On January 14, 2022, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law a bill authorizing any public body to hold remote meetings and take actions, provided that the public has the ability to view or listen to the meeting and that the meeting is recorded and transcribed. This temporarily suspended an anachronism in the state’s Open Meetings Law, which allows videoconferencing for meetings, but only if the public has physical access to any site used by a meeting member, including a member's home. Clearly this law was written before the age of Zoom.

With the State of Emergency slated to end on March 16, New York City community boards and other public bodies will be forced to once again meet in person. We the undersigned urge the Legislature and Governor Hochul to pass and sign pending legislation -- Senate Bill 7261 (Hoylman et al.) and Assembly Bill 8155 (Paulin et al.) -- that will amend New York State’s Open Meetings Law to allow public bodies to meet using virtual platforms like Zoom that accommodate public participation.

This is the right thing to do to in the short term to protect meeting participants during the pandemic, replacing mandates with each person’s individual choice, informed by their medical and health conditions, work and travel necessities, and risk tolerance. And it is the right thing to do in the long term by making meetings more accessible to all.

While New York State has made great progress with regards to COVID, holding entirely in-person meetings is still risky, particularly for the those over age 65, those with compromised immune systems or with family members who are immunocompromised, and those in regular contact with children too young to be vaccinated. Although the main Omicron variant is receding, there were more than 1,600 new cases in New York City on March 9 -- more than four times the case rate of early July 2021. Meanwhile, a troubling subvariant is emerging that appears to exceed Omicron in transmissibility; cases in the U.S. are reportedly doubling every week. Vaccines are not a panacea. Studies showing that the fully vaccinated can still spread the virus, and can still contract and even die from Covid, lend credence to the concerns expressed by community board members and the public about gathering for in-person meetings. And the vaccines are useless for many with compromised immunity. 

Further, we believe that technology such as Zoom has enabled greater access both to community board members and members of the public, exceeding the ability of in-person meetings to facilitate precisely the type of public participation that the Open Meetings Law requires. Public attendance at many remote meetings has exceeded that of in-person meetings, allowing more members of the public to participate in important community meetings.

Even after COVID ends, allowing virtual and hybrid meetings will allow board members and members of the public to attend meetings even if they have the flu, a broken leg or other mobility restriction, or other personal reasons that prevent them from being able to attend in-person meetings or that risk spreading communicable diseases. Permanently amending the Open Meetings Law to permit the option of virtual and hybrid participation will restore individual choice and further the cause of public health, while expanding public access, which is the ultimate objective of Open Meetings Law. In addition, the ability to record and transcribe meetings, creating a permanent record available to the media and the public, is an advancement that should not be allowed to expire.

For these reasons, we the undersigned call on the New York State Legislature to pass and Gov. Hochul to sign pending legislation that would give community board members and members of other public bodies the option of attending meetings remotely.