Pandemic restrictions made municipalities conduct meetings online, often over Zoom software. They and their residents became familiar with the relatively easy and cheap technology required.
Now that meetings in person have resumed, many residents are telling their local governments that they want a remote access option to continue.
Some local officials immediately saw the benefits and started to work toward streaming their meetings online. Brigantine Mayor Vince Sera showed leadership in supporting residents’ desire for “fair access to our meetings” even if they can’t attend in person, and noted the service would be especially valuable to owners of second homes.
Unfortunately, some others were against adding a convenient way for their constituents to see what local government is doing and communicate with it. “Zoom was necessary during the pandemic,” said Ocean City Administrator George Savastano. “In my view, it’s more harmful than helpful.”
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Many municipalities simply quit offering remote access when the easing pandemic no longer required it. Remote-only meetings of course should end (and should have ended earlier, given what’s known about Covid now), but the added public access they popularized should continue as a good-government practice.
Some towns in the area are taking a cautious approach, rightfully reluctant to continue a pandemic practice without convincing justification. They may wait and see if and how others do it.
When the Upper Township Committee recently talked about the possibility, its engineer said someone on staff would have to monitor the remote meeting, unmute participants when it was their turn to comment, and sometimes give people guidance on accessing the meeting on their computer or smartphone.
Several residents at the meeting said they wanted to keep the remote access option. One member said the committee wants public input, whether in person or remote, and there seemed to be a consensus on the committee in favor, so the issue is likely to return.
Ocean City Council ended its remote option in July, and this month residents came out to tell members they want online access to continue. Council President Peter Madden resisted that idea, and suggested online access was inefficient and used by a few “usual suspects.” But in the face of public support, he said, “No one is saying absolutely no to Zoom. We’re looking at what our options are.”
We think some municipal officials are imagining online access to meetings of the local governing body would be a return to the previous remote-only approach, which would now be redundant.
That’s neither desirable nor required. Open public meetings in person fulfill the state’s access requirement. Offering limited online access supplements that for the benefit of the many constituents who find attending inconvenient or impossible.
Live streaming meetings is easy, as most towns already record and post them online. It’s video images online of those watching the meeting from home that complicates things. That’s harder to offer and work out, interferes with the meeting in person, and isn’t needed to let remote viewers comment if they wish.
Instead of two-way video, let those viewing from home text the council or commission with their comment (and contact info if they wish) and by all means set a length limit on such texts. Then at the appropriate point in the meeting, the members can read the texts and respond as they wish.
We think this would concisely allow much valuable public comment and satisfy members of the public and their elected leaders alike.
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