The Soldotna City Council discussed potential guidance with the City Clerk on two-way video teleconferencing with regard to accessing and viewing city council meetings. Prior to COVID-19, the Soldotna City Council meetings were held in-person with live audio streaming available, but beginning in March 2020, council chambers were closed to public attendance due to pandemic safety concerns and meetings temporarily transitioned to teleconference.
Acting City Clerk Brekke Hewitt told the city council:
“In July 2020 in response to the COVID pandemic, Action Memorandum 2020-014 discussion of video streaming and public accessibility during COVID-19 was approved as amended with a motion to direct the administration to implement video streaming and two-way video teleconferencing. The clarifying amendment did not establish if two-way video teleconferencing was intended to be implemented moving forward or only while COVID-19 was of high concern. I’m requesting feedback from council on two-way video teleconferencing in the long-term.”
Council Member Jordan Chilson said:
“My intent with introducing this action memorandum back in 2020 was to really catch us up to where other municipalities were on the peninsula. Entering that point in time, I feel like we were really lagging behind other legislative bodies in the way they make themselves accessible to the public and that our only way to participate remotely was via call in where council members were away and unable to be here in person. As far as consuming our meetings after the fact, the public only could listen to the recordings. At that point in time, every other municipality on the peninsula had some form of video streaming for their council meetings and, at least Homer and the Kenai Peninsula Borough also allowed two-way participation through Zoom. I felt that at that point in time the COVID-19 pandemic in the way it was currently unfolding was a good reason to accelerate our need to catch up and deploy two-way video conferencing. I feel it has certainly served its use over the last two years.”
Council Member Justin Ruffridge spoke through Zoom:
“I found this odd that this was brought forward today. I had no idea that I would test positive for COVID a half hour before planning on attending today’s meeting. I would hate for this to go away.”
Because members of the council spoke in favor of keeping two-way video teleconferencing, live audio/video streaming of meetings will continue to be available on the city’s website in addition to council, administration and city associates having the option to participate in meetings remotely through teleconference.