Board of Aldermen 08-09-2022 Page 15
local government and to me, that's not right. We should be able to perform our duties. Relative to the telephone calls
before we had Zoom for Aldermen, we had an agenda one night where we had something that was important to vote on
and | called in from Lucerne, Switzerland, at three o'clock in the morning to vote and it worked just fine. If you can do it
from overseas, you can certainly do it locally here in the United States.
So again if we're going along in a meeting and someone happens to Zoom, we have to stop the meeting and schedule
another night out perhaps or wait until we find somebody that can fix it. That's an issue. That's a big issue and we don't
have a solution for it and I'm not even sure we could solve that in any kind of committee meeting or any other meeting. If
IT comes up with a much better can of worms, then maybe we can bring it back but right now we have issues.
The other thing is that Aldermen had to run the Zoom meetings. When you're sitting up there, and to me, you're not
representing your Ward or the city when you can't focus on the meeting you're focusing on running a TV screen. That's
not good and that's not productive to city business. So let's look at what's best for city business. | have no problem with
public input. We read the letters that we get that Donna forwards to us. We read emails and by the way if you have
access to Zoom, you have access to email and you can write much more detail and an email to us than you can in three
minutes on Zoom. Yes | agree with some of the things that are in the legislation that's coming forward trying to legislate
people using decorum but you can't legislate that much as | would support the legislation. There's no penalties for
anybody breaking that. Again anything that’s said online, on Zoom, goes out to everybody that's on Zoom.
In businesses, you have a select group of people that have been invited to that meeting. In our case, it's open anybody in
the world that wants to get on that meeting. It's a much different scenario than in a private business. We can easily get
letters and emails and we do all the time and that gets the same point across other than somebody wanting to be seen on
TV. So to me, | support having people being able to support us. For years, and years, and years they came here. We've
had many nights in the past where we've had a full audience. Our agendas are posted way in advance. | know there's no
local telegraph anymore but maybe we could do something to publicize what's on the agendas more comprehensively and
get it to people. | know that Alderman Klee puts out a newsletter every week. Trust me, there's nothing that we're going
to do that she doesn't cover in her newsletter. In fact, | have more emails from my constituents. | just copy it and send it
out to them. That's away. There are other ways that we can solve that problem but right now Zoom is not working the
way we think its working.
Unless there's some way that we can delay - like when something happens on Zoom, when it goes out to the TV audience
it's delayed. If you've ever watched the TV thing, it's delayed from real life. It's confusing if you're on the phone or on TV
because it's different. Again, Zoom can't do that. Whatever said is aired by anybody listening. So to me that's a problem
with FCC regulations. | don’t know if anybody's ever looked into that from Legal but | think that's a problem. The words
and things that are being talked about by Alderman Clemons, those things shouldn't go out on the air, including the
internet. We have to do something about it.
Now if we want to cancel it so Aldermen can't use it and our Division Directors can't use it, I'm okay with that. If we want
to give it as the amendment says the authority for the President to say okay if there's a Division Director that wants to
present something and they’re unable to come in, we can allow it. But | think that for the safety of the people listening and
for the safety of this Board to be able to meet and other boards, | think that Zoom was put in place because we had to.
City Hall was closed. We couldn't have aldermanic meetings without Zoom. Not the case anymore so I'm gonna vote to
support the motion to do away with Zoom.
President Wilshire
Anyone else?
Alderman Thibeault
Thank you Madam President. | have a few things. I'm going to try not to repeat what people have said because | know
it's getting long on this issue. | do want to answer Alderman Jette’s question about why in the world and in the world for
me too the technology works great and there's never these issues. It's money. It's because these companies - | worked
for Eversource. Well they pay to make sure the technology's perfect and that somebody's running it. They have a big IT
department because if that doesn't work, the business can't work. So we don't have the kind of money to do that type of
thing.
So $11,000. It's going to be more just like Alderwoman Kelly said and some of the others have said. It's going to cost
more than that to do it. The right way to make everything work the way that would be the safest, it would cost more
money. | think, you know, I'm all for technology but | hate to say it but somehow City Hall sometimes is a little bit behind
on technology. If we can't spend the money to upgrade all of that, then | don't think we should be using it.
