Sometimes a city council member can’t make it to a meeting.
“Somebody is away, and can’t physically be here at the meeting, there’s a law that allows them to attend via electronic or interactive TV,” said Blaine City Clerk Cathy Sorenson.
That happened last spring when former Blaine City Council member Dave Clark was out of town on business and Skyped in.
“The law currently states that the facility where they’re Skyping in from has to be open to the public, so, a local coffee shop, a hotel lobby, whatever,” said Sorenson.
The idea is that it opens up all aspects of public meetings in the sake of transparency.
But sometimes that’s not possible, like in the case of a panel member on military deployment, or, as in the case of Spring Lake Park City Council and others, members were hospitalized and not able to get to a public place.
City Manager Dan Buchholtz and Sorenson began discussions with state lawmakers earlier this session.
“We’re just trying to say in these very, very narrow circumstances, when someone’s willing to participate and able to contribute as a council member, we’d just like to see the law get changed for that,” she said.
The law would say that members could transmit into meetings from anywhere.
It may attract those to public office who lead busy professional lives or military service.
“Who knows? It might get more folks interested in serving on city council, too, if they have more flexibility, because it gets to be hard,” said Sorenson. “It’s mostly the folks that are busy that kind of want to step up and help their community. We need to be able to try to help them.”
Senator Jerry Newton helped sponsor the bill in the senate, where it is still before a committee.
Senator jerry newton helped sponsor the bill, which remains in the senate before committee.
