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Mono looks at switching to Zoom for Council meetings

June 4, 2021   ·   0 Comments

By Peter Richardson

Mono Council undertook a comprehensive review of their online video conferencing solutions last Tuesday, with digital content specialist, Andrew Dahmer presenting all the most popular solutions.

The recommendations of Town staff were to either stay with the present supplier, “GoToMeeting”, or transition to Zoom. Zoom may well be the preferred option, due to additional features which it offers.

Deputy Mayor John Creelman asked about the licensing issues should Council choose to transition to Zoom and was told that the Town currently has seven licenses and that they were on an annual basis.

However, Dahmer said he felt that both platforms should be kept initially, so as to facilitate a smooth transition.

Deputy Mayor Creelman having expressed a personal preference to Zoom, then asked about participation in the meetings with Zoom verses GoToMeetings, specifically with public questions. He explained that several residents had mentioned to him their dislike of not being able to participate in the actual meetings.

The response was that both programs would essentially be the same.

People could either ask to be a part of the meeting, or simply submit a question in writing, prior to the meeting. If participation was chosen, a link to the meeting would then be provided.

CAO Mark Early added that this was primarily a matter of security and controlling who had access to the meeting.

Coun. Ralph Manktelow mentioned that one conference he was a part of experienced a loss of quality such that he had to leave the meeting due to some 35 people taking part, to which Andrew replied that this was probably due to early demand verses quality issues.

He explained that server issues have been constantly addressed as video meetings become more common and all platforms might, from time to time, exhibit some issues with this.

Coun. Fred Nix stated that this was completely over his head and that he did not feel qualified to talk about the issue. He felt that whatever decision Andrew chose to make, would be suitable to him and suggested this should be Council’s choice as well.

Deputy Mayor Creelman agreed, as did Coun. Sharon Martin, though Coun. Manktelow expressed the concern that if it was not broken don’t fix it and suggested that they stay with GoToMeetings.

Ultimately, Council decided to leave the decision up to Andrew and they would work with whatever he decided to provide.

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