Reinstate the option of Zoom participation

Please join us at the Mill Valley City Council meeting on Monday August 2 at 6:30pm and tell Council to reinstate the option of zoom participation at Council meetings.  (When Council resumed in person meetings on July 19, they stopped allowing live community participation in meetings via Zoom.)  

Dear Mayor McCauley and Mill Valley City Council,

We are writing to urge Council to maintain the option of remote participation in City meetings via an internet-based service as you resume in-person meetings. The availability of this service has increased democratic participation in Mill Valley, encouraged more diverse and inclusive civic engagement, and protected public health during the ongoing pandemic. We can conceive of no countervailing interests to justify the elimination of these important community benefits.

Mill Valley Alone Has Discontinued Remote Participation

Currently, Mill Valley is the only city in Marin County that has returned to live meetings and has decided to eliminate internet-based remote participation. Rodriguez, Marin Public Meetings... In-Person Again, Marin IJ (July 17, 2021). The Novato City Council has already begun meeting under a hybrid approach (providing the option of in-person or Zoom participation). Corte Madera, Larkspur, Fairfax, and San Anselmo all plan to adopt this hybrid approach by or before September of this year when they resume meeting face-to-face. San Rafael, Sausalito, Ross, and Tiburon are still meeting remotely and have yet to address the issue, but San Rafael Mayor Kate Colin opined, “I think the more ways we can offer to participate the better.” Id. The County Board of Supervisors, similarly, plans to allow the option of Zoom participation when they resume meeting in person. As Supervisor Rodoni explained, “better public access through technology ...is a win-win for transparency.” Id. Likewise, across the greater Bay Area government entities that have resumed convening in person are offering remote public participation either as an option alongside in-person attendance or in lieu of an in-person option.

For example, the Law and Motion and Discovery Departments of the San Francisco Superior Court, both of which handle a large volume of daily hearings, allow “counsel and parties [to] appear... either in person... or by videoconference using Zoom.” https://www.sfsuperiorcourt.org/divisions/civil/law-motion. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors resumed in-person convening as of June 29, 2021. However, public participation remains by internet-based teleconference only. SF Bd. of Supervisors Agenda, July 20, 2021, https://sfbos.org/sites/default/files/bag072021_agenda.pdf

Proven Benefits of Remote Participation In Mill Valley

The City Council has demonstrated throughout the pandemic that it is capable of providing and managing remote meeting participation via Zoom in an efficient and effective manner. The live, two-way communication afforded by Zoom provides an active level of civic engagement that streaming video and e-comment options cannot begin to match.

Since the Zoom option was made available in Mill Valley, community participation at Council meetings and other City meetings has increased significantly. Zoom has allowed hundreds of community members to safely attend and participate in City government during the ongoing pandemic. Remote participation has also served to reduce vehicle traffic and associated carbon emissions. Many who have difficulty attending and participating in meetings due to disability, age, work schedules, transportation, and economic challenges, among other things, have been able to participate in City government in real-time for the first time. This has helped to inject a degree of diversity, equity, and inclusion into Mill Valley’s otherwise largely homogeneous decision-making apparatus.

Remote Participation Option Alleviates Unnecessary COVID Risk

The risk of COVID exposure from live public gatherings in Marin continues to be a serious concern among public health officials due to the “spread of the highly infections delta variant of the coronavirus.” 2 Due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in our community, Marin has joined other Bay Area Counties in recommending the use of masks by all people - vaccinated or unvaccinated - in indoor public spaces. This extra precautionary measure is due to heightened concerns in relation to the highly transmissible Delta variants. Marin is averaging 15 new cases per day, with a daily case rate of 4.4 per 100,000 and rising. Marin Health & Human Services (7-19-21), https://coronavirus.marinhhs.org/covid-19-status-update-07162021.

Public indoor gatherings continue to pose some degree of risk to everyone, whether vaccinated or unvaccinated. Maintaining the option of remote meeting participation is a simple and foolproof method of alleviating that risk.

Remote Participation Option Serves Fundamental Democratic Values

Remote City Council meetings are, of course, authorized by the Governor’s Executive Orders (No. N-25-20 and No. N-29-20). While not contemplated by the original 1953 Brown Act, internet-based remote appearances are consistent with the Act’s central objectives of “protect[ing] the public’s right to attend, observe, and participate in meetings.” League of California Cities, Open & Public, Brown Act Guide, p. 28. 3 These are fundamental democratic values designed to preserve what Lincoln termed, “government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

The Zoom revolution for government meetings has proven so beneficial to civic participation during the pandemic that the California legislature is considering bills that would permanently codify Governor Newsome’s executive orders (AB 703) and would mandate the continuation of a remote participation option in many cases as cities resume in-person meetings (AB 339).

We need not wait for a legislative mandate to apply the lessons learned and tools employed during the pandemic. Council should immediately reinstate the option of public participation in all public City meetings via Zoom in order to make our City government more accessible, safe, equitable, and inclusive.

Sincerely,

MVFREE Coordinating Team

Sacha Bunge
Naima Dean
Tammy Edmonson
Running Grass
Hilary Heaven
Tammy Herndon
Elspeth Mathau
Celimene Pastor

On behalf of all of us at the

Mill Valley Force for Racial Equity and Empowerment

Additional issues/talking points to consider (choose any that you find meaningful, add your own, and speak from the heart)–

1. It is important to retain the Zoom participation option because:
   The County and all other Marin Cities that are resuming in-person meetings are retaining the Zoom participation option. It increases government transparency, accountability, accessibility, and participation. It protects public health. It reduces vehicle traffic and carbon emissions. It has resulted in more racially diverse and equitable civic participation in Mill Valley–do not reverse this progress toward diversity, equity, and inclusion.

2. Reinstate DEI reporting in the City Manager's Report (at its last meeting, it was announced that the City Manager's report would no longer include an update on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives),
   Regular reports are an important piece of honoring the City's commitment to prioritize racial equity work. Overcoming systemic racism requires that Council–and all of us–keep these issues front and center in our official work and daily lives

3. Recent events remind us that racism is alive and well in Mill Valley (repeated racist vandalism by a white adult at the High School and the discovery that a Mill Valley resident is wanted as one of the Capitol rioters).  
   This is not a time for Council to backslide on diversity, equity, and inclusion measures.

How to comment:

1. Attend live at Council Chambers at Mill Valley City Hall at 26 Corte Madera Avenue in Mill Valley and voice your concern at public open time (don't forget your mask).

2. Send an email addressed to the Council before the meeting to cityclerk@cityofmillvalley.org and it will be added to members' agenda packet.

3. Send an email addressed to the Council during the meeting to cityclerk@cityofmillvalley.org. Depending upon the number of ecomments received, they will either be read aloud by the clerk (up to 2 minutes), or Council will recess to review them during the meeting.

If you are unable to attend the meeting, you can watch it live-streamed, but will not be able to comment by following the directions here: Mill Valley, CA - Watch Meetings Online