Image Credit: City of Kamloops

By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: Democracy by videoconference – ‘Can you hear me now?’

Apr 8, 2020 | 4:54 AM

KAMLOOPS — DEMOCRACY IS A FRAGILE THING, a fact being demonstrated during this COVID-19 pandemic.

Governments at all levels — federal, provincial and local — struggle with how much information to trust us with, and how to be transparent in their proceedings while practicing social distancing.

Public meetings of elected bodies aren’t as open as they are in normal times, and they’re definitely a work in progress.

Take Tuesday’s Kamloops City council meeting. Please. It was, let’s face it, a bit of a gong show.

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The mayor, three councillors and a few staff sat in chambers while the rest of council tuned in via teleconferencing.

The public was able to watch through the usual live-streaming process but it was a challenge.

Sometimes the sound disappeared while the picture froze. Councillors occasionally got electronically booted out of the meeting; at other times they forgot to use their mute buttons and we were treated to the sound of shuffling papers and various squeaks and squawks.

At other times, their individual connections failed as the mayor tried in vain to put them into the speaking order.

And, it was hard to tell who voted which way. It was a little like the old ‘Can you hear me now?’ phone commercials.

On the other hand, the Kamloops-Thompson School Board met by teleconference Monday night with all members of the board clearly visible and audible on the Facebook stream.

City council will undoubtedly get more adroit with the technology, and future meetings are bound to improve.

Local governments are to be commended for making the effort to keep their meetings open, though currently the public can’t participate because there’s no way to handle public inquiries as the meetings proceed.

That’s something that will have to be rectified as elected bodies get the hang of democracy under the new normal.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and newspaper editor. He writes five commentaries a week for CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.