WEST WILDWOOD – West Wildwood’s Mayor Matthew Ksiazek confirmed Jan. 7 that fully virtual or hybrid meetings, that can be accessed both in-person and online, are unlikely to return.
“At this time, I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to do a Zoom thing again,” he said at a Jan. 7 Board of Commissioners meeting.
A member of the public expressed concerns that locals still have difficulty coming to meetings in person due to either the recent snow or spikes in Covid cases.
They asked, “In the case that we have bad weather, is it really that difficult for you guys to go from live meetings to a Zoom meeting?”
The mayor responded that “it really is that difficult” for a variety of reasons.
“One, there’s the technology that we just don’t have. Two, we have had malicious activity in the past that can really disrupt the meeting, and we might not be able to get business done… It would take a lot of work on our end,” the mayor said.
Despite these answers, the same member of the public asked if there is a way for the city to “get better at it.”
“You’re not allowed to just put it on the website, even if it’s weather-related?” they asked.
The mayor and Commissioner Joseph Segrest said that the virtual option can be done in the case of an emergency.
“If there’s an emergency, and we have 48 hours, we can go virtual, but we really are going to keep these to Friday evenings because that’s what the public wanted, and we are going to stick to that,” said Ksiazek. “To do something dual, we are really going to try to avoid something virtual if we don’t need to… I think we are just going to stick with Friday evenings.”
