Residents can monitor meeting by computer or phone
By Jason Arndt
Staff Writer
The Burlington Common Council plans to take its business online to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 Wednesday and residents can check in using online platform Zoom.
According to the council agenda, residents looking to attend the meeting must visit Zoom.us, which people may need to download, and enter in 725 271 341 as the identification number with a password of 441655.
Residents who do not have online service can dial in by calling 312-626-6799.
“You will participate as an attendee, not a panelist. You will be muted by the meeting moderator,” the agenda states. “To participate/speak during a meeting when allowable, you will need to ‘raise your hand.’ Online you will find a ‘raise hand’ option in the menu bar.”
Phone users will instead press *9.
City officials plan to record the meeting, like other Common Council sessions, to stay compliant with the state’s Open Meetings Law.
The Common Council, meanwhile, plans to ratify, approve and adopt a Declaration of Emergency for the City of Burlington regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
The declaration allows the city to position itself for state and federal resources to help mitigate the effects of the coronavirus.
The formal approval comes weeks after Mayor Jeannie Hefty declared a state of emergency in the city.
“As your Mayor, I am deeply concerned for your well-being,” she wrote in a March 18 press release. “Please continue to take the necessary precautions to keep yourselves, your families, your coworkers and our community safe. Lastly, please remain calm, we are doing everything we can.”
Following March 20 guidance from Attorney General Josh Kaul, the city also planned to adopt temporary procedures for conducting governmental meetings, including use of online platforms such as Zoom.
Kaul wrote in a news release conducting open meetings remotely offers a series of a technological and practical challenges, but they can be overcome, if municipalities follow specific guidelines.
“As DOJ’s Office of Open Government advised in its March 17, 2020 advisory, a governmental body conducting a meeting remotely should be mindful of the possibility that it may be particularly burdensome or even infeasible for one or more individuals who would like to observe a meeting to do so remotely,” the release states, noting people without a telephone or internet access as well as deaf or hard-of-hearing should be taken under consideration.
Additionally, considering the flurry of developments surrounding COVID-19, the Common Council will retroactively approve the change of election location and election process.
The City of Burlington moved in-person absentee voting from City Hall to the Police Department before conducting the Spring Election at the Department of Public Works on Tuesday.
Emergency responder adoption
The Common Council also planned to ratify, approve and adopt a declaration of designation of ‘emergency responder’ employees under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
President Donald Trump signed the FFCRA, which expands the Family and Medical Leave Act, and creates a paid sick leave entitlement for certain eligible employees.
The declaration’s purpose is to offer a process of identifying employees, categories of employment positions and/or departments that are ‘emergency responders’ under the FFCRA, which would exempt them from provisions of the matter.
“On March 24, 2020, the State of Wisconsin issued a Safer-at-Home Emergency Order, Emergency Order No. 12, in response to the COVID-19 emergency, which categorically exempts broad categories of local government employees…” the Common Council document states.
The exemptions include the city administrator, police chief, all sworn police officer, fire chief, all fire department employees, all EMS staff as well as director of public works and some utility posts.
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