Spring of this year and the more recent opening of the Hornby Street separated lane. These weren’t controversy free, to be sure, and yes, the process could have been handled better… but regardless, we feel that they will help to put Vancouver on the path to a more sustainable, healthful future.

Pedestrian issues have also begun to come to the fore and we’ve been working to support these where possible. There been an increasing focus on improving the pedestrian experience, the walkability of neighbourhoods, and attending to issues of pedestrian safety. And with the City focusing on “green mobility” as part of its Bright Green Future initiative and planning to develop a new Transportation Plan in 2011, this positive trend will only continue. Our prediction? 2011 will be to pedestrian issues, what 2010 was to the bicycle. Just watch what happens when the international Walk 21 Conference landing in town in November.

Animating the city’s public spaces has always been part of our strategy to focus attention on the public realm. This year was no exception! In the summer time we transformed Granville Street into a giant percussive ensemble with our Stick it to the Streets event. Later in the year, we were pleased to roll out two of our annual favourites: in September we participated in our third Park(ing) Day celebration – that international day of parking space reclamation (this year we had sites in Davie Village and at City Hall). Then in late October, we had our annual Halloween transit party – a massive costumed take-over of the Seabus. And then in November we managed to get 100 folks together on Vancouver’s coldest, snowiest day, to make a giant ‘ecological footprint’ as part of an international public art project.

In 2010 we continued to wear our advocacy hats on all aspects of Vancouver’s public space policy – from arguing against the deployment of surveillance cameras in schools to raising the alarm over new forms of corporate advertising, from to registering concern with increased fees for community-based events, to taking a stance against the proposal to extend the municipal vote to corporations.

We’ve also weighed in on site-specific spaces as well – we participated in the discussion around moving the Vancouver Art Gallery, developed new community gardens, completed an ethnographic film on Yaletown Park, and focused a considerable amount of resources towards advocating for a sufficient quantity and quality of public space (and other public benefits) as part of the development of Northeast False Creek. And of course there’s another item we’re very excited about: the push to transform the 800 block of Robson Street into a public square (a move that was recently supported by all three municipal parties!)

This was just a sampling of some of the things we were involved in last year. As with all our projects, the aforementioned initiatives gave us the chance to work with fantastic volunteers, amazing community organizations and stellar people in local government, schools and universities and the community at large. It’s an honour for us to be able to collaborate with Vancouver’s many excellent space-makers and urban enthusiasts. 

* * * * * 

VPSN Coordinators also took the first weekend in December to plan out some of our activities for 2011. Here’s a sneak peek of a few of the many things you can expect to see over the next 12 months:

• Where’s the Square II – stay tuned for our summertime animation of Robson Street – with a fantastic food-themed event.
• Vancouver Votes / Public Space Manifesto – 2011 is election year, and as with the last municipal contest, the VPSN will be developing a new manifesto and a number of election related events aimed at putting public space issues on the agenda. 
• Relaunching PubliCity – we’ve had an issue ready to go for a few months now… and we’ll be rolling this out in the first few months of 2011.
• Transforming Broadway – Due in January, our report on transforming Broadway into a Great Street will showcase exciting options for the future of Vancouver’s longest east/west corridor.
• Speaker Series / Backgrounders / Websites – We’ve been developing new backgrounders on public health, parking space reclamation, and greenspaces, to name a few. We’ll also be launching version 2.0 of our website, holding key speaker series events and a range of other open-source materials
• Collaborative ventures – We’ve got some exciting things lined up with the Museum of Vancouver and the Vancouver Art Gallery, and other projects in the hopper as well.

And there will be lots of other stuff coming as well… including all your favourite annual events, parties, film fest activities and more. 

Finally… don’t forget, the first big community opportunity to embrace public space takes place tomorrow morning, January 1, with the annual polar bear swim. Even if you don’t brave the chilly waters of English Bay yourself, the scene is a festive one.

The year begins and ends with celebrating in public space. Happy 2011 everyone! Very best wishes to you all.

Your friends at the Vancouver Public Space Network

VPSN PUBLIC SPACE PROJECTS & EVENTS

• Tuesday, July 6 – Transforming Broadway – Workshop
• Tuesday, July 6 – Surveillance & Security Working Group Meeting
• Wednesday, July 7 – VPSN Volunteer Orientation
• AGM Update
• Great Trees Contest – Support the Urban Forest

VPSN BLOG

• The new BC Place casino – a different kind of bird?
• Granville gets its groove on

OTHER EVENTS

• Saturday, July 10 – Parkour Gathering
• Monday, July 19 – Archival tour of the West End
• Monday, July 19 – Psycho!Geography Bike Ride

 
VPSN PUBLIC SPACE PROJECTS & EVENTS

Tuesday July 6 – Transforming Broadway: What would it take to make Broadway a Great Street?

Join us on Tuesday for the second (and last) of our “Transforming Broadway” workshops. Our Mt. Pleasant event last week was stellar (thank you participants!) and we’re looking forward to another excellent discussion this week.

Both the City of Vancouver and Translink are currently engaging in planning exercises that will shape the future of Broadway. This means that we now, collectively, have a very good opportunity to lay down a sense of direction that will enhance the street. Our position? Let’s take this chance to transform the city’s great east-west corridor into something fantastic!

The facilitated workshops will be focused around a simple question: what would it take to turn Broadway into a Great Street? We need your help to find this out. 

The evening’s session starts at 7:00pm and snacks and drinks will be served. Please note – the event is free, but seating is limited. Register to get your name on the list. 

:: For more information/to register – broadway [at] vancouverpublicspace.ca
:: VPSN Transforming Broadway webpage and backgrounder
:: City of Vancouver Central Broadway Corridor webpage

Tuesday, July 6 – Surveillance & Security Working Group Meeting

Our ever-vigilant S&S Working Group meets this Tuesday in Room 3047 of SFU Harbour Centre. On the agenda: ICBC’s new surveillance camera plan for Vancouver’s intersections, update work for our surveillance mapping of the downtown core, community policing issues and other issues pertaining to safe spaces. Please RSVP for the meeting as space is limited.

:: To RSVP – heather [at] vancouverpublicspace.ca

Wednesday, July 7 – VPSN Volunteer Orientation

Join us for our monthly volunteer orientation and learn about opportunities to make Vancouver great! Session takes place at 7pm in Room 3047, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings. Please RSVP.

:: More information or to RSVP – erin [at] vancouverpublicspace.ca

AGM Update

Thanks to everyone who came out for our VPSN Annual General Meeting last Sunday. You’ll be hearing more from our Board this year as we move into planning work around the VPSN’s long-term strategic goals. In the meantime, we’re please to present our Board officers for 2010: Erin O’Melinn (Chair), Adam Vasilevich (Vice Chair), Stephanie Doerksen (Treasurer) and Josh Paterson (Secretary). Rounding out the Board are Heather Forbes, Eliana MacDonald, Jaspal Marwah, Karen Parusel and Andrew Pask. 

:: More information on the VPSN non-profit – info [at] vancouverpublicspace.ca 

Great Trees Contest. Support the Urban Forest. Win a Prize!

Each week we give a way a prize to one lucky Vancouverite who likes trees. The process is easy and the odds are good. If you want to participate, all you have to do is send us a picture of your favourite Vancouver tree with a few words on why you feel its so awesome.

We’ve been publishing the submissions we’ve recieved, along with other neat articles on Vancouver’s urban forest on our Great Trees blog. In the next little while, we’ll also be kicking off our community-based map of the city’s favourite leafy giants. 

If you have a chance this week, take a moment to snap a picture of your favourite tree and send it our way! Help us to pay homage to our urban forest.

:: For more information – www.GreatTrees.ca

VPSN BLOG

The following are some of the recent posts from our blog. 

June 30 - The new BC Place casino – a different kind of bird?
Earlier this spring the BC government released a major announcement about a downtown development project. Unveiled in a new proposal was Extreme Makeover: BC Place Edition, in which Vancouver’s downtown stadium will be getting a new retractable roof along with other building improvements, to the tune of $450 million. (Eat your heart out, Ty Pennington.) [more…]

June 26 – Granville gets its groove on
A roving team of 50 percussionists turned Granville Street into a giant drum, testing the resonance of street furniture, sidewalks and signs alike… Part of the VPSN’s Stick it to the Streets event, the pavement-level gig changed the soundscape of the street — animating it for passers-by and showcasing the real acoustics of Vancouver’s “entertainment district.” [more…]

OTHER EVENTS

Saturday, July 10 – Parkour Gathering

BC’a largest annual Parkour gathering takes place on July 10 starting 1pm at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The crew plans to “re-purpose” the urban landscape throughout downtown Vancouver, running, clambering and jumping through the city’s spaces. Lots of fun! This is probably one of the rare chances people get to see over 100 traceurs of all different skill levels from all over Canada and the US get down in the city. More importantly, it’s a great opportunity for the curious to give it a shot. 

:: For more information – www.pkbc.ca

Monday, July 19 – Archival View of the West End – Friends of the Vancouver City Archives

James Johnstone presents a virtual street by street tour of the old West End using images from the Archives photographic holdings. For more information, please visit the Friends of the Archive webpage. The event is free and there is no need to reserve a space.

And speaking of the Archives, they also have a new exhibit running in their gallery called Edifice: Exploring Art, Archives and Architecture. It’s on display until August 27 and represents a collaboration between the Archives, artist Graham Winter and Heritage Vancouver. You can visit the Archives over off of Chestnut Avenue in Vanier Park.

Monday, July 19* – Psycho!Geography Bike Ride

Join Gallery Gachet and artist/activist RedSara on this unique guided bicycle ride through the twilight summer night…. featuring stops at one ‘high incidence of car crashes’ site, one crazy industry site for screaming, one quiet river refuge, and the ICBC crashed car parking lot. In the evening River Road along the North Arm of the Fraser River is a quiet and beautiful place where industry meets nature, all reflected in water.

Ride departs Marine Skytrain Station at 8:15 and crosses the Fraser to Richmond, with stops for early evening observation & photography along the way. Ride ends at 22nd Street Skytrain Station, a distance of approx 20 km.

Participants should register in advance, and also be sure that they and their bikes are in good enough functioning order to be able to ride for 20km (will take approx 3 hr with stops). Assistance is available for people with unique mobility needs who wish to join the ride through tandems, chariots or loaner bikes. Please inquire. Note: rain date – July 26, 2010.

:: For details or to register – email sara [at] redsara.ca

SUPPORT THE VPSN

The Vancouver Public Space Network is an all-volunteer, community-driven enterprise that works on advocacy, education and outreach pertaining to the city’s public realm. We depend on your contributions in order to undertake our projects and activities. Looking to lend a hand? Please consider making a donation or signing up for one of our volunteer projects. Thanks!

With the Olympic Games in full swing, we’ve been getting a lot of requests for the map we did of all the surveillance cameras (CCTV) in the Downtown and Downtown Eastside neighbourhoods.

The good news is that this map is available for download from our main VPSN Surveillance & Security webpage. The bad news is that it only documents the 2000 or so cameras that we found before the Olympics. The mapping project recorded this data in the Fall of 2009 – prior to the installation of the Olympic CCTV cameras that now encircle the various athletics venues and Livesites (and streets and gathering places) around town.

That means the map is shy by at least 900-1000 cameras (our best guess, based on reports of government-installed, games-related CCTV, but excluding any other CCTV installed by the private sector, foreign contingents, etc.)

Statements made by local elected officials prior to the Olympics have suggested that Games-related CCTV will be “temporary” – though this term has never been particularly well-defined. With recent Olympics in Greece, China and the US resulting in CCTV “legacies” being left behind in host-cities, we are hopeful that Vancouver will chart a different course… and the cameras will be boxed and returned to Superstore once the 2010 games are over.

A month to go before the big party rolls into town. With the years of lead-up planning, the period of the Olympic and Paralympic games will be short in comparison – over before we knew it. Then what?

Although the Vancouver component of the Games (hockey, curling, etc.) will take place indoors, the impact of the Olympics will saturate all corners of the city, and our public spaces – streets, sidewalks and gathering places – will be particularly affected. When talking about Olympic legacies, the question of public space becomes an important one. What will March 2010 hold in store, once the last athletes and IOC officials have left town?

Here are three ideas and opportunities that bear thinking about:

Pedestrian Streets – The Transportation Plan for the Games includes the temporary creation of several pedestrian (car-free) areas in the Downtown core – including parts of Robson Street and Mainland. They will be heavily used during the games, showcasing some real possibilities for future transportation planning in the City’s Engineering Department. Such pedestrian corridors can be a boon for our long-term sustainability, economic development and public health, and we should be working hard, as residents, to advocate for pedestrian corridors in our post-Olympic city.

Safety – It was a bit dodgy to say the least. Early in 2010, Council passed a motion requesting funds from the Province for “temporary” surveillance cameras to monitor public places during the games. Once the funding was in place, the Province made a little aside that went something like this: “What? Temporary? Why would we fund temporary cameras?” Bad move. The cameras – proven to be largely ineffectual at reducing crime — need to go after the Games are over. Vancouver does not need increased long-term police monitoring of residents as part of any ‘gift’ from Victoria.

Gathering Places – Upgrades have been made to several community centre and park facilities, but what about the opportunities for imagining entirely new gathering places? One site that should be front and centre is the large, City-owned parking lot at Georgia and Beatty. This parking lot used to be one of the grand gathering places in the city and went by the name Larwill Park (it got shut down as such in the 1950s). Now, temporarily re-purposed as an Olympic “Live Site”, the parking lot should be kept as a gathering place and given its former name back. A renewed Larwill Park would help to build a strong linkage between False Creek and the Downtown core, providing necessary open space (and perhaps our long-missed public square) in a park-deprived area of the city.

These are just three of the many areas for consideration. Each of these also speaks to a more general consideration of the social and political use of public space in the city – how it’s planned, designed, and regulated, who accesses and uses it, and so on. The Olympics – which come with a full contingent of pros and cons – provides an important opportunity to look at Vancouver’s public spaces and the role that they play in our overall quality of life.

Described in the media as a “gangster,” Scarpino and his colleague were the victims of a brazen and cold-blooded act – an execution – that was quickly tagged by the Globe & Mail as a “gangland hit.” Of course, at this time we can only really surmise on that latter point. The only certainly is that Scarpino and his friend are dead.

The killing of the two men is yet another senseless enough example of gun violence. Thankfully as police are quick to point out, this a rare occurrence in a city that is still quite safe by world standards. Let’s hope the VPD can get to the bottom of this quickly.

Let’s also hope that we don’t go the route suggested by one of the CanWest tabloids, and the politicians it was quoting.

Not two days after the killing, in the midst of an investigation in which police are actively talking to dozens of witnesses and combing though a plethora of evidence taken from the area, the Province ran a front cover story entitled: “Cameras sought to fight gangs.” This is a really bad idea.

It’s bad, first of all, on reasons of efficacy. Surveillance cameras, by and large, have been shown to have no real statistical impact on the prevention of crime. They also, despite claims to the contrary, have not been shown to aid in the solving in a greater number of crimes. So on two counts, their purported societal benefit has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Cameras do, however, come at considerable expense, and they also come with a loss of civil liberties. The VPSN has always argued that people should be able to enjoy public space without having to be “under the gun” of closed circuit television. It isn’t enough, as is often claimed, that “people who aren’t doing anything wrong have nothing to fear about cameras.” That line simply doesn’t wash: the contrastive vitality of the public realm exists exactly because people can have their privacy while surrounded by hundreds of their peers.

Let’s not let the Scarpino case take that away from us. The call for cameras always seems to come amidst emotionally charged stories… and is presented by media, or police, or regulators, as a solution to dealing with a specific population or problem. This time it’s gangsters, last year it was Granville hooligans… and three years prior it was (wait for it) residents of the Downtown Eastside.

Of course, to date, only the latter group has actually lobbied to point out that, despite the rhetoric, the cameras will really be pointed at everybody, all the time.

It’s true. In the case of the present example, the CCTV technology won’t start rolling when some hidden “gangster radar” goes off. In fact, whoever would be sitting behind the banks of cameras watching the city streets would probably be glued to the activities of everyday citizens a whole lot more than they ever wood the likes of Scarpino, or his killers.

So let’s be vigilant on this issue… and ensure that this unfortunate killing is not used as an excuse to take a shot at our collective civil liberties.

The VPSN’s Surveillance and Security Working Group will be meeting on Monday, March 5 at 7:30pm. The purpose of the gathering will be to review recent developments in local security and policing issues, and to look at potential advocacy and project work connected with this. Last year the VPSN started an ambitious project try and map the city’s surveillance cameras – and this year we want to ramp this project up and work on additional neighbourhoods. At the same time, a number of additional ideas have been proposed.

The meeting is open to all and will take place at the Coordinator’s house near Francis St. and Commercial in East Vancouver – please email us for address details. For more information, or to RSVP, contact Micheal at info [at] vancouverpublicspace.ca

In addition to looking at the most recent VPD proposal to install cameras on Granville Street, the meeting will also feature a review of the VPSN’s Surveillance Mapping project, examine other current activities with regard to this issue and look at additional ways for the VPSN to work on this issue.

The meeting location for this event is being confirmed and details will be posted shortly. If you are interested in attending, please RSVP so that we can plan appropriately.