Tonight's Mount Pocono Borough Work Session on Regional Police Will be Zoomed

MOUNT POCONO (AUG 17 2020) - For the first time, Mount Pocono Borough Council has decided to broadcast this evening's worksession using Zoom. The popular online conferencing tool has been used by other municipalities, school districts, and other agencies to provide public participation during the pandemic.

The agenda for the meeting lists public comment on the regional police as the only item of business. In July, the borough's mayor told the council to consider dropping regional police service in favor of the free coverage from the Pennsylvania State Police. The borough's share of the costs for the regional police service comprises nearly half of the municipal budget. The state police provide police coverage free of charge to municipalities which do not have other police service.

This evening's meeting begins at 7 pm in the Borough building. Under the current COVID restrictions, the total number of persons permitted to attend (including council, staff, etc.) is 25. Typically, if council and staff fully attend the meeting, this reduced public attendance to between one dozen and 15. At the August council meeting, council asked people to leave in order to comply with the restriction. forty minutes into the meeting, however, there were still 27 people in the room with very little social distancing among the public. Several attendees did not wear masks, speakers were actually told to remove their masks, and several council members removed masks for varying lengths of time.

To accommodate the expected heavy interest in tonight's meeting, the council released the following Zoom connection information: Topic: Borough Meeting

Time: Aug 17, 2020 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/74207137482?pwd=WElaS3BZRkw5aWZQdmk3ZnR1clZpUT09

Meeting ID: 742 0713 7482

Passcode: n9DnpB