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Last month Commissioner Stephen
Barrington had to be out of town on the
regular town board meeting date and
asked if he could participate by
telephone as two Wake County
commissioners have done recently.
The plan foundered when Town
Manager Mark Williams and some of his
staff, who were doing a run-through,
found that it was difficult and
sometimes impossible to hear someone at
the podium addressing the board.
At their work session
Tuesday night, the board considered the
matter and decided against allowing
participation from a remote location.
They needed to consider,
Commissioner David Camacho said, “Under
what circumstances would we consider it
appropriate to do that? We don’t have
the technology right now to really do it
right. Do we want to have that kind of a
choice?”
Commissioner Frank Drake and
Williams said the case law was written
long ago.
Drake said he had
participated in court cases in which the
judge was “a hundred miles away, just a
face on a screen.” He said he considers
it very important to see the speaker’s
face, to get the visual cues.
We need to establish a
reason for setting up audio- or
video-conferencing, Commissioner Velma
Boyd said. “What kind of absence would
be considered other than convenience?”
The commissioners discussed
the statutory requirements for emergency
and special meetings where it might be
advantageous to have a remote hook-up if
there were a hurricane or disaster.
“A lot of boards are doing
it and no one has challenged it,”
Williams said. “Personally, I don’t want
us to become the case law for this.”
There would be a lot of
expense in setting up a
video-conferencing system, he said, and
then the missing commissioner would have
to find a video-conferencing facility.
“If I’m in the Atlanta
airport, I can find it,” Drake said. “In
Dunn, maybe not.”
Another question, Williams
said, is the possibility of a system
breakdown between Wake Forest and the
remote location. The commissioner would
no longer be able to participate but
because he or she was noted as being
present, his or her vote would count in
the affirmative after the connection was
lost.
Barrington put the epitaph
on the idea. “One compelling reason [not
to use audio- or video-conferencing] is
because we were each voted at large by
the public and they want to hear our
voice being spoken and our vote being
made.” |
