As previously reported, the Appleton Common Council updated its rules and a city ordinance to allow remote participation by alderpersons going forward.
The Council guidelines that they approved included a requirement that an alderperson intending to appear remotely give written or emailed notice at least 24 hours ahead of the meeting. A reader had wondered why that requirement was put in place and was concerned it would hamper people from utilizing this option in emergencies and last minute situations.
The city already had an ordinance in place to allow remote participation in very limited circumstances, and that ordinance needed to be amended in order to allow greater options for remote participation. The original language of the ordinance included a 24 hour notice period.
Alderperson Matt Reed (District 8 ) offered some potential language for broadening the ordinance but suggested keeping the 24 hour notification period in because it would be helpful to city staff who would have to set up the technological aspect of the remote participation.
Mayor Woodford said that, from an administrative standpoint, have a notice requirement of at least 24 hours would be very helpful to staff. In fact, he stated that 24 hours was really the minimum because an alderperson appearing remotely could mean they would have to ask staff who would not normally attend the meeting to be present.
Apparently, the Legal Services Department runs the video system, but they are not I.T. and don’t necessarily have any more technological knowledge than anybody else at the meeting. Additionally, allowing remote participation going forward will entail updating to a better video conferencing system. It sounded like what they have now was put together in a hurry to deal with the sudden changes brought on by the pandemic but is not a long term feasible system. It also sounded like their requirements to competently and consistently run remote government meetings and allow for full participation by virtual attendants, both members of the Council and the public, entailed more than what you would need for a run of the mill Zoom conference.
Mayor Woodford noted that their could be times they needed staff to come in to take care of technical issues, and reiterated that the 24 hour notice would help the city be prepared administratively. He didn’t want to be in the position of having to call a staff member in with 30 minutes notice, especially when not all staff lives in the city.
Attorney Behrens explained to the Council that they could amend the ordinance in a general way and then have more specific remote participation guidelines in the Council rules. That would allow for more flexibility because Council rules can be suspended with a vote and they can change them during organizations meetings more easily than they can change ordinances. He pointed out that they could update the rules now, and after living with them for a year live with them for a year and seeing how they worked in action they could revisit them at their organizational meeting next year.
I would say there ended up being broad consensus around moving the 24 hour notice period to the Council Rules for the reasons Attorney Behrens specified. The Council members who wanted people to be able to attend remotely with shorter notice liked the fact that the rules could be suspended on short notice with a vote which would not be possible with an ordinance.
There certainly were Council members who would have preferred not having a 24 hour notice period, but the administrative issues as outlined by the Mayor and the technological uncertainties did end up outweighing the desire for flexibility.
It certainly seemed to me that the door was left open to making changes to the 24 hour notice period in the future once the city updated its technology and became more adept at its use, but it remains to be seen if the administrative issues informing that notice period will ever go away.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=869632&GUID=41B4845E-503C-428D-AD95-6E2D6E5A3224&Options=info|&Search=
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