THE COVID PANDEMIC reordered the private sector in myriad ways, most noticeably leading to falling foot traffic in city downtowns while boosting local economies in the suburbs. But the health crisis had a lasting impact on the public sector, leading many local cities and towns to take their public meetings online when they couldn’t meet in person.Â
If local officials weren’t livestreaming democracy before the pandemic, Massachusetts officials smoothed the path to the new paradigm by creating new provisions under the state’s Open Meeting Law. The list of ways to provide the public with access includes Zoom, a phone conference line, Facebook Live, and YouTube Live, in addition to the old standby, local cable access TV.
The allowances for remote or hybrid public meetings has led to more people participating, according to open government advocates. But the provisions are temporary, with a sunset date of March 31 that was set as part of a 2023 law signed by Gov. Maura Healey.
As the sunset date approaches, a debate now brews over how cities and towns should be directed to handle the Open Meeting Law: Should local officials be able to opt into increasing public access through hybrid or remote options, as is the case now, or should they all be required to do so?
“Everywhere I go, this is the No. 1 thing that our members, mostly town managers, and some mayors ask me about, what’s happening with open meetings,” said Adam Chapdelaine, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association.
At the end of January, Healey filed legislation, called the Municipal Empowerment Act, which includes a provision that would permit hybrid and remote meetings, but not require them.
The legislation, a slightly revamped version of what she filed last year and failed to pass the Legislature, also includes new property tax exemptions for seniors and allowing cities and towns to increase taxes on hotels and motels, as well as local meals taxes and a new surcharge on motor vehicle excise bills. The bill has the support of mayors from Boston, Somerville, Malden, Holyoke, Easthampton, New Bedford, and Fall River, among others.
But a coalition of advocates are criticizing the section that would allow cities and towns to opt into providing hybrid and remote meetings. The section weakens the state’s Open Meeting Law, because it sets up hybrid or remote access as completely discretionary, they argue, adding that passing it into law under the Municipal Empowerment Act could mean less access to people with disabilities and the elderly if local entities opt to hold meetings that are only available in person.
The groups include the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the Disability Law Center, the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, the New England First Amendment Coalition, and the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association, and Common Cause Massachusetts.
“We can’t have a different level of guaranteed level of access based on what city and town you live in,” said Geoff Foster, the head of Common Cause Massachusetts, a government reform group that is also part of the coalition.
“Let’s say a local body has to debate a controversial measure,” he added. “If they have the option to make it harder for the public to weigh in, why wouldn’t they take it?”
Chapdelaine opposes making hybrid or remote options a requirement for cities and towns, noting that local government varies across the state. He supports keeping it as an option for cities and towns to decide.
Some municipalities in Massachusetts have select boards, others have city councils, not to mention planning boards, school committees and all sorts of panels of public officials, such as a committee on invasive weeds in a local pond in Arlington. “All cities and towns have far more public bodies than what most people understand,” Chapdelaine said. “Many communities have dozens, 60 or 70 or 80 boards and commissions.”
Many of the entities are run by volunteers, some of them numbering two or three to a panel, he added. Asking them to be able to manage the technology, or pay for the staff to provide it is “infeasible and impracticable, and misses the mark on the way local government operates,” he said.
About 62 percent of city council and select board meetings across the state were hybrid or livestreamed and about 60 percent of school committees did the same, according to a 2023 survey conducted by the coalition.
Chapdelaine acknowledged the popularity of hybrid and remote access, but noted that making it a requirement still creates practical and financial mandates, which cities and towns are leery of taking on. “A good hybrid meeting is not easy,” he said. “You have to make an investment in technology.”
Healey agrees, and her office said the Municipal Empowerment Act was based on requests from municipal officials across the state. The administration is also looking to make funding available through state grant programs to ease the cost of making public meetings hybrid.
“Hybrid public meetings have proven to be an effective way to help more people participate in local government so that they can learn about what’s happening in their communities and weigh in on important matters,” Healey spokesperson Karissa Hand said in a statement. “We recognize that not all municipalities, especially small and rural communities, have the infrastructure to successfully and consistently run hybrid public meetings, which is why we are proposing to make them optional.”
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