Board debates webinar, registration and security after May meeting hack

Kelly (Administrative Services) opened a policy discussion after describing four prior incidents where remote meetings were hijacked, including a May 5 session that required the staff to shut the meeting down and reissue links. Kelly described differences between Zoom Meetings (current format) and Zoom Webinar (attendees in view-only mode; panelist links for presenters) and said some municipalities restrict virtual comment to residents or property owners.

Kelly said: "On May 5, our village board meeting was hacked. That's not the first time that it has been hacked." She outlined webinar security features and options for preregistration and screening forms, but she also said no solution is perfect because people can still use aliases and staff cannot fully guarantee anonymity will not be misused.

Resident Lindsay Fry told the board she had waited about two hours to speak remotely at the meeting and urged the board to preserve online public comment: "If people have kids, if they're sick, this Zoom option or some sort of way to speak online, in my opinion, just needs to happen," she said. Trustees debated trade-offs: some favored moving to webinar with preregistration or exploring alternative proprietary platforms; others warned about creating barriers for older or less-technical residents and recommended staff return with a short-term webinar proposal and a long-term cost estimate for alternative platforms.

The board directed staff to return with procedural options (webinar registration parameters, screening process) and to evaluate long-term platform alternatives and IT security measures in the AV/equipment RFP process.