The coronavirus pandemic has forced school boards, councils and courts to adapt and use technology to provide public access — as required by law — to their meetings. McKeesport City Council is no exception.
And it looks like the council finally gets it.
Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge John T. McVay Jr. recently put a halt to further council meetings until the board made satisfactory arrangements for public participation. The order came after a March 3 virtual court hearing on a complaint brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of four McKeesport residents who alleged council violated the state’s Sunshine Act regarding public meeting access.
The plaintiffs claim that community members had planned to attend the Jan. 6 council meeting to raise concerns about a December police manhunt.
When residents showed up for the 7 p.m. meeting, they found a notice posted on the door that said the meeting was closed to in-person participation because of COVID-19 concerns. Further, the only way residents could participate would be through written comments, but the deadline for those comments had expired at noon that day.
Shutting off in-person access to a meeting at the last minute (the meeting had been advertised as open earlier in the day), particularly with a controversial issue at hand, smells suspiciously like an attempt to silence burgeoning protest.
Vic Walczak, ACLU of Pennsylvania legal director, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that despite the fact that governing boards across the state have figured out technological means to provide public access to meetings for nearly a year now, McKeesport’s council maintained it couldn’t be done safely. And the council that was concerned about COVID-19 issues in January had no such concerns when it allowed public participation in December.
“You have to provide real-time access and allow real-time comments,” Mr. Walczak said. “The technology is out there and it’s affordable. … They [council] said they tried everything, but I don’t believe they tried anything.”
What they tried was to subvert the process and silence comment.
It didn’t work.
Tuesday, a settlement was reached: McKeesport will — effective immediately — begin granting remote access to its meetings.
This was a no-brainer.
An ACLU representative had testified at the court hearing that phone conference services allowing hundreds of participants are inexpensive. The ACLU, itself, uses such a service at a cost of $10 a month. That’s affordable for McKeesport.
The judge in the case made the right call in barring additional meetings until arrangements were made for public participation. Judge McVay could have assessed fines, but that measure would have hurt only the taxpayer. The ruling fixed the problem without causing undue pain.
Public participation in meetings has been challenging during the pandemic, but scores of elected boards have turned to Zoom meetings, phone conference calls and other technologies to fulfill the legal mandate for public access. COVID-19 concerns cannot be used as an excuse for shutting out the public. It’s too bad it took a spin through the court system to arrive at the obvious starting point.
First Published: March 11, 2021, 5:00 a.m.
