Walpole Adopts Remote Participation for Town Meetings

It was before the Walpole Board of Selectmen Tuesday night to decide whether to use remote participation in board and committee meetings in Walpole.

Last year, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley's Office introduced new regulations under the Open Meeting Law that authorized remote participation in town government meetings under certain circumstances.

Remote participation allows town government officials to take part in a meeting when they are not physically present via Skype or another form of live video communication.

Per the regulation, the board must have a quorum in person in order for another member to participate remotely.

Each town has choice of whether to adopt the regulation or not. Last night, Walpole chose to do so.

“There’s no reason in my opinion when you look at the safeguards that are in the statute to not vote this in," said Selectmen Chris Timson "If someone is traveling, if someone on the Board of Selectmen wants to participate in a vote but for some reason can’t be here, we do have the technology now to have remote access. We should allow it to happen. There’s no reason why we don’t want to have participation by one of our members if they have to be separated by an incidence or something like that.”

The vote, however, was not unanimous as selectmen Matthew Berry was the dissenting voice among the board.

“When you look at some of the things that our board has had to take up, interviews for deputy police chief, interviews for police officers, fire fighters, those are pretty important decisions that I think we make as a board," he said. "When we have young men and women who are department heads coming in looking for promotions and we’re the board that makes that decision. I think if we’re making those decisions I think we need to be face-to-face. I just don’t think that a board member can be as effective making those types of decisions if they’re joining in via Skype or via teleconference.”

The other members of the board respected Berry’s point of view but voted to approve the remote participation by a 4-1 vote.

“I disagree wholeheartedly on a lot of that,” Selectmen chair Eric Kraus said of Berry’s opinion on the matter. “I do not feel that a perspective point of view by a board of selectmen is diminished at all if you are not sitting this chair. I’m going to base my comments on the assumption that we issue an agenda, we get pre-meeting materials, we talk to people and we make decisions and while I come here and have lively conversation and debate over an issue, like the one we're having right now, I don’t think I am hindered at all in having that on a teleconference if I physically can’t be here.

"These are volunteer jobs, not full-time jobs, not part-time jobs and we all have full-time jobs to go to and at times there’s conflicts. And the people that elected me to this office expect me to vote and if I can’t make it here that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be able to provide a perspective and a vote on an issue.”

Towns that have voted down the new policy include Barnstable, Burlington, Foxborough, Holliston, North Andover, Sudbury and Wrentham.

Acton, Carlisle, Hopkinton, Natick, Wayland, Westford, and Westwood have all approved the new measure. Walpole can now be added to that list.