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Open-meeting complaint filed after livestream failures and roll-call questions at Brookfield meeting
Summary
A complaint to the Attorney General alleged Dec. 9 and Nov. 25 meetings were not accessible live; the board reviewed the complaint and technical staff described network and audio-level fixes put in place to prevent future outages.
The Select Board addressed an open-meeting complaint that alleged (1) portions of the Dec. 9 meeting were unintelligible to remote listeners because audio degraded during a public comment and a remote commenter’s video feed blacked out, and (2) that on Nov. 25 the board entered executive session without a proper roll-call vote.
Technical staff explained that the town’s Spectrum internet connection had caused intermittent dropouts; staff installed a redundant hotspot system, split network traffic so Teams (the meeting feed) has higher priority, and adjusted audio-processing steps that had unintentionally reduced remote-audience volume after in-room adjustments. The technician said he had messaged the remote commenter during the outage seeking confirmation and that some issues have been resolved in follow-up tests.
A public commenter who attended remotely said being cut off mid-comment was significant, particularly for commenters attending as an ADA accommodation. The board agreed to draft a short, public-minded response for the AG process and to request an extension so members would have time to review and finalize the response. The board asked staff to document the fixes and to adopt a consistent approach to timing public comments (audible timer and a single approach to follow-up questions).
What’s next: staff will finalize a written response to the open-meeting complaint, document the technical changes applied to the livestream setup, and the board will communicate procedural clarifications about public-comment timing.
