If 90% of success in life is just showing up, how much is attributable to just putting in a virtual appearance? 50%? 40? The question arises in the context of the Norwich Selectboard, a majority of whose members have, without explanation, abandoned in-person attendance at board meetings since Town Meeting in early March.
As our colleague Patrick Adrian reported last weekend, only Pam Smith, chairwoman of the Selectboard, and board member Priscilla Vincent have regularly attended meetings in person at Tracy Hall for more than three months. Vice Chairwoman Mary Layton, board members Roger Arnold and Marcia Calloway, and Town Manager Brennan Duffy have participated only virtually, which is permitted under Vermont law.
Remote-only meetings were widely adopted by municipalities during the pandemic, but most have now transitioned away from that system. Norwich follows a hybrid meeting format, allowing public participation either in person or by Zoom, as do the Hartford Selectboard and the Lebanon City Council.
This makes a lot of sense as a convenient way to engage members of the public in town business by providing another opportunity for their voices to be heard. And for board members who are traveling or whose family responsibilities occasionally conflict with meetings, it’s an acceptable work-around. But as a couple of Norwich residents pointed out, it’s not any way for an official body to regularly conduct its business.
Smith and Vincent agree. “While I cannot compel in-person attendance,” Smith wrote to fellow board members last month, “I can, and do strongly urge all Selectboard members and the town manager to return to in-person attendance for all Selectboard meetings that are held in Tracy Hall.”
Vincent told Adrian that she worries the virtual option will become the new norm. “I don’t think we should be doing the town’s business this way,” she said. “It changes how we interact with each other” and with the public.
That sounds right to us. With the waning of the pandemic, many businesses and other entities have concluded that while some tasks lend themselves well to virtual treatment, many collaborative ventures are far more productive when the players get together in the same room. Not only is the chance for misunderstanding minimized, but the in-person dynamic also fairly often produces serendipitous results that would not be obtained if workers were sequestered in virtual silos. Informal conversations outside of formal meetings also can be a rich source of good ideas.
And for public bodies, it seems to us, attending official meetings in person shows proper respect for the constituents who elected them. That also holds true for Duffy, the town manager, who certainly ought to be present to fulfill his statutory role in town government.
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Given that Arnold, Calloway, Layton and Duffy did not return the reporter’s messages seeking comment, one can only speculate on the reason for their choices to participate only in absentia.
Certainly in this contentious age, and in the contentious town of Norwich, some Selectboard members may be loath to take the intemperate heat from the public when they attend meetings in person. But that comes with the territory for elected officials, especially those who serve at the local level; meeting rules exist to keep such interactions within acceptable bounds.
An alternative explanation is that the missing-in-action board members simply can’t stand to be in the same room with their two colleagues — for personal, policy or political reasons. If such grave divisions exist, it would be hard to ameliorate them without actually getting together.
Resident Chris Katucki deserves the last word here. “There is real value to members of the board getting together with the town manager in the same physical space,” he wrote in an email. “It’s only twice a month. I don’t understand why they don’t and wish someone would explain.”
