Boston looks to continue remote testimony for public meetings

Several city councilors are pushing for further remote access for Boston hearings even after the pandemic-era state rules possibly run out.

“This is about setting the standard for how we continue to engage people with disabilities, seniors, people with limited access to transportation and people with work and family obligations,” City Councilor Liz Breadon, who sponsored the proposed rule change with City Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune.

The councilors introduced the matter on Wednesday, when it was sent to committee for further hearings.

The city council itself generally has in-person meetings, though some hearings and working sessions are remote. Other boards and committees in the city have an assortment of different practices.

This legislation would not be aimed at particularly changing any rules about whether councilors or members of boards themselves would be showing up; it leaves that to be done “in accordance with the Open Meeting Law relative to the physical location of members of a multiple-member body in attendance,” essentially leaving that open for the state to decide.

What it is focusing on is public access, and if it passes it would require boards and hearings to allow members of the public to testify remotely even if the meeting is in person.

Louijeune referred to this as one of the “silver linings” of the pandemic: “We have seen a meaningful increase in resident engagement due to this ability to hold virtual and hybrid meetings during the pandemic.”

The law would require “equal opportunity and reasonable access to persons with disabilities and persons requiring language interpretation or translation services.” It also would allow precedence to be given to people who are there in person to testify.

It’s not yet clear what the state has planned for the open-meeting exception created during the coronavirus pandemic to allow fully remote meetings.

The council’s weekly meetings are always in person, though they stopped that briefly during the height of the pandemic and went all remote.

But the body sometimes holds hearings on specific issues remotely. That’s become particularly common practice for the committee on government operations, which has been busy this year as multiple significant proposals including school committee reform, abolishment of the Boston Planning & Development Agency and more move through there. Proponents say the meetings increase attendance, but there has been some grumbling at the past few meetings from some councilors who say they lose an element of the in-person engagement with all-remote hearings.

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