Princeton Planning Board Meetings Should Be Held in Hybrid Format
To the Editor:
I “attended” the two Master Plan sessions of the Princeton Planning Board, and though it was nice to invisibly gobble a snack during the Zoom session, I found it very much wanting — and bordering on undemocratic — in its elimination of the live element. Others felt frustrated by this, too.
With a Zoom-only format, there’s no way to “take the temperature” of the room, and no way to communicate approval or disapproval of what members of the public say. Equally bad, you can’t know who’s there, and you can’t interact with them afterwards. The COVID-19 pandemic has been over for a while now, and our public meetings should be true meetings of the public again.
Princeton Council, the governing body of this town, should promptly require that the Planning Board’s meetings be held in a hybrid format — that is, both in person and via Zoom. That way, those who can’t attend in person might still virtually join the meeting. It is a little more challenging, but with competent technical assistance it is perfectly feasible and will be well worth it. Council does hybrid meetings; the Planning Board ought to, too.
Citizens really need to be able to interact with one another at a public meeting, to see who shows up, to participate in their democracy in ways that are not so controlled and sterile — these encounters are invaluable. And townspeople and their public servants need to be able to look each other in the eye and stand in each other’s presence.
Every election year, candidates routinely promise greater transparency and openness in government, and claim that they will embrace the participation of the citizenry. This is Council’s chance to do just that.