The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Staff nixes virtual element
[ By Kendra Walker ]
Starting on July 6, the Mt. Crested Butte town council and town staff will be meeting together for their first in-person meeting since March 2020. At this time, the town has no plans to continue holding meetings virtually, and if you want to attend a Mt. CB meeting you’ll have to do it the old-school way and show up at town hall in person.
During the June 15 meeting, the town’s Zoom meeting had nearly 100 people tune in for the council’s Short-Term Rental licensing discussion. Later in the meeting, council member Nicholas Kempin brought up the request that the town continue to offer a virtual experience for the public.
“I imagine some number of those people participated from wherever they were, perhaps not in Mt. Crested Butte,” said Kempin. “I realize that having virtual meeting capabilities is an expense but I also think it’s something we need to provide. I don’t think our society is going back, I think it’s an expectation now that you can attend these things virtually.”
He continued, “We’ve all joked in the past year that we’ve never had so many people attend our meetings because of the ability to Zoom in and I think it’s something we need to take a look at and consider it as a standard going forward.”
Mayor Janet Farmer asked town staff if the equipment was set up to continue holding meetings virtually for the public to attend.
“The price just for a camera is $6,700,” said town manager Isa Reeb.
“I think it would be money well spent,” said council member Dwayne Lehnertz.
“We’re not budgeted for that,” said Reeb.
Town attorney Kathy Fogo explained that the town would really need a camera that captures all of the council and whoever is speaking within council chambers, and some sort of video playback option where a person attending by Zoom could be visible on the screen to the council. “I think that’s what the town would need to make it effective,” she said.
Council member Lauren Koelliker proposed a happy medium, “Maybe we broadcast the meetings but we can only allow public comment in person or people can submit written comments.”
Town clerk Tiffany O’Connell will send audio recordings of meetings by request, and this month the town started posting audio recordings of the meetings on its website.
“I do agree that the world is changing and it’s important to keep up with that, but I don’t want it to be that councilors leave town whenever they want,” said Koelliker. “I think it is really hard to have these conversations, especially with contentious issues, when we’re on Zoom.”
“I think we could set our own rules for councilors and attendance and I see that as a separate issue,” said Kempin. “I’m talking about increased public engagement by them being able to attend virtually. It seems other organizations are airing on the side of keeping the public’s ability to attend remotely.”
Farmer commented on how difficult some hybrid in-person/virtual meetings have been to sit in on recently.
“I’ve attended meetings too where people tried to patch the technology together to make it work,” agreed Kempin. “But I do believe there are technological solutions to all of this. I want to convey that I think it’s really important that we work out the tech issues so we can keep the public engaged with these changes.”
The discussion was left up in the air as to how council wished to proceed and whether staff was open to further looking into options.
In follow-up correspondence with the Crested Butte News, Reeb explained that starting July 6 the Mt. CB council meetings will be in-person only for all participants. “At this time, we do not have the $7,000 in our budget needed to host hybrid meetings,” she said. “This month we started posting audio recordings of our meetings online, for which we have received positive feedback from the community, so we are going to continue to do that for anyone not able to attend in person.”
