virtual public meeting – The Democracy Kitchen

(This is a reprint of a blog post contributed to PublicInput.com)

More state legislatures are enabling virtual public meetings as an option for deliberations and public engagement.

Historically, government officials have been required to meet in person to deliberate about the public’s business. This has been particularly true for meetings that included constituents and their elected representatives. Some states even have laws requiring officials to attend meetings in person.

Face-to-face meetings between elected officials and the public are important.

This is because elected officials can’t ignore people that are right in front of them talking about a problem or a policy. It also helps them put a “face” to a certain issue or law. The public’s physical presence at a meeting can be very impactful when making decisions and could affect the outcome.

Times and technology have changed and public attendance at council meetings or committee meetings usually represents those who have a strong opinion for or against the issue that is being debated and may not represent the voice of the whole community.

The Pursuit of Alternative Means

In March 2020 as the COVID-19 virus became a pandemic, state and local governments were forced to shutter their buildings and halt their in-person proceedings. Alternative means had to be pursued to conduct the public’s business and for the continuation of governance.

For years, the public has had options to view or listen to their governing bodies’ proceedings electronically, whether online, televised, or by radio and officials were physically present in those proceedings. Now, the elected and the electorate would need to segregate from each other and conduct their meetings virtually. Yet, some states had laws that required meetings of public bodies to have the officials present which prevented them from attending virtually.

With the growing pandemic, states had to act fast to enable the government to continue to operate and in a way that would not violate their open government laws surrounding access, participation, and transparency of public meetings.

Executive orders became the norm in most states to enable their governments to continue operations, including holding virtual proceedings. Those emergency orders, however, had deadlines so it was up to state legislatures in those states that restricted virtual attendance to create formal alternatives for convening public meetings.

Fast forward to the summer of 2021

With a year and a half of a continuing (and resurging) pandemic, along with 18 months of positive data about the effectiveness of virtual public meetings (VPM), decisions by state and local governments to meet virtually have taken hold across the nation on whether or not there were legal restrictions preventing them. Today, VPMs as an alternative or complement to in-person meetings are launching a new era of public engagement for governments and for residents.

Recall that not all states have laws requiring in-person attendance by officials that prevent VPMs and therefore do not require legislative action to approve their use. Wyoming is a good example of a state that switched to VPMs over the last year and a half, including hybrid models, to ensure continuity of services and decision-making along with public outreach.

For those states that either required officials’ in-person attendance or wanted to revise legislation to ensure VPMs were included in their public meeting requirements, 17 states had bills filed over the last year that included language pertaining to VPMs, according to BillTrack50, a free research and tracking service of state and federal legislation and legislators from LegiNation, Inc.,

So far, four of the 17 states have signed and enacted legislation to support VPMs (California, Georgia, Nebraska and Utah), while seven are still in committees or have been approved by one chamber and crossed-over to the other. These states include Hawaii, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina and Washington. Bills addressing VPMs in six states died in committee or failed on the floor: Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada and Texas.

A New Way to Govern

With or without needed changes to laws to enable VPMs across state and local jurisdictions, many public officials and residents are realizing the benefits along with the challenges of adjusting to VPMs and hybrid models that blend VPMs with in-person meetings. Residents are enjoying the ease and convenience to learn about and engage their public officials without the challenges to their schedules including traveling to a meeting for whatever reason they may have.

Public officials are seeing the ranks of public participation swell and increased diversity among attendees. Key challenges facing public bodies such as inclusion to hear from more voices in the community are being facilitated using VPMs. The public’s personal preferences surrounding communicating and sharing information with public officials are being met and with greater ease. That helps build more trust between public officials and residents.

Whether out of necessity or in response to a disaster, state and local governments and their constituents are finding VPMs provide a new and welcoming way for governing and advancing democracy in their jurisdictions.

(This article was originally posted as a guest blog for PublicInput during Sunshine Week 2021)

Every state has open government laws regarding requirements and policies for public records and public meetings. A year ago, during Sunshine Week 2020, most states enacted emergency orders to rescind those laws due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For state and local governments, in particular, agencies and personnel were faced with an unprecedented challenge to manage operations remotely including their public engagement.

Access to and management of public records and public meetings became a major challenge for the public sector as well as for the public. Bringing together public officials virtually had its own challenges –technical and procedural. However, when it came to ensuring the public would be able to participate in those meetings, chaos emerged.

Technology is supposed to create efficiencies for its users. However, in many cases, virtual public meetings required more staff than conventional public meetings and from agencies that typically do not play a major role in these meetings.

Digital transition and adoption by government have lagged behind the private sector. For two decades, that focus has been prioritized on government’s transactional relationships with the public, e.g., (taking and processing payments, documentation, information searches, and exchanges) and less on interactional relationships, i.e., public engagement, even though end-to-end solutions are available. And the pandemic exposed these shortcomings in a big way.

As the government scrambled to comply with their legal requirements to ensure public and press access to public meetings, we saw three models of virtual public meetings emerge:

Fail: Many jurisdictions wanted to forego all compliance with their open government laws regarding: records and meetings. And many decided not to make the effort if it wasn’t required, and if it was, performed the very basic response to meet the minimum requirements. Lacking the technology capabilities, the training, or just the initiative, the results were poor and unproductive leaving both the government bodies and the public with a lousy experience. Losing the public wasn’t the only consequence. Losing their trust at a critical time during a pandemic is something not easily regained.
Frankenstein: This model emerged from most governments that made efforts to comply with laws and procedures by piecing together multiple technology solutions to handle the tasks. Think about an orchestra: many instrument sections to perform one musical piece. As Miami’s CIO, Mike Sarasti said on Twitter after a March 25 commission meeting, they “used @zoom_us for in-meeting participants, then attendee view was sent out to usual @Granicus, Twitter, FB Feeds. @Qualtrics for Form-based feedback, voicemail via @Cisco setup, @WeTransfer for vid submission. Add a fair share of talented co-workers, & you’re good.” That’s a lot of government cooks in the kitchen. This model is proving unsustainable due to its inefficiency, expense, and unpredictability.
Future: This model represents those governments and agencies that realized and took advantage of end-to-end technology solutions specifically created to manage virtual public meetings/engagement and meet their legal and political responsibilities (like other GovTech solutions developed to handle different administrative responsibilities and requirements in other agencies). Benefits have included increased participation and inclusion, more manageable public input, greater efficiency and productivity, and trust.

One thing we have learned from successful virtual meetings over the last year is that given the opportunity to participate, the public will. However, the quality of the experience will determine whether they return.

Virtual meetings, when working, are being accepted by the public and by the public institutions convening them. Many public officials (especially elected ones) have expressed their desire to return to in-person meetings for that face-to-face experience. However, successful virtual public meetings have made an impressive impact as a way for governments to engage the public and vice versa.

An early concern in the pandemic was that due to the turmoil being created by virtual public meetings, once the virus subsided, governments would return exclusively to in-person meetings, missing the opportunity to create a new era of public engagement. However, that is not happening. New policies and laws are being changed or created to include the continuation of virtual public meetings that can complement or be held in lieu of in-person meetings.

In Boston, efforts are underway to make remote, virtual participation in public hearings and meetings a permanent fixture of city government. Legislation proposed in Nebraska will allow local governments to hold meetings via “virtual conferencing.” Similar efforts are being pushed in South Carolina and other states and local jurisdictions.

An engaged and informed public has economic and civic benefits, and virtual public meetings meet new communication and information needs and expectations of constituents.

The opportunity for governments will be how to structure their public participation to continue virtual public meetings and combine them with in-person meetings as they continue their transition in the digital age of public engagement and democratic practices.

Think of the virtual public meeting as the heart of citizen engagement.

Former Washington State representative Renee Radcliff Sinclair speaking about government transparency and trust said this week: “The COVID-19 pandemic has tested us all in ways we never imagined. And while its long-term societal impacts probably won’t be known for some time, in the short term it has substantially eroded our trust in our cornerstone institutions, including government… So, the question becomes, how do we build back that trust? By giving the public a front-row seat to its proceedings.”