HomeMy WebLinkAbout4b BusinessWeek Zoom Meetings articleThe Zoom City Council Meeting Is Here to Stay,
Insults and All
Sarah Holder
When Washington, D.C., reenfranchised people serving time for felonies in 2020, Joel Castón, then
at the D.C. Central Detention Facility, realized that not only could he now vote, he could also run for
commissioner of his local Advisory Neighborhood Commission, one of about 40 of the hyperlocal
governing bodies in the district. And if he could find a way to participate in ANC meetings from jail,
he could serve out his term in office.
Luckily for him, Castón’s run—and subsequent win—took place in 2021, a year into a pandemic
when most government bodies were already meeting online from home, wherever that was. “The
online work has actually played in my advantage, not being able to physically put boots on the
ground, due to my incarceration,” he said in a Zoom interview with Bloomberg Businessweek
earlier this year. His tiny ANC district never had a commissioner represent it before, much less one
who was jailed. (Castón, who was convicted of murder at age 18, was released on parole last month
after 26 years of incarceration.)
The option to call into government meetings and the concept of livestreaming them predate the
pandemic. But the norm was to gather at city hall or a similar central location right after traditional
work hours—a format that favored those who had the time, flexible child-care responsibilities, and
will to show up. Now, as many cities plan to return to in-person meetings, the District of Columbia
is one of a number of U.S. jurisdictions that’s trying to preserve some of the benefits of virtual civic
engagement.
After a slow, glitchy start, remote city meetings brought municipal governance a newfound element
of hilarity (cat and kid cameos, Zoom bombings by “nude hackers”) and transparency (unmuted
official infighting, living room views). They allowed public outcries over everything from Covid-19
policies to police brutality to travel far beyond the cities where they originated. (A seven-hour Los
Angeles Police Commission Zoom marathon that went viral immortalized the infamous line, spat at
the police chief: “I yield my time, f--- you!”) More significantly, they removed some of the barriers
associated with participating in traditionally analog forms of civic discourse.
Research published in 2019 by Katherine Levine Einstein and other political scientists at Boston
University showed that participants in zoning and planning meetings in Massachusetts localities
skewed toward White, older property owners. When their priorities were represented in the
meetings, their priorities shaped policies.
In the District of Columbia, Erin Palmer, an ANC representative, says she saw limitations to in-
person meetings, too. “The one primary trend that I observed was that it’s the same people who
came every time, relatively speaking,” she says. When things moved online in April 2020, she saw
more parents logging in. Together with 100 other ANC reps, she signed a letter urging the city to
allow a continued hybrid approach. “There are any number of issues that might make the virtual
option more of a necessity again in the future,” Palmer says.
Last year, California lawmakers introduced three bills that would have extended localities’ ability to
continue conducting business remotely after the governor’s emergency order lapsed on Sept. 30,
2021, though only one became law. Amendments and revisions limited its scope to allow essential
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local agencies to meet remotely until the end of 2023 under certain conditions. To complicate
things further, the local bodies have to vote to use or renew the exemption.
The bill is “really focusing in on the worst-case scenarios, should the pandemic take a turn for the
worse, which we hope it doesn’t,” says California State Assembly Member Robert Rivas, who
introduced the bill. But he wouldn’t preclude the possibility of trying to pass more sweeping
legislation in the next session.
In California and elsewhere, some cities that thought they were ready to return to in-person
meetings have reversed course. What a local CBS outlet described as “outbursts and boos and a
defiance in mask-wearing” at Los Gatos, Calif.’s council meetings sent them back to cyberspace in
October. In Newark, Del., the delta variant shut down in-person meetings in August, just three
weeks after they had resumed.
Critics of continued remote participation maintain that the system will create new costs for audio
and visual equipment and prolong technical and cybersecurity challenges. Among participants,
high-speed internet access remains a persistent inequity, and not all meetings are able to offer
translations for non-English speakers or those who are hard of hearing.
Some realms of virtual governance saw a less significant shift in participation. At Massachusetts
planning and zoning meetings, the switch to virtual had little effect on who showed up and spoke,
according to a follow-up paper by Einstein and her colleagues. They looked at zoning and planning
meetings from March to September 2020 in the same cities and towns they’d observed for their
original research—and found that it was still the usual suspects who chimed in the most.
“Basically nothing changed about these meetings,” says Einstein. “They skewed towards
homeowners, and they skewed towards White people. And they also really strongly skewed towards
the opponents of the construction of new housing.” (They also skewed older, showing that age
doesn’t necessarily translate into tech illiteracy.)
Einstein says these findings don’t mean virtual meetings aren’t worthy—it’s just a reminder that
removing a few barriers isn’t the same as actively engaging people in the political process.
Warren Logan, who until recently served as policy director of mobility and interagency relations in
Oakland, Calif.’s mayor’s office, stresses that Covid itself was an important variable in how online
participation played out. Zoom fatigue may have deterred people from signing into yet another
online meeting. Anxiety and stress could have sapped people’s energy for politics entirely. And
many essential workers didn’t gain any newfound flexibility to log on from home.
In the Zoom interview, Castón said he’d rather meet his neighbors face to face. But “to get new
results, we have to do new things. It’s a paradigm shift.” Allowing incarcerated people into the civic
process means “you will have a different person return back to society,” added Castón, who started
a newspaper and mentorship program behind bars. “One who has a mindset of what it means to be
a citizen.”
Read next: The Promise of Remote Work Has Not Yet Been Realized
BOTTOM LINE - Virtual meetings remove barriers to access like needing to find child care. But
research suggests the same voices as before might remain the loudest at some civic meetings.
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