Great Barrington — While many of the municipal meetings held in Berkshire County towns can still be accessed virtually via Zoom, it appears that the pandemic-era virtual access to meetings may slowly be coming to an end. On Wednesday, July 12, the town’s Libraries Board of Trustees held its regular meeting and a Library Strategic Planning Subcommittee meeting at the Mason Library. The trustees did not, however, allow for virtual access to the meetings.
Back in March 2020, then-Governor Charlie Baker signed a bill, which was implemented by Executive Order, that municipalities were required to provide remote access to meetings. On March 29, as part of signing into law a supplemental budget bill, current Governor Maura Healey updated the provisions, which state:
“A public body is not required to provide remote access to a meeting if the meeting is held in a physical location that is open and accessible to the public. Nonetheless, we encourage public bodies to provide multiple methods of access to a meeting when feasible.“
On Monday, July 24, the town posted on its website the agendas for two Library Trustee meetings for Wednesday, July 26 starting at 5:30 p.m. at Town Hall: a special meeting of the Library Trustees, followed by a Strategic Planning meeting. According to the posted agendas, neither meeting will have virtual access or be recorded via video.
After the July 12 meetings, The Berkshire Edge contacted the Board of Trustees about obtaining an audio or video recording of the meetings. Trustee and Secretary Ruby Chang sent an email with unofficial minutes of the regular meeting but did not send over a written record of the subcommittee meeting.
Trustee Sandra Pantorno wrote via email that she recorded the meeting via her cell phone. Despite The Berkshire Edge requesting the audio recording, however, she did not provide the audio file. Instead, Pantorno wrote to The Edge, “I spoke with Ruby, and she reminded me that my personal recordings were made at the request of the board secretary for transcribing the minutes of the meeting and are a backup to her recordings.”
In response to The Edge’s queries, Trustee Chairman Patrick Hollenbeck wrote via email that the trustees solely held virtual Zoom meetings from April 2020 to May 2023. “June 2023 was our first hybrid meeting [in-person] and Zoom,” Hollenbeck wrote. “Since it is very difficult to chair a meeting and run Zoom simultaneously, Town Manager Mark Pruhenski stepped in and ran the Zoom component of the meeting. Subsequently, we were told that [in-person] meetings were no longer required to be hybrid. Our July meetings followed that process with minutes being taken by our Secretary Ruby Chang. The board has a strong preference to live meetings and is thankful that we are finally permitted to do so. If a public meeting space is not available or if the availability of Trustees necessitates a virtual meeting, we would return to Zoom as long as the public is notified with 48-hour notice.”
In the July 12 meeting minutes, it is listed that Pantorno is taking lessons for managing Zoom for future meetings.
