Supervisor Gerry Siller on new rules for attending public meetings via Zoom

Supervisor Gerry Siller, on rules for attending public meetings virtually:

“We are making some minor changes to the way the Town hosts public meetings through the use of Zoom.

“In the past we didn’t post links to the Town website, participants had to request it from the meeting clerk. However, the State and County recommendation was to have these video meetings be as close to in person meetings as possible, therefore, this step was somewhat criticized. 

“As Zoom bombing became rarer, a few months ago we decided to start posting meeting links on the website, which up until yesterday worked really well. The public was able to access all links at their convenience, they didn’t need anyone’s approval to attend the meeting, and they could join the meeting at any time. After initial set up, this also decreased the workload internally. However, it makes sense that meetings with publicly posted links are more prone to Zoom bombing.

“The biggest risk posed to the Town are the users that are not properly logged into their Zoom account and attend the meetings under generic names, such as “Jane’s iPad, iPhone876, and many other non-identifying names.

“To help the town protect the integrity of public meetings and diminish the ability to disrupt these meetings, all meetings will have a waiting room enabled, where attendees must disclose their name and the host will be able to re-name them if necessary. Ideally, to speed up the process, the attendees should join the meeting with a proper user name, displaying first and last name.

“Additionally, we ask all public attendees to turn off their camera and stay muted during the meeting, unless prompted to join the discussion. We ask the public attendees to familiarize themselves with the virtual hand raise to participate in the discussion. 

“The Town will continue to review this policy in order to enhance public participation without disruption.

“Thank you for your assistance and understanding.”