{"id":2558,"date":"2021-07-27T10:49:15","date_gmt":"2021-07-27T14:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/?p=2558"},"modified":"2021-07-27T10:49:15","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T14:49:15","slug":"amend-open-meetings-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/amend-open-meetings-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Amend Open Meetings Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was very excited to see that the Albany County Legislature is asking New York State to consider a possible amendment to the Open Meetings Law (OML), which governs how and where local governments hold meetings, to allow for a hybrid virtual\/in-person meeting environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before the pandemic, APL was recording and posting our monthly board meetings on YouTube. The number of views we received dwarfed the number of individuals who would attend the meetings in person. When the pandemic hit, and we went totally virtual with livestreamed meetings, we had more individuals watching a discussion live than we ever had in person.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We also found that for staff and trustees–and remember, our trustees are elected officials doing this job as volunteers–were able to schedule and attend committee meetings with ease. We got so much done more efficiently, and the whole process was available for the public to watch. I believe in the hundreds of committee meetings I have been a part of, we may have had one member of the public attend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As a citizen, I have watched several county and city meetings over the last year. I have even spoken at a few. These are meetings I would not usually be able to attend due to my work and personal schedule. Watching these meetings from the comfort of my home office, or my backyard, gave me the ability to see how decisions were being made.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The truth is we have long had the technology and now we have proof of concept, for virtual public meetings. Anyone looking at the data will be hard-pressed to find failure in this process.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are understandable concerns. We know there is a digital divide, and not everyone who would want to watch a public meeting has a reliable internet connection at home. There are multiple solutions to this. First, a strong PEG television program (after all, the \u201cG\u201d stands for the government). Broadcast these public meetings over the PEG channel that already exists, sort of like a county-level C-SPAN. Increase the number of community radio stations in the city. Don\u2019t have cable tv, well, just listen to the meetings on your radio. There is another solution: make internet service a utility to ensure that every household has a connection provided through a municipal broadband system. However, we shouldn\u2019t wait for that solution (but we should absolutely still pursue it).<\/span><\/p>\n

What about public comment at these government meetings? Well, APL came up with a solution that worked for us.\u00a0 We now accept comments from the public through e-mail and voice mail. And people can still attend in person and share their comments the old-fashioned way.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was thrilled to have a full board meeting in person last month. I am not arguing for every meeting to be virtual. However, allowing for a virtual or hybrid option will drive us to make sure everyone can attend all of our meetings and make the work of governance much more manageable and, therefore, effective.<\/span><\/p>\n

We also have to recognize that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over. Like other pandemics, it won\u2019t be over for a very long time, especially for those with compromised immune systems. A hybrid meeting environment will ensure that those members of our society can continue to take part in our democracy. I hope that other elected officials agree with the county legislature, and hats off to them for being incredibly forward-thinking. I will advocate for this in my field, hoping that The New York Library Association will consider this as a legislative prerogative. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was very excited to see that the Albany County Legislature is asking New York State to consider a possible amendment to the Open Meetings Law (OML), which governs how and where local governments hold meetings, to allow for a hybrid virtual\/in-person meeting environment. Before the pandemic, APL was recording and posting our monthly board […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2559,"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions\/2559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.civmixvoices.com\/scottj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}