Remote voting back on council floor

ANTIGO -- A motion to allow city council members to vote remotely through video conferencing applications was approved 5-2 at a committee of the whole meeting Wednesday night.

The motion - an iteration of which was discussed ad nauseam from roughly February to March as it was passed, vetoed, and finally narrowly rejected when former Second Ward Alderwoman Sandy Fischer surprisingly voted against it - must be approved at the next common council meeting, which is on Aug. 14 at 6 p.m.

The new motion reads, “At all City of Antigo council, committee, or commission meetings, members who are present or attending remotely are counted toward the quorum and eligible to all the rights of their office. Closed sessions will be eligible for attendance remotely, provided that an affidavit has been signed by the council, committee, or commission member and submitted to the clerk for participating in voting remotely and there is no other person in the room.”

Seventh Ward Alderman Glenn Bugni said one large benefit of the change would be its potential to increase participation in city government.

“In this day and age, there’s companies all over in Antigo even that use Zoom for meetings and are able to vote remotely,” Bugni said. “There’s no reason why the City of Antigo can’t be a leader in that regard because I think it will encourage more people actually to run for city council because there’s some flexibility where they don’t have to be at necessarily every meeting. As far as how that affects me, if I miss two meetings a year, that would be it.”

Fifth Ward Alderman Mark Edwards suggested that the new motion could result in all nine city council members potentially being absent from any given meeting. He nevertheless acknowledged that this time, the measure will likely pass.

“They’ve got the votes to do it, so I can’t stop it,” Edwards said. “It’s going to happen. I don’t agree with it. I’ll say something at the city council meeting when it comes up. But they’re going to do it no matter what I think. But it’s selfish, as far as I’m concerned. What are they gaining for the citizens for them being gone all the time?”

Bugni called this an exaggeration.

“We’re all concerned because we want to be able to attend the meetings no matter where we are, and we want to be able to participate and we want to be able to vote,” he said. “I can’t see why some people hang on to the old type of thing that, ‘You’ve got to be at every meeting regardless.’ I just don’t understand that…And if things don’t work out and we have too many people missing, we can always change.”