Optimizing Zoom for City Council Public Meetings: The Simple Way To Make It Work Better

Update April 8, 2020: Zoom has released some features to improve security, check this blog post out.

We set out to solve the problem of remote citizen participation in a pre-Coronavirus world. Councils were expected to meet in-person and it was the citizens who were allowed to participate from home. Our results in the last year have been excellent, for example: 800% increase in participation on LakewoodSpeaks.org.  

COVID-19 has quickly changed the landscape of public hearings. Council members now need to participate from home as well. Whether we will go back to the old method quickly, or at all, remains to be seen. But for now, web conferencing has become necessary for Councils and Commissions to do their business. 

Unfortunately, while web conference systems like Zoom and others are easy for ten or fifteen people to meet and discuss items remotely, using them to handle the unique demands of public input at a public meeting can be bumpy. Here is one example of what can go wrong at Davis City when their City Council meeting got Zoom Bombed

Fortunately, our cities that use our Public Hearing Engagement Platform are able to avoid this problem. People Speak was designed to replicate the public hearing online. While it has previously been used in addition to live public comment on the night of a hearing, it can also be used in lieu of live comment when circumstances require Councilors to participate remotely. 

Recently we added the ability to live stream web conference meetings onto the site so when cities are forced to hold remote meetings, they still have review of information and public comment through our website–so only the Council discussion and vote after comments are closed need take place live.