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Council adopts remote‑access disruption policy and shifts default meeting end time to 11 p.m.
Summary
To comply with SB 707, the council adopted a policy governing hybrid‑meeting disruptions (requiring good‑faith restoration attempts up to one hour) and revised the agenda rules to move the default meeting adjournment time from midnight to 11 p.m.; the council retained authority to extend meetings when necessary.
The Town Council adopted a remote public‑access disruption policy to satisfy new state law (SB 707) requirements for hybrid meetings and disruption responses, and amended the council agenda rules to set a default meeting end time of 11 p.m.
Town Clerk Wendy Wood explained that SB 707 requires agencies to adopt procedures to address interruptions that prevent remote observers or participants from hearing or seeing a meeting. The new policy specifies steps to announce a disruption, document restoration efforts in the minutes, and make good‑faith attempts to restore remote access for up to one hour before the legislative body may choose to adjourn or continue the meeting. The policy also clarifies circumstances — for example, late‑night outages — when it may be impractical to wait an hour and when the presiding officer may instead adjourn.
Policy committee members recommended moving the default adjournment time to 11 p.m. to reduce the risk that an outage occurring near midnight would force council, staff and the public to remain late while restoration efforts continue. Council members emphasized that the change does not remove the council’s authority to extend meetings by majority vote when necessary.
The council adopted the policy and the accompanying resolution describing reasonable outreach efforts to encourage participation by groups that do not traditionally participate in public meetings (media outreach, multilingual agenda access and subscription services). Staff noted the policy will be posted with meeting procedures and training for staff.
