This latest situation with Brian Meshkin and the school board makes me think about the issue of electronic participation by members of deliberative bodies in their own meetings. I think I've come to the conclusion that this is an area where, just because something is possible, doesn't mean it should be done.
I feel that members of bodies that serve the public have an obligation to participate, in person, at all meetings as much as possible. I think anyone would hate to live in a world where in going to a County Council hearing, instead of seeing five happy faces live and in person, they are treated to a sight of five faces (happy or otherwise) on monitors. Tools like Skype, gotomeeting, etc. are wonderful, but they should not be used as a substitute for public interaction in general.
However, I do feel that it can and should be permissible for public bodies to allow their members to participate electronically. As it stands, for example, County Council members who miss a public meeting can take in a recording of the meeting prior to the voting worksession. I think that's fine. But beyond that, I do think that it should be OK for, on rare occasions, and for special, possibly legally mandated circumstances, say for passage of an annual budget, for a member of a body to participate electronically. I think that it should be up to each body to decide its own comfort level and operating procedure for allowing such participation.
In this case, the school board learned that Maryland law allows for the participation of its members electronically, but it had no procedure by which to do so. It appearned to me from the recording that staff and board did the best they could to accomodate given the circumstances. I would urge all such bodies to, if they haven't considered electronic participation now to please do so. Obviously better to get a procedure in place before a problem erupts.
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