BRATTLEBORO — The proverbial clock had struck 10 p.m. when Brattleboro Selectboard member Daniel Quipp asked his colleagues when their online meeting would end.
Quipp wasn’t speaking of the session entering its fifth hour, but instead of the seemingly nonstop series of them that he and fellow Vermont municipal leaders have endured for the past year and a half.
“I hate Zoom so much,” Quipp said convincingly on the video conferencing platform. “I’m so tired of sitting in front of this screen.”
Local officials from northernmost Alburgh to southernmost Vernon are set to spend a long winter drafting budget proposals for March town meeting. The Brattleboro Selectboard had planned to do so in person every Tuesday starting Nov. 2. Then Vermont’s coronavirus cases rose as other states’ counts fell.
“Here we are with Covid numbers higher than they’ve ever been, yet we’re thinking about having an in-person meeting?” Selectboard Chair Elizabeth McLoughlin recently asked her colleagues. “I just don’t think it’s the right time for us to go back into an enclosed space for four or five hours.”
While many other Vermont cities and towns are back in public meeting rooms, Brattleboro — which unsuccessfully fought the state for the right to locally mandate masks — is one of several holding out. That’s why its selectboard has elected to discuss two questions in each of the coming weeks: 1. What should be in a budget? and 2. When can members unplug from their home computers?
“I want it to be on the agenda every single time,” board Vice Chair Ian Goodnow said of the last item. “It’s very important that we get back to being in person when we can.”
Gov. Phil Scott unwittingly sparked the situation in March 2020 when he declared a pandemic state of emergency. That spurred the Legislature to approve temporary measures allowing remote meetings that continued until Vermont hit a vaccination target this past June.
Although Scott has lifted his Covid order, municipalities can retain an online presence as long as they maintain “a physical meeting location for public participation” with at least one member of the governing body, staff member or designee present, the secretary of state’s office said in a resulting memorandum.
“We are hearing that many towns are meeting in a hybrid model — they have a Zoom or phone in option but many if not most officials are physically in the room,” said Karen Horn of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. “That may change at any moment of course, given where our case numbers go — and they are going up.”
In Brattleboro’s case, that meant the selectboard returned to its Municipal Center meeting room this summer while offering the public the ability to join through Zoom and community access television. But no sooner did members reunite than a spike in the Delta variant sent everyone back online.
Local leaders have proposed moving their meetings to a larger space with a modern air circulation system. But the selectboard favors consensus and, in this case, not all five members agree.
“I think it’s a great plan for when we’re ready,” McLoughlin said at the last online session. “But I’m just not sure that, with the numbers that exist in Vermont right now, our next meeting is the time to begin. I see the benefit of us being in person to be less than the risk of any potential infection.”
McLoughlin and fellow board member Jessica Gelter said they’d feel comfortable meeting in person when the local two-week Covid rate falls below the approximately 50 current cases per 10,000 residents.
“I’m concerned about those who have young or old people that they deal with who either are not vaccinated or are more vulnerable,” McLoughlin said. “I just don’t think that we want to put the community at risk.”
Members who complain about meetings running as long as six hours have spent much time debating the merits of gathering in person versus online.
“It’s Russian roulette with people and their health,” McLoughlin said.
“It’s living life,” colleague Tim Wessel countered.
Agreeing to disagree, the Brattleboro board will continue to consider the question, starting at its next meeting on Nov. 2.
“If one of our board feels that meeting in person is an irresponsible or unsafe thing to do, I’m not going to complain,” Quipp said. “But I really don’t want to stay on Zoom forever. The intangible benefit of being in a room together is intangible, but it is a benefit.”
