PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The Maine Municipal Association has updated rules for town and city boards to conduct business in remote meetings, emphasizing the public’s right to attend in “real time” and reminding municipalities that the Maine Freedom of Access Act remains in force.
Cities and towns are being helped with interpretation of this new legislation by the Maine Municipal Association, which released an updated version of its guidelines on remote board meetings on Thursday, May 14.
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The association posted the updated rules a day after The Bangor Daily News reported that a Presque Isle City Council meeting seemed to violate a Maine law on remote meetings by not providing a way for the public to see or hear the discussions and decisions as they occurred.
The updated rules clarify the distinction between the public’s right to attend a board meeting live and when the public can participate in a meeting.
The association put out the guidelines to help municipalities across the state conduct remote meetings, Maine Municipal Association Director of Communications and Educational Services Eric Conrad said. Continued in-person meetings were made complicated by Gov. Janet Mills’ civil state of emergency to combat COVID-19, which began on Sunday, March 15.
While Conrad was unsure if all of the nearly 500 municipalities in Maine were following state laws on remote meetings, he said municipal governments were making an effort to stay transparent statewide.
“Our members want to have public meetings. They want to have people in attendance to hear what they say,” he said. “They think their community is more likely to stand behind them when they do.”
Describing Presque Isle City Manager Martin Puckett as a “good manager,” Conrad said that Presque Isle’s violation of the new law seemed to be “inadvertent.” The Maine Municipal Association may have played a role in a misunderstanding regarding the guidelines, he said.
Puckett interpreted information from the department’s initial guidelines stating the public did not “generally” have a right to participate in board meetings to mean that there was no right for the public to have live access to meetings. The Maine Freedom of Access Act requires live access to municipal meetings by the public
The new rules include the same section as the March 19 edition, but changes the language to say that the public does not have a right to “ask questions or offer comments” during meetings.
The state can require municipalities that violate public meeting laws to hold new votes on all issues decided in the closed meetings, Conrad said, though the situation is extremely rare.
Remote meetings have become the norm in many larger towns and cities within Aroostook County, especially during the pandemic.
Caribou, which already live-streamed its biweekly city council meetings from the chamber, continued the format over Zoom for its April 6 and April 21 meetings before the councilors returned to the chamber on May 18.
Houlton held its first online town council meeting on April 13, broadcast on Facebook Live by the radio station WHOU. And though it does not broadcast them, the Fort Kent Town Council is sharing the Zoom ID and password for its online meetings.
But many smaller towns across Maine were opting to continue in-person meetings, because of the smaller sizes of such gatherings and “human nature” to want to keep business as usual, Conrad said.
In Frenchville, the town’s board of selectmen had continued to hold meetings while remaining socially distant, town manager Ryan Pelletier said.
Pelletier, who said his town takes the outbreak “very seriously,” said that all selectmen wear masks during the town’s biweekly meetings. One board member even wears gloves, he said.
Hodgdon had canceled a board of selectmen meeting in April because of the virus but held an in-person meeting on May 12 at Hodgdon High School, town manager Jim Griffin said.
The town had opted not to do Zoom meetings, primarily because of the board’s unfamiliarity with the software, Griffin said. While the board maintained social distancing during the May 12 meeting, he said they did not wear masks.
Though the changes presented to local governments from the virus were many — and simple solutions often were unclear — Conrad said use of the new medium allowed boards to continue operations during the pandemic.
“Even if you had a council with five-seven people, sometimes holding them six feet apart can be difficult,” Conrad said. “Fortunately, we feel that the governor set guidelines pretty much right away.”