Three Lakewood City Council members are raising free-speech concerns after Mayor Adam Paul muted two of their microphones while they spoke during a Zoom meeting convened to consider changes to the city manager’s contract.
Remote testimony on bills, a positive outgrowth of the COVID-19 pandemic, likely will remain an option for the public during future sessions of the Colorado General Assembly.
Like most other government bodies, special district boards in Colorado have met over Zoom or some other video-conferencing platform during much of the COVID-19 pandemic. But they’ve done so, state lawmakers were told, not knowing for sure whether state law permitted their virtual meetings.
COVID-19 touched nearly every aspect of our lives in 2020 so of course it affected government transparency and public access to courts in Colorado.
The Denver-based nonprofit that provides video access to the Colorado General Assembly is offering its virtual-meeting software package to local governments for free during the coronavirus pandemic.
Lakewood City Attorney Tim Cox called it “almost a chicken and egg situation.” For city council members to legally conduct electronic meetings – like the one they were conducting via Zoom when Cox spoke to them Monday evening – they had to pass an emergency ordinance to allow electronic meetings.
