[Massplanners] Virtual Executive Session

[Stephanie Davies]

Hi Colleen,

 

It’s been a while since we held a zoom executive session, however we had success using the following system.  We would schedule two zoom sessions for the same time.  One webinar and one meeting.  We would open the public meeting in the webinar format.  The Board members are promoted to panelists and the public is able to watch the meeting.  The Board votes to enter the executive session and then notifies the public (if any) that the public meeting will not be resumed upon conclusion of the Executive Session.  That webinar is then closed.  A second private zoom meeting is opened; there are no panelists or attendees but all board members are admitted.

 

Hope this helps!

 

Regards,

Stephanie

 

Stephanie Davies

Senior Land Use Planner

City of Attleboro

77 Park Street

Attleboro, MA 02703

508.223.2222, ext. 3144

 

From: MassPlanners <massplanners-bounces at masscptc.org> On Behalf Of Colleen Canning via MassPlanners (massplanners at masscptc.org)
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2023 10:46 AM
To: massplanners at masscptc.org
Subject: [Massplanners] Virtual Executive Session

 

Re: Virtual Executive Session 

 

Hi Planners, 

 

I would like to hear about successful experiences holding fully virtual executive session.

 

As I understand, to satisfy the letter of the law, a board must enter a ‘regular’ meeting and then the chair calls the meeting into executive session. This appears to pose a challenge with the limitations of hosting a zoom webinar/meeting.

 

For our typical meetings we have had success with zoom webinar as ‘panelists’ (board members, staff and applicants) are in view and ‘attendees’ (members of the public) are not in view and can only speak after ‘raising hand’ and being called upon by the chair to be promoted to ‘panelist’. I imagine this is how many planning boards use Zoom.  

 

In my ideal version of a virtual executive session, we'd host a zoom webinar as typical and  then I’d manually remove all attendees when we enter executive session. During executive session,  new attendees would be in a virtual ‘ waiting room’ until a point at which executive session has ended and then I’d authorize all attendees to join. Unfortunately, it appears that zoom meeting (not zoom webinar) is the platform which allows for a ‘waiting room’. Zoom meeting is great for informal meetings but invites a level of chaos when hosting a public meeting. Zoom meeting does not allow for a separate ‘attendee’ category as all who join can be seen on camera and can speak without prior authorization.

 

Thank you for your responses!

 

Colleen Canning

Planning/Conservation Coordinator 

 

(413)-538-5030 X6127

 <mailto:ccanning at southhadleyma.gov> ccanning at southhadleyma.gov




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