AUGUSTA — The Augusta City Council approved a policy recently maintaining the expectation that municipal meetings will take place in person, but allowing the mayor, in consultation with the city manager and without declaring a state of emergency, to call for a meeting to be held online — instead of in-person — if required by an urgent issue or emergency.

The policy on remote public meetings, which the City Council debated multiple times over several weeks, does not address members of the public attending City Council meetings online. Councilors recently agreed, however, to allow the public to participate remotely in all City Council meetings, even when councilors are meeting in person, if they choose, as an experiment.

If that goes well, the city might adopt a policy allowing members of the public to take part in meetings online, as they were able to do during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before the City Council decided to meet remotely during the pandemic, states of emergency were declared, first by then-Mayor David Rollins for the city and then by Gov. Janet Mills for the state.

Like other city councilors, Ward 3 Councilor Mike Michaud voted in favor of the policy. He expressed concerns, however, that making it easier to have remote meetings could open the door to an increase in the number of meetings held remotely, instead of in-person with face-to-face discussion, which he said would be unproductive and unhealthy.

“I think this is a side effect of COVID, and I just don’t want to see this be the beginning of everybody getting together remotely, because I think it’s terribly unhealthy,” Michaud said before last Thursday’s vote. “I don’t want this to be the beginning of something that may become more commonplace. We all need to get together, we all need to be unmasked and we do much better work when we’re together in this body.”

Mayor Mark O’Brien said Augusta would allow members of the public to take part in City Council meetings remotely when it has the technology and a system to do so.

The city’s Planning Board recently held its first meeting in which it allowed the public to participate remotely. One member of the board and no one from the public participated remotely.

The policy stipulates City Council members are expected to be physically present for their meetings and other public proceedings that are taking place in person, but when attending a meeting is not practicable, they may ask to participate remotely. To do so, they would need to send a written request to the mayor or presiding officer of the meeting as far in advance as possible.

The policy also stipulates a councilor may take part in a meeting remotely because of illness or another physical condition, or because he or she is away from the city temporarily, perhaps on vacation.

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