The meeting again will be conducted only virtually, as they’ve been throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but Council President Karen White said Wednesday it’s time to start exploring a return to in-person meetings if she and other council members feel confident enough safety precautions are possible.
During a committee meeting Monday afternoon, a few hours before a global Microsoft 365 outage disrupted the regular evening meeting, White told council members she wanted to think about soon resuming in-person meetings now that they’re allowable under Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb’s Stage 5 for reopening from the pandemic.
“Some members have indicated that they would like to go back into in-person meetings,” White said. “I’ll go with the majority and of course we’ll practice social distancing, but after Monday night’s meeting and all of the difficulties we’ve had, I see the need to look in that direction.”
As frustrating as Monday night’s meeting was, resuming in-person meetings is not a simple decision for White. COVID-19 has taken the lives of her 32-year-old niece in California and her cousin locally. She worries about contracting the virus and giving it to her 90-year-old mother, who lives with her and has been in and out of the hospital three times over the past two months with complications from congestive heart failure and diabetes.
“Her health and safety is my main concern,” White said. “I have to be really careful. I don’t even allow my family members to come in the house with my mother.”
Indiana law requires elected officials to meet in person to conduct public business, but they’ve been allowed to meet virtually during the pandemic by Holcomb’s executive order. But there is nothing in state law prohibiting the public from participating in meetings remotely, said Indiana Public Access Counselor Luke Britt.
South Bend Common Council member Troy Warner said he’s ready to start meeting in person again and he thinks it can be done safely.
“I have told (White) I’ve been ready for a while now,” Warner said. “The communication is just better in person. I’ve been kicked off in the middle of the meeting. My computer’s rebooted. I’ve had once or twice where I’ve tried to unmute and couldn’t unmute, and I couldn’t speak. I’m sure the public has had those.”
At the same time, Warner said it seems the virtual format’s convenience has sometimes drawn more people to view and speak at meetings.
Once the council returns to in-person, he and some other city and St. Joseph County officials say they would like to see local government meetings permanently move to an in-person/virtual hybrid meeting format.
Except for County Commissioner President Andy Kostielney, who is participating in meetings remotely as he receives treatment for prostate cancer, county commissioners and council, who use the same County-City Building 4th Floor chambers as the South Bend council, have been meeting in person for about two months while also allowing the public to speak at meetings virtually.
South Bend’s Board of Park Commissioners, Hotel-Motel Tax Board and Civic Center Board of Managers also have been holding hybrid meetings in recent weeks, said Aaron Perri, executive director of the city’s Venues, Parks & Arts department.
“They have their challenges,” Perri said. “The hybrid just adds another layer of technology that you’re trying to coordinate with on-site people and off-site folks. But it’s certainly been valuable for us.”
The county council, which meets in the same chambers, has been using a hybrid format since late July. The public can sit in the room or in the lobby overflow area, physically distanced, or watch and speak via web link in real time with a video image of them displayed on screens in the meeting room. County Council President Rafael Morton said he “definitely” would be open to the idea of a hybrid format into the foreseeable future.
“Who’s to say if it’s ever going to get back to what we knew in the past as normal?” Morton said of the pandemic. “I would definitely be in favor of keeping that option open for both, just to respect anyone’s wishes who don’t feel a comfort level in coming to a meeting.”
City Clerk Dawn Jones agreed. She recently has been meeting with county officials to learn what they’ve done in the chambers, and on Tuesday met with city information technology staff. Her office before the pandemic had started looking at ways to upgrade video cameras to improve the quality of livestreaming and televising council meetings, things she has included in her budget request for next year.
Jones said she would like to continue offering the public virtual live link for meetings after the pandemic has ended.
“What I’ve noticed in the virtual meetings, once you get past the technical difficulties and you work all the glitches out, the engagement of the public has been tremendous,” Jones said. “They submit questions in the middle of the meeting in (Microsoft Teams’) chat (function). Sometimes their questions get answered during the council meeting. That would never happen during an in-person meeting.”
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