City Council may return to live meetings

WOONSOCKET ± The pandemic is hanging tough, but the =oom era may be over for the City Council.

Saying constituents are longing for more live interaction among public officials, City Council President Dan Gendron is ready to dump the remote videoconferencing technology officials have been using to do the people’s business since mid-March.

Gendron has advised Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt that he wants this week’s meeting of the City Council ± on Monday ± to be the council’s last using the =oom platform. By the council next meeting, on Sept. 14, he said, he expects to switch to a hybrid sort of meeting, with a joint gathering of members of Baldelli-Hunt’s administration and seven councilors in Harris Hall ± the traditional seat of the council.

As required by Gov. Gina

Raimondo’s social-distancing mandates, Gendron said the gatherings would be limited to 15 people, so members of the general public would not be permitted to attend and watch the meetings live. However, Gendron said videographer Paul -acobs would attend to producing a recording of the meeting that could be viewed later on cable television or YouTube.

“There is a desire among the public for us to return to a normal setting,” Gendron told The Call this week. “It’s important for the city to get back to some degree of normalcy and we need government to assist in bringing normalcy back to people’s lives and this is one small part the city council can to bring back that very desired normalcy to the people of Woonsocket.”

Gendron said he had hoped the council would have made the switch on Monday, but he wanted to make sure