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Longmont City Council meetings will continue to be held in-person with everyone wearing masks with Councilmember Polly Christensen saying Zoom meetings do not let enough people voice their opinions on council decisions.
“Doing the meetings on Zoom really doesn’t allow the public to be heard,” Christensen told the rest of the council. “I feel the city council should be an example for the rest of the town. We need to return to state normalcy as much as we can.”
The council voted 4-3 to keep meeting in public but with mask requirements for council and city staff members and members of the public. Mayor Brian Bagley, who said in a previous meeting he did not like wearing masks, and council members Tim Waters and Marcia Martin wanted to reconsider and meet via Zoom.
City council members, at their Sept. 21 meeting, called to revisit the issue of meeting in person and mask wearing in light of the Boulder County Public Health issuing a public health order on Sept. 3. That order requires everyone two-years-old and older to wear masks while indoors in public, a city staff report states.
The city council began meeting in virtual settings in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began. The council met in person again on June 29, 2021. In August 9, 2021, another public health order was issued requiring face masks indoors in certain settings and for unvaccinated individuals in particular when in public spaces, the city staff report states.
The new order prompted a conversation at the Aug. 24 meeting with Bagley moved to return to virtual meetings. Councilmember Tim Waters voted to support Bagley’s motion. The motion failed 4-3 with Christensen, Susie Hidalgo-Farhing, Aren Rodriguez and Joan Peck voting to keep sessions in-person, the staff report states.
