Despite our desire to “get back to normal,” there have been some positive outcomes created by the crisis that we hope can be preserved.
From a civic standpoint, the best example of these positive developments is how citizens interact with the local governments.
Prior to these last few months, attendance at city council and board of aldermen meetings could be counted in the 10s. A ‘big crowd” at a Starkville Board of Aldermen meeting was about 100 people. Columbus City Council meetings averaged less than half of that. School boards and boards of supervisors meetings average even fewer.
But when COVID-19 restrictions forced officials to live-stream those meetings, the audience swelled to thousands.
Starkville, which was already live-streaming its aldermen meetings before COVID-19, increased its viewership from 200 or 300 to an average of 4,470 viewers in seven regular or special-call board meetings since March 3. A March 24 special call meeting of the aldermen captured 10,900 views.
In Columbus, the city has changed live-streaming platforms for its council meetings, which likely accounts for fewer viewers than in Starkville. Even so, citizen interest in the council meetings has been unprecedented. Last week’s council meeting drew an audience of 8,100 viewers.
Viewership of school board meetings and county supervisor meetings have not reached these kinds of audiences. Even so, the live-streaming audiences have been larger than those when people attended these meetings in person.
An informed citizenry is essential to a healthy democracy, and we have long advocated for increased participation in these meetings. Until this public health crisis, we were generally disappointed with the turn-outs.
First by preference and now by mandate, most of use have come to rely more on technology to stay connected.
The advantages are obvious. We can “attend” meetings from the comfort of our own homes or wherever we happen to be. We can also view it whenever we choose. Those conveniences have clearly produced results.
We urge citizens to continue to attend these virtual meetings. That’s why we have amended our Public Meetings listings, found on the front page of each edition of The Dispatch, to include links to the live-stream broadcasts.
We are likely more aware of what our local governments are doing than perhaps ever before and that’s a great outcome derived from difficult circumstances.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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