Rhode Island Commerce Corporation’s board of directors livestreamed its first meeting on Oct. 28, 2024. (Screenshot)
Rhode Island’s economic development agency has finally embraced livestream meeting culture, complete with its own YouTube page.
Rhode Island Commerce Corporation quietly debuted its first livestream at its Oct. 28 meeting, notifying participants that they could watch the meeting, live or later, on the agency’s YouTube page. A subsequent meeting held on Oct. 31 was also livestreamed and posted on the agency’s YouTube page.
It’s the first time the quasi-public agency has offered any option to access its meetings remotely since March 2022, when Gov. Dan McKee lifted the state’s pandemic-era mandate. During the pandemic, Commerce held dial-in conference calls to meet the state’s requirement for remote access.
Many public bodies — state and local — continued the tradition of recording and livestreaming their gatherings even after the state lifted its mandate. Commerce did not.
“We weren’t required to do it,” Matt Touchette, a Commerce spokesperson, said in an interview Tuesday. Touchette also said the agency never received any complaints over its lack of remote access.
Why the change of heart? Per Touchette, it’s thanks to McKee, who serves as the ex-officio chair of the Commerce board, only casting votes in instances of a tie.
“Governor McKee wanted to increase public access to these board meetings, and since Commerce already had the necessary equipment, it made sense to begin live-streaming the meetings,” Olivia DaRocha, a spokesperson for McKee’s office, said in an emailed response Wednesday.
DaRocha did not respond to follow-up questions regarding why the agency hadn’t begun streaming meetings sooner.
No additional costs or staffing were needed to begin recording and streaming the meetings, Touchette said. But the newfound practice may not be permanent; Commerce’s board has not adopted a policy codifying its remote access policy, nor does it plan to, according to Touchette.
Still, Steven Brown, executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, celebrated the agency’s foray into remote access as a win for transparency.
“We should be pleased they’re finally getting around to doing it,” Brown said in an interview Tuesday. “There’s no point in criticizing the past.”
The ACLU in May 2023 released a report analyzing remote public access to meetings of town and city councils and school committees. An updated report is expected to be released within the next month.
However, the good government group has not tracked remote access measures among the hundreds of state public bodies, nor has the Rhode Island Department of Administration. Among the state’s 16 quasi-public agencies, four — excluding Commerce — already offer remote access, according to a Rhode Island Current analysis in March. They are: the I-195 Redevelopment District Commission, Rhode Island Health and Educational Building Corp, Rhode Island Public Transit Authority and Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corp.
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