VIDEO CONFERENCE: MISSOURI POLICE CHIEFS CONDUCT VIDO MEETING

Video conferences are part of a fast growing communications medium.

With improved sound and vision now at affordable levels, the advantages for holding video meetings are unlimited.

"If you want to be there, you can," said Rick Hetzel, chief of the Cape Girardeau Police Department, and a vice president of the Missouri Police Chiefs.

"It's a great way to share information," said Hetzel, who conducted a video meeting Thursday. "It's efficient. A lot of Southeast Missouri police chiefs learned some valuable lessons today.

Hetzel was referring to a three-hour, video conference involving more than 30 Missouri police chiefs.

The local group in the U.S. Attorney's office in Cape Girardeau was hooked up with a larger group in Jefferson City. Via the use of large monitors, multiple remote control cameras and conference table microphones, every chief had an opportunity to express their views during the interactive video conference.

"A tremendous amount of information was presented," said Hetzel.

At one point a minor problem was quickly corrected.

"The Jefferson City group had a document that we didn't have," said Hetzel. "But, with the use of a fax, we had the document in short order, made copies and passed them out to all the participants here."

Cost of the local conference was about $65 an hour, or a total of $195.

That same conference would have cost taxpayers about $2,000 (travel and food) for the 13 men to attend the Jefferson City meeting. Add another $65 each for those spending the night at Jefferson City.

"The big thing is the fact that we had 13 chiefs at the meeting," said Hetzel. "If we had to travel to Jefferson City, a number of the chiefs would not have attended the meeting, because of time and cost."

The video conference was the idea of Chief Hetzel when he was a candidate for the executive board of the Missouri Chiefs Association.

"I wanted to develop some means of attracting new members," said Hetzel. "The video meetings gives them an opportunity to be participating members."

Hetzel teamed with Sheldon Lineback of Jefferson City, executive director of the police chiefs, to put wheels in motion.

"We found that U.S. Attorney's offices throughout the state had video conference capabilities," said Hetzel.

The U.S. Attorney's office is always happy to help local law enforcement, said Mark Corkery, assistant manger of the Eastern District technology for U.S. Attorney's officials.

Corkery was in Cape Girardeau Thursday to make sure everything went okay.

The U.S. attorney offices uses the video conference for a number of things.

"Candidates have been interviewed for jobs, court hearings have been conducted and depositions given," said Corkery.

Corkery said the operations were "pretty expensive" when it started, but was more affordable now.

"At one time, the operation cost about $200 an hour to operate," he said. "Now, it more like $65 an hour.

"Some people were a little reluctant to start the video conference, but most like it now."

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