TOWN BOARD MEETINGS MAY SOON
BE ACCESSIBLE ON-LINE
The Town Board, prompted by COVID-19 and in the interest of expanding the Board's commitment to public accessibility to its meetings, is evaluating the feasibility of making all meetings accessible on-line through the "ZOOM" meetings platform. Recent trials during special town board meetings with short agendas have been promising, although further enhancement is needed to enable meetings to run more smoothly.
Evaluation and fine tuning of this technology will continue. The first regular town board meeting to be accessible via ZOOM will be the April 13 meeting to be convened at 6:30PM. Following are instructions for public participation:
- A few minutes prior to the meeting start time, go to www.zoom.us. This can be done with a smart phone, but desktop or laptop computers seem to offer better results.
- Click on the "JOIN A MEETING" link at the top of the screen. It is not necessary to create your own ZOOM account to join a meeting.
- Each meeting will have a unique meeting number and password. Those numbers will appear on the top of each meeting agenda. Enter the meeting number and password upon being prompted.
- Enter your name and turn on the audio and video features.
The meeting Chairman will mute your microphone, but will turn it on when you are recognized to speak. To achieve recognition, click on the "Raise Your Hand" link.
CAUTION:
It seems nearly all Internet uses carry the risk of personal information being hacked. Virtual meetings invitations are no exception. Be very careful about responding to email invitations to join virtual meetings.
THE ST. GERMAIN TOWN BOARD WILL NEVER SEND YOU AN EMAIL WITH AN EMBEDDED LINK TO JOIN A VIRTUAL MEETING.
We look forward to your participation!
