April 24, 2023 at 12:13 p.m.
OC board supervisors will be back in the building for meetings
Exceptions can be made on 'rare' occasions
Specifically, any telephonic or other electronic connection during county board and committee meetings will be limited to public viewing only, and all such communications will be severed during closed session deliberations. However, for both board and committee meetings, and during closed sessions, the county board chairperson or the committee of jurisdiction chairperson can grant exceptions for supervisors to participate "prior to the meeting and only for extenuating circumstances, which are temporary or short-term difficulty, or a problem affecting the supervisors."
The intent is to require physical attendance for supervisors to participate at meetings except in rare cases and to generally limit public comments by the general public to those who physically show up at meetings.
Right now, county board meetings are available via Zoom - though that will soon change and they will be streamed on YouTube - while for committee meetings Zoom is available at the discretion of the committee chairperson.
The almost hour-long discussion was convoluted, and confusion about what the intent of the resolution was evident in back-and-forth discussions, largely due to the interpretive way the resolution, submitted by supervisor Mike Roach, was written.
In explaining his reason for authoring the resolution, Roach said he had at times enjoyed zooming meetings himself, but, now that the pandemic was over, it was time for supervisors to return to the table.
"I've noticed that sometimes I'm sitting in here, and the guy next to me is up at Woodruff and he's a sharp guy, but I can't understand what he says," Roach said. "Not just to point him out, it happens a lot of times. People will say, 'Look, your mike's off, or we're on mute.' ... This zooming thing can be cumbersome at times, even for folks that have great things to say, it's not them. It's the Zoom itself."
And the same thing with the public, Roach said.
"If there's something to be said that's important, I'm of the opinion that you probably should be here," he said.
As for closed sessions, Roach said security was at risk when supervisors attended remotely because other people could be in the room at the remote location, another other hazards.
"I've seen supervisors with cameras on in closed session," he said. "It's not that I don't trust them, but I don't trust anybody. I mean, this is closed session. You should be here at this table talking if you want to be here, including me."
Roach emphasized that the public could still watch meetings remotely,
"People can still zoom, you just can't talk on it," he said. "So in other words, my folks live in Green Bay. They are taxpayers in Oneida County and if they want to listen to our meetings, they are welcome to do that. If they want to give public comment, they should come here."
Concerns about disenfranchisement
Supervisor Tony Rio said he recognized that remote communications could be awkward, but he said he also had concerns about limiting remote public participation.
"I agree that being here is certainly preferable," Rio said. "The stickler that I have with this is not even about the supervisors' involvement with it, but I'm more concerned, again, about taxpayers and their ability to have input into their government. To me this strikes as a disfranchisement to those folks. We have a population up here that is based a lot around property ownership by owners outside of the area, non-nonresident property owners."
Rio said America is still about 'no taxation without representation.'
"If you can't participate in the meeting, you're not really getting representation for your taxation," he said. "It's been a little worrisome here for me in the past month or so with how things come to the board in such a quick manner, and how public comment is handled, that sort of thing. So with this, this is another way that I feel like we're telling those people that your opinion isn't as important to us."
Rio said it was tough when something was proposed to the public and to supervisors on a Friday morning before a Tuesday meeting - as happened with the resolution opposing the Pelican River Forest easement - "and suddenly these people need to try to figure out how to get here for a Tuesday meeting."
County board chairman Scott Holewinski reminded everyone that the county does not have to provide public comment at the board meeting, even for those physically attending meetings - there is such a requirement for committee meetings - and that there are many other ways for the public to have input.
"There's 21 representatives here that represent everybody, that's how you get your comments to the county board," Holewinski said. "The board meeting isn't for the public to comment. It's for the supervisors to represent their districts and bring their concerns. And we all hash things out."
Still, the public has the right to comment, Holewinski said.
"They can write a letter to the committees," he said. "They can also attend the meetings, or they can call their supervisors to represent them. That's where the public comes in."
Rio said he understood that, but a lot of his constituents "feel heard when they are actually heard," as opposed to writing a letter.
"I am basically right now doing exactly what you're saying about bringing comments from my constituency to the board, and this is one of the things that they've talked about," he said.
Supervisor Jim Winkler said there were two different issues at play in the resolution - one being having supervisors present at meetings and the other the general public being present on Zoom.
"I had a meeting last week of a Conservation/UW-Extension committee," Winkler said. "As the chair I was here but I was the only one in attendance. Everybody else was on by Zoom. The committee departments thanked me for being here. And I thought, you know, the rest of the committee should have been here as well."
Extenuating circumstance
Supervisor Linnaea Newman said she agreed that zooming left a lot to be desired, but she also had concerns about the practical effects of the resolution.
"To bring up a more personal aspect of it, I have to bring up the American with Disabilities Act that was passed in 1990," Newman said. "And as an American with a disability, there are times I can't come for health reasons, for medical reasons."
Sometimes, Newman said, she's in a different state.
"My doctors are in a different state," she said. "Zooming allows me to most of the time still do my job and just show up for committees, even though I can't be present. If I have a chance, I'm going be present. It also gives me a chance to educate myself to what the other committees do."
Newman said she learned so much via Zoom listening to the administration committee go through the budgeting process, and she said there were many aspects to Zoom.
"There's a lot of layers to this," she said. "Younger people on the board, people with full-time jobs that can't be here unless they can take a break at their job and zoom into the meeting. There's just so many aspects to me that are invaluable with the zooming. And frankly, if I couldn't zoom into the meetings, I could not do this job."
Holewinski clarified that, with the resolution, she could get prior approval from the committee chairperson or county board chairperson to attend remotely for medical reasons.
There was extended discussion - and actually much confusion - about the way the resolution was written and the intent behind the language, but Roach clarified his intent.
"I thought that I was writing this to say also, if you wanted to be at the non-closed session - she had an excuse, and she couldn't be here because she had medication and she has to be home - that she could call the chairman of the committee of jurisdiction to also say, 'Hey, this isn't an every time thing, but I have to be home for the medications coming today and I need to be on this Zoom call and participate.' It's not closed session."
Finally the intent of the resolution, though clumsily worded, meant that public participation would generally be limited to those attending in person, but supervisors could participate remotely on rare occasions with prior approval from the county board chairperson or chairperson of the committee of jurisdiction, both in regular meetings and in closed sessions.
Or, as Fugle expressed it, with Roach saying he was OK with the interpretation: "This says the committee chair has discretion to allow supervisors to appear electronically and participate in open session or in a closed session, but they have to get permission of that committee chairperson."
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