City Council - Rules & Government Relations Committee

CITY OF EASTHAMPTON OFFICE OF THE CITY COUNCIL Easthampton Municipal Building 50 Payson Ave., Ste. 100 Easthampton, Massachusetts 01027-2260 Telephone #: (413) 529-1460 RULES and GOVERNMENT RELATIONS Meeting 03/04/2021 Attendees: R&GR Committee Members: Councilor Thomas Peake, Chair Councilor Peg Conniff, Clerk Councilor Dan Rist Other Attendees: Erica Flood - City Councilor Homar Gomez - City Councilor (Joined at 6:12 pm) Meeting called to order at 6:02 pm. The meeting was recorded. Minutes from 02/11/2021 approved. 3-0 1. NEW BUSINESS A. Remote Participation Adoption Proposal: Councilor Flood explained the need for ongoing ability for remote meetings once the pandemic is over. Initial steps would be to have the Mayor accept the MGL via City Council recommendation. In addi- tion, Councilor Flood stated she would like to see this as an option for the public to enable transparency and greater accessibility. Councilor Flood stated there was no open meeting law allowing public access. Councilor Conniff stated that OML does not speak to public remote participation and therefore is not disallowed. Councilor Peake reinforced those thoughts. Councilor Conniff feels strongly that we need to create process and rules around how this process would work and what would be the acceptable reasons for a committee member to meet remotely. Committee would like to see a demo of the technology as it is set up in City Hall. New equipment has been installed during the pandemic and it will enable this process. We also discussed closed captioning for meetings. In terms of costs, the Mayor would have to autho- rize ongoing payment for ZOOM access or other teleconferencing applications. This  committee will take the first step to recommend the mayor accept the MGL. This committee will continue to discuss how the process should work in the form of a city council rule in future meetings of this body. Motion (Conniff) and a second (Rist) to recommend to the full council that the Mayor accept 940 CMR 29.10(2)(a). 2. CONTINUING BUSINESS A. PILOT Program: Not discussed B. Committee E-mails: Not Discussed C. Anti-Bias Training: Not Discussed D. Amendment to City Council Rule 5C: Discussed how introducing new business must be clear and the rationale for introducing the item be documented. The first reading of the new business shall be in the form of a motion. The council should have enough information in the introduction of new business to fully understand why this business should be directed to one committee or another. More importantly, the information included should be clear enough so that the public has an understanding of the item being introduced. The introductory documentation should include the “WHAT” the “HOW” and the “WHY” of whatever business is being introduced. This rule will apply to NAY business being introduced to the Council whether by another councilor, department head or Mayor. Councilor Conniff will reach out to Councilor Zaret for a write up of the new rule for this committee to vote on in the next Rules meeting. 7:15pm - Motion to adjourn by Councilor Rist, seconded by Councilor Conniff. Next Meeting: 3/11/2021 @ 5:00PM