Burlingame works to meet new remote meeting standards

City councils have been struggling with how to interpret the law, legal counsel told the Burlingame City Council at its March 2 meeting presenting their best understanding of the new regulations.

The legislation, Senate Bill 707, puts together a range of new requirements, including requiring meetings to be accessible remotely, allowing members of the public the same amount of time for online and in-person comments and mandating a technology disruption policy that requires city councils to pause meetings for one hour if remote access fails. 

Burlingame already offers its meetings in a hybrid format and has since the COVID-19 pandemic, which first necessitated remote meetings as an option for the public and councilmembers alike. 

While more public participation is always a benefit, Mayor Michael Brownrigg expressed some trepidation around allowing online commenters the same time limits and considerations as in-person commenters, citing negative experiences with Zoom bombing, shouting and off-topic remarks. 

“We all welcome more input. It was a nice moment, I remember it well, when COVID allowed for this to happen. We had nice comments coming in from people who couldn’t make it down to council,” he said. “That part we all welcome. The stuff of people basically shouting … is different.” 

City staff will have to come up with a specific policy for how to handle disruptive online comments, and Brownrigg said their obstructive impact could not be overstated. 

“If anybody doubts the disruption … that these commenters have on a public meeting, you should just watch one of the tapes,” he said. “Everybody freezes up, everybody feels sick to their stomach.” 

The Burlingame City Council approved two separate policies to meet the new standards, including one on taking an hourlong recess if the technology fails and another for increasing public interpretation assistance, like connecting to community-based groups for non-English speakers and offering extra time if someone making a comment needs a translator. 

Burlingame is likely to experience some form of technological disruption to meetings at its current City Hall location based on the limited amount of power that is available, City Clerk Meaghan Hassel-Shearer warned. 

“We just have a lack of power in this room. It wasn’t meant to hold this much equipment and technology,” she said. 

Some of the new standards also offer councilmembers themselves greater flexibility around remote participation, like introducing new just cause provisions like child care emergencies or sickness as a reason to take the meeting on Zoom. If a councilmember has a disability, they will also now be allowed to participate fully remotely and be treated as if they are present in the room. 

Aside from miscellaneous new standards — for example, councilmembers are now prohibited from commenting on public business on one another’s social media posts — SB 707 gives certain advisory committees the ability to meet completely remotely if their City Council allows it. 

Burlingame will have to decide at a later date whether that’s appropriate, Brownrigg said. 

“I suspect we’ll wind up having a conversation as a matter of policy whether we want to permit remote participation,” he said. 

Other San Mateo County councils and advisory groups will also be having conversation around the new standards in the coming weeks.