City of Medford transitions to virtual meetings for public comment

On Thursday, Governor Kate Brown ordered that local governments work to include public comment through remote means to move forward with important business.

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Governor kate brown has issued an executive order to keep a civic engagement and essential services going during the coronavirus donius now as christina johnson, who was the communications and marketing manager for the city of medford.

Thanks for much for joining us this evening.

Thank you for having me with the governor's order.

How has the city adjusting to the new reality?

We are going to virtual meetings.

We have a number of our meetings available for.

Um, the public via virtual, they can do it via zoom.

Uh, we also livestream a number of those meetings that we are continuing.

Tonight's council meeting will be available via our live stream and zoom.

So for those who might be interested in making comments, how does that process work?

So for right now, um, we're asking people to email or our city council to submit comments electronically and, or write in public testimony.

If they'd like to do that, we will be transitioning our planning commission meetings to virtual as well.

Um, the governor's executive order that came out today, uh, provides some more lenient rules considering public public hearings and public testimony for land use, uh, land use topics.

When you say more, how does that change what's currently going on?

So right now, some of our public hearings for planning commission and our council, we have been trying to make sure that we have the ability for people to come in and provide public testimony.

Cause that's really important civic engagement.

But with governors, the governor's executive order today, we are able to take the public testimony for some of those public hearings, uh, virtually through email.

Um, or.

For written testimony.

Have there been any technological challenges you haven't been overcome so far as a result of these changes?

I think there's always technological changes or challenges with these, with these types of things.

Our, our it team has done a great job.

We've been able to successfully have virtual meetings on a number of times now, and our council meeting tonight will be virtual and we've been testing that out and working well.

Are there any meetings that will not be virtual.

No.

At this time we have a number of meetings, boards and commissions that have been canceled while our public access is closed, but we have about six to eight meetings that are continuing to meet, make sure that we can provide our core services to the community.

If someone isn't very technically savvy, how do they get access to the links that will hook them up to those meetings?

We actually, for public hearings, we send out a.

Um, a written letter, well typed letter with all that information, people can call in to these meetings as well.

Um, if they do not have access to a computer or internet, or are they very much christina johnson with the city of medford.

We appreciate your taking time tonight.

Thank you.

Right now,