PROVIDENCE – As the highly contagious omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus surges across Rhode Island and around the country, a nonprofit coalition is calling on Gov. Daniel J. McKee to allow remote meetings of public bodies.
In a letter released on Dec. 21, Access RI, an organization that advocates for open government, urged McKee to reinstate executive orders that previously allowed for remote meetings. On Monday, Access RI leadership told PBN that the organization still has not received a response.
McKee’s office did not immediately respond to a PBN request for comment on Monday.
A state executive order that allowed remote meetings throughout most of the pandemic expired in July. Current open meeting laws say that members of public bodies must attend in person unless they are granted an exception, and that these groups may choose whether to allow the public to participate remotely.
In a letter also dated Dec. 21, Providence Mayor Jorge O. Elorza urged McKee to reinstate the executive order allowing for all-remote meetings for public bodies, describing a “critical” need to take action against a rise in cases.
The expired executive order “is essential in enabling those who serve on public bodies or participate in open meetings to remain healthy and safe while continuing to fulfill their duties,” Elorza wrote in the letter to McKee, published by the Boston Globe.
Elorza also noted that “the delta variant and the new omicron variant are continuing to spread and have already stretched our hospital system thin.
“This is a simple action we can take that will make our public meetings more accessible and keep our communities safe,” continued.
Elorza made the request due to “feedback and concerns I have received from staff and members of the public,” he wrote, also noting increased COVID-19 cases, associated hospitalizations and long turnaround times for COVID-19 tests.
During a time of many pertinent challenges and opportunities for state and local government, “the need for public oversight of the activities of public bodies is at its zenith,” Access RI’s board of directors wrote in the letter to McKee. “Yet many members of the public with a strong interest in watching and participating in government meetings find themselves, for genuine health and safety reasons, shut out of the process as public bodies grapple with those challenges and opportunities. Democracy suffers when public bodies can meet without either the oversight or input that public attendance and participation can provide.”
Access RI made the same request in September, citing concerns “about the diminishment of government transparency generated by the troubling increase in infections, hospitalizations and deaths caused by the Covid-19 Delta variant,” the organization wrote in its recent letter.
Since that time, the need to reinstate the executive order allowing for remote meetings has become even more pressing due to the highly contagious omicron variant, according to Access RI, prompting the organization to “vigorously reiterate our call for a return to a hybrid/remote public meeting process via executive order.”
Access RI includes representation from the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island Inc., university professors, journalists and other state freedom of information advocates.
Jacquelyn Voghel is a PBN staff writer. You may contact her at Voghel@PBN.com.
