HOULTON, Maine — Houlton town councilors, as well as members of the public, will once again be able to attend meetings in a virtual setting.
The Houlton Town Council approved a new remote meeting policy during a Monday, Aug. 9, session. The move was necessary after the state’s emergency mandate that allowed municipalities to meet remotely expired.
As of July 31, all municipalities that did not have a policy in place detailing a method of participation for remote meetings were no longer allowed to conduct town business in an online forum.
As presented, the new policy will allow only the town council — and those boards or committees whose members are appointed by the council — to conduct meetings remotely.
Councilor Dennis Harmon proposed tweaks to avoid any future town councilor taking advantage of the remote meeting allowance. He suggested limiting the number of meetings a council can attend remotely to five meetings a year and only allowing 49 percent of the council to attend virtually at any given time, unless the entire council was meeting remotely.
Harmon said having the option to participate in a remote meeting could cut down on the number of times a meeting has to be cancelled due to lack of a quorum. But he also expressed concerns that language should be included so that a councilor did not abuse the system.
“If we limit the number of meetings a council person can attend virtually, it allows business to go forward, but not be abused,” he said.
“We have adapted during the last crisis and virtual meetings have become the new thing,” Harmon said. “It cuts down on expenses and allows for better participation. With today’s technology, it’s not just a teleconference where you didn’t really know who was on it (the phone call).”
Other councilors agreed that if there were no limitations put in place that spell out how many meetings a member can attend virtually, the potential existed for some to abuse the practice. The group also agreed that it was important to get some type of policy on the books should things take a turn for the worse.
“We have a variant (of COVID) and cases are going up and who knows where we will be in the next couple of weeks or months,” councilor Sue Tortello said. “I want to make sure we have a tool in place so we can activate Zoom meetings if we need to.”
The board ultimately decided to approve the document as a policy, rather than an ordinance, and put a 60-day shelf life on that policy so additional tweaks could be made over the next few meetings.
