Return to In-Person Meetings Brings Up Host of Issues for Madison Boards, Commissions
As the state sheds restrictions and businesses begin the process of a full re-opening, local government still has a somewhat uncertain path back to normal functions and events, as where and how officials conduct business is likely to change forever even as some return to traditional settings.
With town campus scheduled to fully open its doors to the public on Monday, May 24, just a few days after Connecticut is set to end almost all COVID mandates, public commission and board meetings are likely to take a different and more variable path, likely to combine virtual and in-person access.
Part of this is due to board and commission members themselves wanting to remain virtual. According to First Selectman Peggy Lyons, 40 percent of board and commission members surveyed by the town said they were not comfortable attending an in-person meeting, which she said was “surprising.”
“I don’t know if that’s just convenience driven, or if it was public health driven because Madison is one of the leading towns in the state in terms of vaccinations,” Lyons said.
The “intention” is to begin offering hybrid meetings after state drops COVID restrictions on Wednesday, May 19, but what exactly that will look like remains to be seen. A lot will depend on the state, according to both Lyons and Board of Finance (BOF) Chair Jean Fitzgerald, who said that board intends to start hybrid meetings immediately after Thursday, May 20 as well.
Board of Education (BOE) Chair Galen Cawley said that board had not yet made final determinations on its in-person or hybrid timeline, but that likely it would remain fully virtual until later in the summer with a couple members still hesitant to return for health reasons.
While the BOE has in the past held some meetings at Polson Middle School, Cawley said the “acoustics” there were a challenge to holding hybrid meetings.
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws are going to be tricky to navigate regardless, according to Lyons, and the state is actually in the process of re-examining what might be allowed in order to better facilitate these types of hybrid meetings. Fitzgerald said currently the plan is to limit the number of public in-person attendees while board members are all present, with cameras set up to stream the proceedings and television screens allowing people to participate remotely.
Those members of the public present in-person will likely have to pre-register and only the first 30 will be allowed to attend, Fitzgerald added, with everyone expected to adhere to continued social distancing and mask wearing.
Other towns, including neighboring Branford, have already launched similarly structured meetings.
Only a couple rooms, though, are large enough or have the technology infrastructure to allow this format, according to Lyons. It can also be expensive, and places a burden on town staff to make sure everything runs smoothly and people are allowed to participate both virtually and in person, she said.
Initially, meetings will have tech support on site, according to Fitzgerald, but Lyons said she hoped eventually one of the individual board or commission members might “step up” to take on those duties to ensure all these meetings can offer virtual engagement indefinitely.
“Zoom or whatever the platform is, overall is a wonderful [opportunity] to offer people,” Lyons said. “When you have a really big issue, you get a lot of attendance...so it does give people an opportunity to really engage more, which I think in the long run is a positive thing.”
Notably, Lyons made virtual engagement in public meetings a priority during her campaign in 2019 and put together a live-streamed Board of Selectmen meeting more than a month before the pandemic forced nearly everyone into that format.
In the long run, hybrid meetings will almost certainly require a time or monetary investment, with a recent facilities study recommending the town begin retrofitting conference rooms to accommodate live-streaming and participation from people not physically present, whether members of the public or town officials working at home.
Already Lyons said the town has had to pay for the digital storage of thousands of recorded meetings, and it remains unclear if FOIA will require the town to continue to pay for that, or for how long.
Exactly how and where the town will implement that infrastructure will also depend on what people want and expect from government access, Lyons said, such as if they expect to be able to see everyone who speaks, how good the audio quality needs to be for them to hear, and a host of other issues.
“We’re trying to be cost-conscious and make something that’s flexible, but also gets the job done,” Lyons said.