The Big CCTV Meeting

Tonight is the big night. As the coordinator, I'm actually quite terrified.

Our "Cameras in Public Spaces" campaign has been working to get as much media attention on the issue of CCTV as possible and tonight might be the night that it actually works. We've directed all of our political and media contacts to one venue at the same time in the hopes of "making a crucible, which I hope will force out the truth". The future of the campaign will probably be decided at this event.

I'll post after it's all over, but until then, I'll include our press release which was distributed to various media-folk last night and will be available at the event as well.

Wish me luck ;-)

Edit: 2007.02.09 08:50:00

It went quite well, though there wasn't nearly as much media there as I had hoped. However, barring the representation the BIAs had there (the six of them sat as a group in suits and ties) the support in the attendees was roughly 60/40... against cameras.

We each got in some good comments and many of us were met with applause. Some of us took multiple turns at the mic and I got a copy of our press release into the hands of the NOW magazine reporter who dropped in. He mentioned that he'd want to do an interview next week which is rather exciting.

The most important element of the evening though I feel was the presence of Councillor Pam McConnell, Vice Chair of the TPSB. She was only able to stay 'till 8pm, but was there for our most important questions including my "It's great that you're getting 2million dollars for this from the province, but given that you've committed to no reduced police presence, where is the money for CCTV going to come from? Toronto is broke, are our taxes going to be raised to support this?" Their response was exactly what I wanted McConnell to hear, they'd have to review the budget when the time comes.

Now begins the work of setting up a propper website to act as a sort of watch-dog system. Find any problems with the pilot that could be used to skew the results when they come in. It's less fun, but a lot less stressfull.