The Newport Commission voted on an ordinance to allow any board member who cannot physically attend a meeting to participate by video teleconference.
The ordinance brought up at the Nov. 20 commission meeting was drafted with the idea of allowing board members to still participate in meetings when they are out of town, have an illness, etc., and cannot be there in person. The ordinance does limit the number of remote attendees to two members at a given time.
Newport Manager Tom Fromme said the city still needed a quorum for in-person meetings, so they only allow two remote members. Should something come up, and they don’t have a quorum before the notice to the public, Fromme said that the meeting would be remote.
“To be clear, the intention of this is not to displace public meetings,” Newport Mayor Tom Guidugli Jr. said. “The intention of this is if we had an illness or someone unable to attend in person—more of an emergency process or business versus normal operating model.”
Newport Commissioner Mike Radwanski said the idea was a pragmatic approach for those working and those who don’t want to get the rest of their board members sick.
“I think back to many years throughout my working career in the office where people would come into the workplace sick and blow it off as if it wasn’t a big deal, then the rest of us would all get sick,” Radwanski said.
The city must follow specific requirements for the new meeting style. The remote attendees must be visible and be heard by the public. The physical location of the meeting will continue to be held in the city’s multipurpose room in the Newport Municipal Building located at 998 Monmouth Street and will be open to the public.
Newport Commissioner Ken Rechtin said he heard a lot of pushback on the item in the interim between the first reading and the second. He said people were concerned about their ability to make comments and asked if the city had the technology to make the teleconference meeting work.
Fromme said several employees have been testing the technology to ensure it works when needed.
“My comments were, ‘I won’t vote for this until we know that the system works,’ and I got a verification, and I’ve witnessed it,” Guidugli said.
Newport Commissioner Julie Smith-Morrow said she was for the new idea.
“This doesn’t seem to me to be any attempt to exclude the public from comments,” Newport Commissioner Julie Smith-Morrow said. “The best place for that to happen is when we’re here in person, and we have a quorum here in person to have the public be able to address us. So, I’m comfortable with this.”
The mayor and all commissioners voted in favor of the ordinance except Rechtin, who voted no.
