AMHERST — Town Council will continue to have its regular sessions done in a completely remote format, despite a vocal appeal from a councilor asking to bring back in-person meetings.
At Monday’s meeting, the first held in a hybrid format where most councilors were at the Town Room at Town Hall, with others participating via the Zoom platform, the council voted 6-4, with three abstentions, to reject At Large Councilor Mandi Jo Hanneke’s motion to schedule similar hybrid meetings through Sept. 1.
“This was very valuable, and I would hate to have to go back (to remote) because some people do not want to make the trek to Town Hall,” Hanneke said. “The convenience factor should not be a reason we don’t show up in Town Hall.”
“For our benefit, we should be in the same room together,” Hanneke added.
Though Hanneke’s motion was also supported by District 2 Councilor Pat DeAngelis, District 3 Councilor George Ryan and District 5 Councilor Shalini Bahl-Milne, six councilors voted against it, including At-Large Councilors Alisa Brewer and Andy Steinberg, District 1 Councilors Cathy Schoen and Sarah Swartz, District 4 Councilor Steve Schreiber and District 5 Councilor Darcy DuMont.
The remaining councilors, District 3 Councilor Dorothy Pam and District 4 Councilor Evan Ross, and Council President Lynn Griesemer, abstained from the vote, with Griesemer explaining that she would go with the will of her fellow councilors.
The council followed this with a 7-3 vote, with three abstentions, to resume entirely virtual meetings.
Brewer questioned whether the public benefited from a hybrid meeting. “I’m just not sure who it was helping tonight to have a hybrid meeting,” Brewer said.
Swartz said maintaining remote meetings is about protecting vulnerable populations, and that gathering in-person has the potential to spread illness, whether COVID-19 or the flu.
DuMont said she could only participate through Zoom. “I have a strong preference for remote meetings,” said DuMont, who also asked town staff if having hybrid meetings was more difficult to manage.
Town Manager Paul Bockelman said the hybrid format did pose challenges, as both the clerk to the council, Athena O’Keeffe, and an Information Technologies employee, had to be on hand to make sure the technological aspects of the meeting went off without a hitch.
“It does take more staff time to do hybrid meetings, from our point of view,” Bockelman said
Aside from Hanneke, only Ryan strongly advocated for hybrid, mentioning the need for human connection. “I’m just so sick to death of sitting in a room staring at a screen,” Ryan said.
While preferring to meet in person, both Bahl-Milne and Pam said the benefit of doing so was diminished by Health Director Emma Dragon’s mask requirement in municipal buildings. Pam said she is also nervous about the so-called Delta variant causing a resurgence in COVID-19 cases.
Bockelman explained that the mask mandate is an important precaution, especially if people are gathered for several hours in a room with limited social distancing and poor air circulation, and there is no mandated vaccine requirements for participants. More than 25 residents attended the first hybrid meeting, meaning about 40 people were inside the Town Room.
Hanneke said when the pandemic first began in March 2020, the town’s mantra was to follow the science. But when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently relaxed the guidance for vaccinated individuals, no longer requiring masks indoors, the town chose not to abide by this, she said.
In addition, Hanneke said the vote against hybrid meetings, which would have allowed those who wanted to stay remote to continue to do so while others could be at Town Hall, is depriving councilors and the public of the positives of being in person.
Schools, Hanneke noted, have been populated with students and teachers for several weeks without any incidents.
“It’s sad our students and our kids are braver than we are,” Hanneke said.
