The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

iS-The Canadian Champion, Tuesday, December 9, 2003 Halton Council Chambers (o get upgraded equipinent N OW0EN By JASON MISNER The Champion The occasional aquinted eye and cupped car will hopefully be a thing of the past once Halton Region brings on board $85,000 worth of audio and visual upgrades to its Bronte Road headquartera. By March, Halton's large Council Chambhers and much amaller Halton Room - the two prime meeting areas where politi- cians discuss and aet legisiation - will be spruced up with new equip- ment to replace 12-year-old equip- ment that's no longer up to anuif. "They'll get improved video, a more consistent, higher quality multi-dimensional presentation environmient, better sound and (meetings) will be recorded in a higher quality format," aaid Ralph Blauci, direclor of technology services for Halton Region. A recent report to coundcillors stated a survey of audio and visual equipment at other municipal buildings, like the City of Burlington. "identified gapa" with the servces available aI the Halton facilhty. The Canadian Champion Christmas Bureau Fund for The Salvation Army TttM&UMChion ai Sr, En "The existing equipment, mnstalled in 1991, no longer meets the requirements of ataff and dele- gatea who are making greater use of electronic media for their pre- sentations," the report stated. The audio/visual costs are part of the 2003 budget and the upgradea are many. A second nine-foot by nine-foot projection screen will be installed in Council Chambers. There will be a acreen on either aide of the room for counicillors, staff and the public to aee presentations. In the Halton Roomn, TV screens will be added in the event Coundil Chambers ia full. Staff will be hooked up with microphones in Coundil Chambers so they can ait at their table and speak rather tha having to haul heavy binders to a podium. Wireless mnouse and keyboard equipment will be aclded to both Moims. Also, the way meetings are recorded will change for the better. More people are requesting tran- scripts of meetings. To provide a beller product, Halton will digitally record meetings. The change to the software will make it casier and more time-efficient for clerk dcpartmnent staff to transcribe the audio onto paper. Currently cassette tapes record meetings in the Halton Room and VHS tapes record meetings in Council Chambers. Both are stored in a library. "It also makes it more cost-effee- tive to store a digital version of that audio and compile themn in a library," Mr. Blauet said. As part of their evaluation, hie noted staff looked at installing TV screens at coundcillors' seats, like is the case in the City of Toronto, but the costs of around $250,000 were far ton prohibitive. Halton Chair Joyce Savoline said the equipment improvemnents wiIl be money wefl spent. "You can only put off that kind of stuff for so long until it becomnes more a detriment to something than a support.", Jason Misner can be reached at jmisner@miltoncanadianchampi- on.com. r hair studio 101