By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – With falling Covid case numbers and relaxed mandates, the Port Angeles City Council is faced with deciding how and when to return to in-person council meetings. Mayor Kate Dexter, appearing on the Todd Ortloff Show Thursday, announced their plan to begin with a hybrid model in the near future. By hybrid, she means that some councilors will choose to meet in person and others may choose to join the meeting virtually.
Dexter says the first opportunity to return to council chambers will be determined by the familiar dial on the County’s website that shows, based on case rates, whether we are in the Very Low, Low, Moderate or High range.
“We will go to hybrid when we are in the very low or low case rate, according to the dial. And we will stay or be virtual if we are in the moderate or high. Which also allows us and staff to know and anticipate if we saw another spike, for example, then people can look and say ‘Okay, well now we know the council will be virtual only this week’. And we, of course, we’ll do our best to make sure that people know that.”
On Thursday, the rate was at 114, still in the moderate range but falling steadily.
Mayor Dexter points out that they’ve heard from many people that feel they’ve lost access to the councilors since in-person meetings ended during the pandemic, but they’ve also heard from others who say the virtual meetings have finally given them the chance to participate.
The Council feels that the hybrid model is the chance to exploit the best of both models. So, what will that look like?
“We will have a number of new screens in council chambers that will allow people who are remote, there’s cameras trained on staff, on Council, on speakers if there’s a presentation or people are making public comment. So people watching remotely will be able to see everything that’s happening in council chambers and people in council chambers will be able to see remotely on the large screen the people who are speaking.”
Dexter says the formats will continue to be Webex video conferencing, which have also been getting posted on YouTube. She says another innovation is that the YouTube video will now be time-stamped, labeling each item discussed during the meeting, making it easy to listen to only the agenda items you’re interested in.
Dexter says it will be up to each councilor to decide when they are comfortable attending in person, but she intends to be in council chambers from the get-go. Shae also acknowledges that the technical aspects of the hybrid model will take some time to perfect and she expects it to require some tweaking along the way.