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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01. 20-340 AUGUST 12, 2020 20-340 ORDINANCE FIRST READING (CARRIED___4-2__ LOST_______ LAID OVER_______ WITHDRAWN_______) PURPOSE: AMEND RULES PERTAINING TO COUNCIL, BOARD AND COMMISSION MEETINGS IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS EMERGENCY TO ALLOW VIRTUAL PUBLIC PARTICIPATION AT MEETINGS INITIATED BY: CITY ADMINISTRATION Whereas, the Common Council for the City of Oshkosh amended its rules pertaining to Council, Board and Commission Meetings by Ordinance 20-104 on March 24, 2020 and Ordinance 20-185 on April 28, 2020 to prevent exposure to and spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus during the period covered by the COVID-19 Emergency Declarations; and Whereas, the Common Council after further review desires to implement certain amendments to those rules to extend options for virtual participation in public meetings to members of the public. Now, Therefore, the Common Council of the City of Oshkosh do ordain as follows: Notwithstanding any provision contained within the City of Oshkosh Municipal Code, Council Rules or Oshkosh Board and Commission General Rules of Order, during the period of emergency in response to COVID-19 Coronavirus, the Council adopts the following rules and procedures: There will be no general Citizen Statement or general Public Comment Period at Council Meetings, Board and Commission Meetings. Meeting rooms will comply with the current social distancing requirements and recommendations. Persons are encouraged to submit written comments as an alternative to in person statements in relation to agenda items. Written comments for Council meetings may be sent via mail addressed to the City Manager, placed in the City Hall dropbox, or sent by email prior to the Council Meeting to citymgr@ci.oshkosh.wi.us. Written comments for Board or Commission Meetings may be sent via mail or emailed to the appropriate Board or Commission or AUGUST 12, 2020 20-340 ORDINANCE FIRST READING CONT'D placed in the City Hall dropbox. Contact information for Boards and Commissions is available on the City website: www.ci.oshkosh.wi.us. Written comments will be distributed to the Council/Board/Commission and made part of the public record of the meeting. When practicable, public meetings will be made available live on GOV TV in the City of Oshkosh, live streamed on oshkoshmedia.org, live on WOCT radio station 101.9 fm, live through Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire Stick. Meetings may be conducted utilizing Remote Means. "Remote Means or Remote Participation" shall mean participation by a member of a public body or member of the public in a meeting of that public body, simultaneously with the physical meeting, where the member is not physically present at the meeting. Remote Participation includes by members or the public through video, telephone, computer or other means where persons are permitted to view, listen to and participate in the meeting without having a physical presence at a defined physical meeting location. If a meeting is conducted solely by Remote Means and there is no physical meeting location or the public is otherwise excluded from being present at a physical meeting location, the public must be afforded an opportunity to live access the meeting and instructions should be provided how to do so. This may include live broadcast or streaming as provided above, video or call-in participation, or other adequate means to provide live access to the public meeting. Where public comment or participation is required by law, adequate means must be provided to accommodate such participation. Persons requiring reasonable accommodations as an alternative to any method identified on meeting agendas, may contact the office of the City Manager in regard to participation in the Council meeting at citymgr@ci.oshkosh.wi.us, or by phone 920-236- 5002 or the designated board or commission staff member for a particular board or commission. Staff shall work with members of the Council, Boards and Commissions during the emergency period to facilitate appearance by Remote Means when necessary consistent with the following: AUGUST 12, 2020 20-340 ORDINANCE FIRST READING CONT'D o For meetings at which Remote Participation is permitted, the Mayor or Chairperson (or other member who will be acting as Chair of the meeting) must be physically present along with a designated staff liaison(s) and additional staff person(s) as necessary to facilitate any technological issues with the meeting. Meeting rooms must have adequate audio, video and other technological facilities to allow for virtual participation. o Members must contact the staff liaison (or City Manager for Council Members) to inform the staff liaison of the need for Remote Participation in a meeting as soon as practicable to assure that Remote Participation may be facilitated. o Any member requesting to participate by Remote Means will be accommodated regardless of whether a quorum is physically or otherwise remotely present at the meeting. o Members participating by Remote Means must be audible through clear telephone line or computer connections. If a connection is not clear or causes disruption of the meeting, the connection may be terminated at the discretion of the Mayor or Presiding Member or their designee. If a connection is terminated and this causes the loss of a quorum, the meeting shall be adjourned and rescheduled to another date to permit consideration by a quorum. o All votes shall require a roll call vote -no "all in favor" o Each person speaking must introduce themselves or be called upon by the Chair or Secretary to provide clarity to those listening as to who is speaking. During this period, staff shall work to facilitate appearance by Remote Means by individual members of the public when requested, consistent with the following: o Persons requesting to participate by Remote Means will be accommodated when reasonably possible. If accommodation is not reasonably possible, persons shall be informed as soon as practicable and provided with the opportunity to participate in person or through email or written correspondence as provided above. o In order to accommodate participation by Remote Means, a meeting link will be provided on the meeting agenda. For meetings where participation by the public by Remote Means is requested, public comment on all agenda items shall be taken at the beginning of the meeting, except as necessary to conduct Public Hearings or as may be accommodated at the direction of the Council, or Board or Commission. Public comment may be closed at the AUGUST 12, 2020 20-340 ORDINANCE FIRST READING CONT'D end of any public comment period and persons participating by Remote means shall not interrupt or disrupt the business of the governing body. o Persons wishing to provide public comment on agenda items by Remote Means must sign up to speak through the City's website or the Connect Oshkosh App and must participate through the City's meeting link as published on the meeting agenda. Persons wishing to provide public comment who have signed up to speak must join the meeting at least 15 minutes prior to the start of the meeting to allow staff to test the audio/video set up. Attendees must stay muted when not speaking and are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves in a timely fashion when called upon to speak. o Each member of the public speaking must wait to be called upon by the Chair or Secretary and must provide their name and address to provide clarity to those listening as to who is speaking. o Persons providing public comment by Remote Means must be audible through clear telephone line or computer connections. If a connection is not clear or causes disruption of the meeting or the person causes disruption to the meeting by speaking out of turn or otherwise causing a disturbance or disruption of the meeting, the connection may be terminated at the discretion of the Mayor or Presiding Member or their designee. o Persons wishing to participate by Remote Means should be advised via meeting agendas or other means that participation by remote means may be limited by number of participants and available technology, and may be disrupted by problems such as breakdowns of equipment and fluctuation or interruption of electric power or communications networks. The City of Oshkosh does not guarantee that even if persons have been afforded the opportunity to appear by Remote Means that telephone, computer, wifi or other connections will be sufficient or that the person will be guaranteed the ability to appear by this method. All provisions of the City Ordinances, Council Rules and Commission General Rules of Order not specifically altered by these temporary rules shall remain in effect. This ordinance shall take effect immediately and shall remain in effect during the period of emergency as declared by the Common Council. AUGUST 12, 2020 20-340 ORDINANCE FIRST READING CONT'D Publication Notice. Please take notice that the City of Oshkosh enacted ordinance #20-241 AMEND RULES PERTAINING TO COUNCIL, BOARD AND COMMISSION MEETINGS IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS EMERGENCY TO ALLOW VIRTUAL PUBLIC ATTENDANCE AT MEETINGS on August 12, 2020. The ordinance modifies ordinances and council,board and commission rules to allow public participation through telephone, video or other remote means at Council, Board and Commission meetings in response to the COVID-19 Coronavirus Public Health Emergency. The full text of the ordinance may be obtained at the Office of the City Clerk, 215 Church Avenue and through the City's website at www.ci.oshkosh.wi.us. Clerk's phone: 920/236-5011. rA City 0f Oshkosh TO: Mayor and Members of the Common Council FROM: Lynn A. Lorenson, City Attorney DATE: August 5, 2020 RE: Amend Rules Pertaining to Council, Board and Commission Meetings in Response to COVID-19 Coronavirus Emergency to Allow Virtual Public Participation at Meetings BACKGROUND Per Council direction at the July 28f,2020 Regular Meeting and August 41h, 2020 Special Meeting of the Council, staff prepared an amendment to the current Council Rules effective during the COVID-19 Coronavirus Emergency to allow virtual public participation at Council, Board and Commission Meetings. In addition, there were a few minor edits to the current rules related to provisions no longer being applied. ANALYSIS At the July 28ffi, 2020 Regular Meeting and August 4f, 2020 Special Meeting of the Council, Council directed staff to prepare an amendment to the current Council Rules effective during the COVID-19 Coronavirus Emergency to allow virtual public participation at Council, Board and Commission Meetings. State law pertaining to open meetings and accommodation of the public allows Council to make reasonable rules governing meetings so long as governmental meetings comply with statutory requirements that meetings be held in places 'reasonably accessible' to members of the public. The Wisconsin Department of Justice has longstanding advice that recognizes that governmental bodies typically can meet their open meetings obligations, by conducting meetings via telephone conference calls and video conference calls if the public is provided with an effective way to monitor such calls. In addition, when required by law to allow public City Hall,215 Church Avenue P.O.Box 1130 Oshkosh,WI 54903-1 130 920.236.5000 http://www.ci.oshkosh.wi.us comment (public hearings) and if a municipality generally permits public comment, the public must be provided reasonable accommodation under the American with Disabilities Act. The City provides several means by which this can be accomplished: through live broadcast on GovTV in the City of Oshkosh, live streaming on oshkoshmedia.org, live broadcast on WOCT radio station 101.9 fm, and live through Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire Stick. In addition, the City provides the means to request additional reasonable accommodation. The proposed amendment would make another option available for the public to participate in public meetings and provide public comment by remote means when permitted by Council,Board and Commission rules. If adopted, the ordinance will direct staff to facilitate virtual public attendance at meetings through remote means such as video and telephone conferencing. The City of Oshkosh currently uses the WebEx system. The City license currently has a capability of 100 active participants for WebEx meetings. In addition, if the meeting were televised live, the City provides the additional viewing options listed above. As a practical matter, facilitating participation by remote means will require some changes to current processes. Staff recommends that the Chair of the meeting or vice chair be physically present to run meetings which have both physical and virtual elements. Staff also recommends that there be a staff liaison and a technical person physically present at meetings and that Boards and Commissions be required to use a sign-up provision similar to council for those wishing to participate virtually to track those who wish to speak and as a means to provide those individuals with a link to the meeting. Council and staff should be cognizant that reasonable accommodation is always going to be a fact-specific question, and there may be circumstances where the above-means, although extensive, may not meet everyone's needs and other accommodations may be necessary and so the agendas will still provide contact information for those who may require additional accommodation. In addition to the changes requested by Council above, two additional paragraphs were removed from the current rules pertaining to approval of the City Manager to schedule board or commission meetings and limiting agendas to items necessary for continuity of operation which are no longer being followed. Finally there were changes made to make the rules more readable and easier to understand and to make other non-substantive changes to match current practices. For example, a change was made to reflect that the Mayor or Chair may designate a technical person to monitor and remove callers if there is disruption rather than do so themselves. Another change was made to reflect current practices pertaining to each person identifying themselves prior to speaking. Using City Hall,215 Church Avenue P.O.Box 1130 Oshkosh,WI 54903-1130 920.236.5000 http://www.ci.oshkosh.wi.us Council Member Poeschl as an example, the Mayor has on occasion asked for his input and he is recognized through that means rather than having him repeat his name as is technically specified in the current rules. FISCAL IMPACT There is no anticipated financial impact associated with these amendments, unless it is determined to add additional capability to the WebEx system. Raising the WebEx limitation to 200 active participants would add an estimated one thousand six hundred dollars per year to the City's current license fee. Respectfully Submitted, Approved: L A. Lorenson Jo Fitzpatrick City Attorney Asst. City Manager City Hall,215 Church Avenue P.O.Box 1130 Oshkosh,WI 54903-1130 920.236.5000 http://www.ci.oshkosh.wi.us