Mayor Grayson Vandegrift has postponed a presentation he planned to make at a special City Council about a mosquito prevention program, but the council will still have a special meeting late Monday afternoon to amend city-employee leave policies to conform to new federal guidelines.
The meeting will begin at 5 p.m. and will be held by video teleconference. Since the meeting will be so short, Vandegrift said in an email, "It would be silly to send everyone in. . . . The attorney general recently issued an opinion allowing us to do this, and we can still record it like normal."
The state Open Meetings Act requires that a public agency “precisely identify a primary location of the video teleconference where all members can be seen and heard and the public may attend” and “provide meeting-room conditions, including adequate space, seating, and acoustics, which insofar as is feasible allow effective public observation of the public meetings.” Attorney General Daniel Cameron's opinion says, “For a public agency to identify a primary physical location to conduct a video teleconference and invite public attendance at that location would contravene all of the guidance from the president of the United States, the governor, and public-health officials like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In this state of a proclaimed national emergency and under a similar declaration by the governor, it is the opinion of this office that it is not currently 'feasible' for public agencies to be required [to] 'provide meeting-room conditions'—in the sense of a physical location where observers would be in close proximity to each other.”
Monday's meeting will be held via the online meeting platform Zoom, which observers can download for free. The meeting's login code is here, but Vandegrift said he may be able to livestream the meeting on Facebook. "Monday’s meeting is our trial run, as we’re figuring out all our capabilities," he wrote. One bit of advice from a Zoom user: Mute your microphone. You can also turn off your camera.
The meeting will begin at 5 p.m. and will be held by video teleconference. Since the meeting will be so short, Vandegrift said in an email, "It would be silly to send everyone in. . . . The attorney general recently issued an opinion allowing us to do this, and we can still record it like normal."
The state Open Meetings Act requires that a public agency “precisely identify a primary location of the video teleconference where all members can be seen and heard and the public may attend” and “provide meeting-room conditions, including adequate space, seating, and acoustics, which insofar as is feasible allow effective public observation of the public meetings.” Attorney General Daniel Cameron's opinion says, “For a public agency to identify a primary physical location to conduct a video teleconference and invite public attendance at that location would contravene all of the guidance from the president of the United States, the governor, and public-health officials like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In this state of a proclaimed national emergency and under a similar declaration by the governor, it is the opinion of this office that it is not currently 'feasible' for public agencies to be required [to] 'provide meeting-room conditions'—in the sense of a physical location where observers would be in close proximity to each other.”
Monday's meeting will be held via the online meeting platform Zoom, which observers can download for free. The meeting's login code is here, but Vandegrift said he may be able to livestream the meeting on Facebook. "Monday’s meeting is our trial run, as we’re figuring out all our capabilities," he wrote. One bit of advice from a Zoom user: Mute your microphone. You can also turn off your camera.
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