Despite sustained critique from transparency advocates and press groups — including this editorial board — Massachusetts seemed dead set on being the last state in the union to reopen its Statehouse to the public it serves well after it was safe to do so. Unfortunately, Beacon Hill leadership seems similarly dead set on prolonging another now-unnecessary COVID emergency provision. Pandemic policy extensions now under consideration would allow state and local officials to continue preventing their constituents from addressing and critiquing their leaders the old-fashioned way: in person.
During its first session of the final month of serious legislating, the Massachusetts Senate on Tuesday released and passed a bill further extending some pandemic-era policies.
The statewide authorization for public bodies — from Select Boards to state agencies to legislative committees — to suspend usual open meeting procedures and only convene remotely was obviously prudent during the darkest days of a viral pandemic. More than two years later, effective COVID vaccines, antiviral treatments, widespread natural immunity and other boons have made this coronavirus considerably less novel and frightening. It therefore seems fitting that the authorization, which was extended in February, is set to expire Friday — that is, unless lawmakers have anything to say about it. A House bill would, among other things, further extend the current conditions through the end of March 2023. The Senate’s version would prolong it even more so, through mid-December 2023.
To be sure, the normalization of remote attendance at public meetings is an advance worth keeping. It increases access for many of our neighbors — disabled folks with mobility issues, immunocompromised individuals who still understandably want to play it safe or those members of working families who are just too busy to make it to City Hall or town offices on a weeknight. In fact, many municipalities actually saw meeting attendance rise amid the pandemic as local boards welcomed attendees virtually.
With that in mind, one amendment in the House bill is actually a prudent piece of policy. Introduced by Rep. Antonio Cabral and adopted by the House, it would make hybrid meetings a permanent fixture for the state’s public bodies. That would allow the commonwealth to carry forward this powerful tool for encouraging and increasing crucial civic participation.
We join a wide range of advocacy groups from the Massachusetts ACLU to the Disability Law Center to the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts in wholeheartedly endorsing this particular amendment. Wisely, it would also require a minimum number of public board members to physically attend meetings and thus allow constituents a space to do so.
A lawyer hired by Becket residents told planners Wednesday the town’s zoning bylaw forbids the kind of permanent structures described in the “glamping” development that seeks a special permit as part of a revived Dream Away Lodge venture.
Hybrid meeting capability is a big step forward, but remote-only meetings were a step back forced by the dangerous and uncertain onset of COVID. “Remote access” and “remote only” should not become synonymous. The former welcomes some folks, while the latter locks some out, including the less-tech-savvy among us and those who simply can’t access or afford high-speed internet — a very real concern for the more rural corners of our county. For those who can log in, pushing meetings entirely into the Zoom realm often results in passionate civic interaction minus the civility. That certainly seemed to be the case when sparks flew along with some profanities and interruptions at a Becket Planning Board meeting on a contentious glamping proposal earlier this year.
Both the House and Senate bills would extend the emergency allowance for remote-only public meetings even as the need for that emergency provision has clearly waned. While many Berkshire boards and panels have moved to a hybrid meeting model and returned an in-person element to meetings, some are still coasting on the remote-only allowance and letting inertia continue to curb in-person meeting participation. This needless virtual barrier still standing between some officials and their constituents fails those who would prefer to face their elected leaders and observe the people’s business up-close in the same way they traditionally have. Given the Bay State’s rich history of participatory democracy and New England-style civic engagement, our leaders at the state and local level ought to recognize the value of that tradition and its importance in maintaining government by and for the people.
As of this week, the state has throttled back its routine COVID-19 metrics reporting to a weekly basis instead of daily. In doing so, the state acknowledges it is reasonable to begin transitioning COVID-era policies into a new, less-intense era. Why, then, should the state extend remote-only public meeting allowances through the end of next year, as the Senate’s bill would? As with the COVID counting, lawmakers should let the state take a new and sensible step forward when it comes to meeting rules by simply making hybrid meetings permanent now without extending remote-only meeting allowance.
