Want to watch your town government in action? Many RI towns don't provide remote access

Want to hear what your local city or town council plans to do on the latest budget? Property tax increases? How many people can live in one apartment? The next school closing? Really, anything your school committee is considering?

For many of Rhode Island's municipalities, you can fire up your computer and watch a stream of the meeting or even participate remotely. Generally, school committees are much more likely to limit remote access, according to a survey by the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island – even though such access had been mandated during the pandemic.

The survey was prompted by the expiration of pandemic executive orders that required remote participation for public meetings, ACLU-RI Executive Director Steven Brown said.

While many municipalities have rolled back access to public meetings, Brown said the pandemic, and his group's survey, prove that remote participation and recorded meetings are possible even for the state's largest and smallest communities.

Read the report: Remote Access to Public Meetings Post-Covid: A Review of Rhode Island City and Town Councils and School Committees

Proposed legislation would mandate meeting recordings and public access to agenda documents

While legislation that would require the live streaming and recording of meetings as well as separate legislation that would require public bodies to post meeting packets in advance, Brown said he is "not terribly optimistic" the bills will pass, especially after a bill introduced in the House stripped language requiring remote participation from most major public bodies.

Expanded public access? A new bill would expand RI's APRA law. Here's what could become public record.

Legislature is accustomed to providing electronic access

Recording and streaming meetings are nothing new to the General Assembly, where the first hearings were recorded in 2013, although cameras started rolling only this year in some of the most impactful committees, including the Senate Finance Committee, which debates the budget, new taxes and health care laws.

Brown said he is hopeful that the survey will help push the General Assembly to consider recording requirements for municipalities and school committees.

"My hope is that city councils or school committees see that their neighbors are providing the greatest public access and think about that as well," he said.

Now, they'll be streamed: For decades, Senators debated the budget at untelevised hearings.

Remote participation, a staple of the pandemic, is nearly nonexistent for school committees

Live streaming has become a staple for 32 municipalities in the state, while six have stopped their city or town council streams. Among school committees, seven have stopped streaming.

The number of municipalities that post meeting recordings is higher, at 35. Barrington and Burrillville record meetings but don't live stream them.

A "major benefit" of the pandemic was that remote and hybrid meetings allowed people to participate in government by lowering the barriers to participate, according to the survey.

Sept. 25, 2021: McKee urged to again allow remote participation in government meetings

The ability to remotely participate, like commenting on a project, has been severely restricted since pandemic orders were lifted. Just one school committee, Barrington, completely allows it, while 28 have removed the ability, and in five cases the status was unclear.

Twenty-seven municipalities have eliminated remote participation.

Providence City Council President Rachel Miller said live streaming meetings is important, but the city needs to work on the technology for committee meetings, where the audio is often "rumbly."

She said she would be open to allowing remote participation again, but meetings from the early days of the pandemic were bombarded by hate speech and other disruptions.

Warwick City Council President Stephen McAllister said once meetings went back to being in-person, the council tried to do hybrid meetings, but it was "really difficult" with sound and technical issues.

"We've had discussions about hybrid and it doesn't fit within the budget," he said.

People do watch Warwick's live streamed recordings and when there are issues with it, "people from home are letting us know," McAllister said.

Access to meeting documents is often limited

Eight of the 39 city and town councils do not post their meeting packets online, which include all the documents elected officials are given for the meeting, such as budgets, applications and memorandums, which was cited as an "extremely frustrating aspect of remote viewing," according to the survey. School committees are far worse, with the majority of the 34 school districts – 17 – providing no packets and three providing only partial packets.

The report points to the bad example of the Providence City Council approving its $511-million budget in 2021, and the only people who could see the documents were the council members, and not the public.

The General Assembly posts its meeting documents, including submitted testimony, online.

What about other boards?

While the study examined city and town council meetings, it did not look at lower-level boards that often make decisions with huge impacts on residents, like planning and zoning boards.

The Providence Journal examined what these other boards are sharing in the six most populous cities: Cranston, East Providence, Pawtucket, Providence, Warwick and Woonsocket.

Providence: City Plan Commission and Zoning Board of Review meetings are live streamed, recorded and allow for remote participation. City Council meetings are live streamed and recorded but do not allow for remote participation. Agenda packets for all three boards are posted online.

Warwick: Planning Board and Zoning Board of Review meetings are neither recorded nor live streamed. Agenda packets are posted online for both boards. City Council meetings are live streamed and recorded but do not allow remote participation.

Cranston: City Plan Commission and Zoning Board of Review meetings are neither recorded nor live streamed. Agenda packets are posted online for both boards and the city council. City Council meetings are live streamed, archived and allow remote participation.

Pawtucket: City Planning Commission and Zoning Board of Appeals meetings are neither recorded nor live streamed. Meeting materials are not posted online. City Council meetings are live streamed, recorded and allow remote participation. City Council packets are posted online.

East Providence: Planning Board and Zoning Board of Review meetings are neither recorded nor live streamed. Meeting materials are not posted online. City Council meetings are live streamed and recorded but do not allow remote participation. City Council meeting materials are posted online.

Woonsocket: Planning Board and Zoning Board of Review meetings are neither recorded nor live streamed. Planning Board meeting materials are posted online, but Zoning Board packets are not. City Council meetings are livestreamed and recorded but do not allow remote participation. City Council meeting materials are posted online.

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Reach reporter Wheeler Cowperthwaite at wcowperthwaite@providencejournal.com or follow him on Twitter @WheelerReporter.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI remote public meetings scaled back after pandemic, RI ACLU finds