Outbreak could spur more online participation in local government
Town, school officials largely satisfied with efforts to broadcast meetings via Internet or telephone
The learning curve has varied for municipal and school boards seeking to comply with orders to live stream meetings amid the coronavirus pandemic, and allow officials and the public to attend via telephone conferencing if necessary.
Preparations were not too difficult for the Kingston school district, which had already been using Facebook for several years to broadcast its meetings. However, having seven of nine board members online required some immediate adjustment to make sure trustees didn’t talk over one another.
Board members also had to overcome having their comments sound like they were coming from speakers at a 1970s drive-thru hamburger stand. That was resolved to a large extent within the first five minutes.
“There was a lot of behindthe-scenes teamwork that made it however successful it was,” board President James Shaughnessy said via email following Wednesday’s session.
Shaughnessy and Trustee Priscilla Lowe were on-site at the Frank L. Meagher Building on Wynkoop Place during the meeting. They adjusted to waiting for a moment as the delay for telephone-based trustees created a lag between the end of one person’s comments and the start of another’s.
Electronic feedback that came from sound looping between the speakers and microphone was a common problem at the outset meeting. In the town of Esopus, that issue, as well as other general technology glitches, lead one Town Board member to attend in person instead of teleconferencing from home.
The lone remote Esopus board member, Councilwoman Kathie Quick, did attend via video feed shown through a laptop that was turned toward the camera, where the viewer could squint to see that there was a person on the screen.
Esopus Town Clerk Holly Netter said the town did immediate planning for video conference-style meetings. She arranged to get the public involved by setting up a telephone line for calling in and taking questions via the town’s Facebook page.
“We took comments from the public throughout our meeting,” she said. “There were several . ... They were watching on TV-23 and they only had their television and a telephone.”
Esopus was also prepared for live video, with the only adjustment being a shift from a cable-based system to a Facebook stream.
The webcast for the Ulster Town Board meeting was decidedly less sophisticated than other attempts, because the town has not had a history of video recording. Even so, its first attempt was largely glitch-free once it was determined that Facebook does not really provide an easy way for people to find where a live stream will be and that video players often require refreshing web browsers.
Ulster was able to meet the requirements by having a deputy town clerk take live video via cell phone during the session and try to remain as still as possible to avoid getting viewers seasick.
“It’s a learning curve,” Town Clerk Suzanne Reavy said.
On-site for the Ulster meeting were councilmen John Morrow and Clayton VanKleeck, who acted as technician during moments of feedback and slightly garbled sound.
Morrow chaired the meeting because town Supervisor James Quigley was participating remotely and learned that identifying the board members required some extra effort.
“Given the uniqueness of this particular meeting I’d like to make the suggestion that on all the ... agenda items we have a roll call vote,” he said.
The Town Board has canceled its April 2 meeting, but officials do expect to move forward with a suggestion from VanKleeck that the public be allowed to participate at least via email.
Quigley later said the idea of live streaming meetings may last longer than the virus that led to a change in government operations.
“I was reasonably happy with that experience, which was only a trial,” he said. “I think we might implement this permanently going forward, so that we can expand the ability of people to participate in our government.”