Board of Aldermen 3-31-2020 Page 42
room is not that large and as he stated I’m not there, so I’m not counting, but | am going to by what
Alderman Dowd said that four people would be OK, anything other than that | guess in that room would not
be OK. Just like the market, | go to the market | go to different places that I’ve had to go to, even the Liquor
Store and they have Police and other people that don’t allow more than a certain amount of people into
those locations. So if we want to have a limit of four, then people know if there are four people there, no
one else can get in. But! don’t feel as though we have the right to say, “you can’t come and you can’t be a
part of this in person”, because that’s their right.
President Wilshire
Alderman Gathright, you can’t limit people, you either have to have it all or none.
Alderman Harriott-Gathright
You absolutely can, because the Governor has stated how many people can be in different locations. So
you absolutely can because he did 17 and 17A. So there is, this is you know, we are basically a necessity
because you are part of the Government basically. So you absolutely can restrict how many people can be
in your presence.
President Wilshire
OK. Anyone else? Attorney Bolton.
Attorney Bolton
There’s a procedure by which the Open Meeting requirements of allowing everyone to come in who wishes
to come in and be waived and avoided. There is only one way to do that that’s why this telephone in with
an alternative means of communicating any difficulty with hearing. That is the only exception to the Open
Meeting Requirement. It would absolutely be an illegal meeting to let the first four people in and exclude
the rest. Anyone who participated in such a meeting would be subject to Civil Penalty, would be subject to
being ordered to take remedial education on the Right to Know law. There is no doubt at all in my mind
that we can either have fully open meeting or we can comply with the Governor's directive that waives that
open meeting requirement. But you cannot have half and half and allow some people in and some people
not.
Alderwoman Kelly
If | could ask a question through you to Attorney Bolton? So my question is and | know we are talking right
now about our Board and the provisions around that, but my question is how do we handle public comment
like you were saying, we have to have those hearings, are we in violation of the orders of the Governor if
we have our Budget Hearing and there’s 100 people in the room. | don’t know that we’ve been given any
guidance on that but | am just thinking ahead.
Attorney Bolton
We've been given no guidance on that. Right now we have to have a public hearing and we are not
supposed to have gatherings of more than 10 people. | have some hope that the Governor will weigh in
further on these issues.
Alderwoman Kelly
| appreciate that thank you.
