By Thane Grauel
WESTPORT — The Zoning Board of Appeals meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday night was canceled because of internet connectivity issues with the town’s website.
Chairman Jim Ezzes said he’d been told there was a problem with the Optimum connection.
“Due to some problems with Optimum cable, we had to cancel this evening’s public hearing because of our concerns that if an interested party wanted to come on, they wouldn’t have access to the town website because of the problem with Optimum and the Zoom link,” Ezzes said at what was to be the online meeting of the ZBA.
“What we’ve decided to do is to cancel the hearing this evening and we’re going to do some juggling and we’ll get people heard and starting in April,” he said. “And I suggest any of the people who were coming forward tonight to give [Deputy Planning and Zoning Director] Michelle Perillie a call …”
“I think this was the best way for the town to proceed, we certainly wouldn’t want people not to have the option to come forward,” Ezzes said. “In the spirit of transparency, we want everyone to have that option.”
There was no mention of internet difficulties on the town’s website, westportct.gov, on Tuesday.
But there definitely were issues, beginning at least Monday.
The Westport Journal on Monday afternoon got repeated error notices when trying to access the site saying the server failed to respond.
Access to an online meeting that night wasn’t a problem for the Journal. But access overnight after that wasn’t possible. The same error message appeared, despite the use of various browsers.
Without any communication from Town Hall, how widespread the access issue was wasn’t clear.
If Optimum is the town’s internet provider, or if Optimum customers were the only ones with difficulty connecting, wasn’t known. A call to one of the selectwomen Tuesday evening was not immediately returned.
Two other meetings scheduled Tuesday evening went on as planned.
The Architectural Review Board held its meeting at 7:30 p.m. Chairman Ward French said he hadn’t received any notification of connectivity issues.
The Environment Committee of the Representative Town Meeting also went on at 7:30 p.m. Chairwoman Ellen Lautenberg, District 7, also said she had heard nothing about technical problems.
A member of another town body told the Westport Journal on Tuesday they’d received word that some officials’ emails sent from town accounts were bouncing back.
Thane Grauel grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond for 36 years. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.
Why are these meetings conducted over Zoom? With everyone else returning to the office, wouldn’t it be appropriate to have these town meetings conducted as they were pre-pandemic?
Thx.
Re: Fred Rubin’s question about Zoom meetings – I would much rather meet in person, generally speaking. However, there are a couple of reasons why I (and others) sometimes choose Zoom meetings. One is that there are times when no rooms are available at Town Hall due to the number of meetings going on. Second, if there are a number of people that want to participate but can’t be there in person, or you have a non-local guest speaker for example, Zoom makes it easier to include them. Some people just feel that it allows for greater participation. That all being said, when I can do the RTM Environment Committee meetings in person, I prefer to do that.
Ellen, thanks for your response and no need to respond.
I would hope that meetings could be scheduled regularly in advance so rooms would be less of an issue. Clearly Zoom makes it easier for people to dial-in or for guests to participate. I would think that if meetings were regularly scheduled and agendas posted online, interested parties would make it a point to get to the meeting…as people did prior to Covid.
Thx.
Emblematic of lazy culture. Its like virtual participation. One can sit on their couch eating chips and zoom in–pathetic