Many of us never heard of zoom meetings before the pandemic but in fact it began its journey in 2011. Designed by a software engineer Eric Yuan in China, the Zoom concept was inspired as a solution to his problematic ten-hour train rides to visit his girlfriend. His concept for a mobile-friendly video system is now used by millions around the world because it is relatively easy to use and has fewer annoying problems than other cloud-based video conferencing platforms.

Along with several new positive changes that have taken place since the last election that brought in a new supervisor, John Pizzolato and two elected board members, Laura Burrell and Tom Migliorino to the Town of Highland Council, the Board has voted to now purchase the necessary equipment to start zooming all the Town’s meetings so for full transparency, the public can view the Town Board’s proceedings remotely. The next Town Board meeting will be on April 9th at Town Hall in Eldred starting at 7 p.m. And it will be the first time the meeting has been zoomed and available to the public. 

I spoke with Board member Laura Burrell who has been overseeing the purchase and installation of the equipment that will be used to record the meetings and make them available to the public. Laura explained that for Zoom they purchase two web cams and a new dedicated laptop to run the zoom meeting as they will not be using a server. The Town had previously bought tabletop microphones all of which seem to be working well and will be utilized. The meeting will be recorded using Zoom. Afterwards the video Zoom recording will not be on the Town website but on YouTube. If you want to see what happened at the meetings afterwards you can go to YouTube and in the search bar enter @townofhighlandny to find the Town’s YouTube channel.

Laura told me that hopefully the Zoom system will work well but that they may have to buy one more piece of equipment, but she will have a better idea of what may be needed after the meeting on the 9th. There will be a zoom link posted on the Town of Highland’s website the night before, and to join the Board meeting at 7 p.m., just click on the link to get started. Laura Burrell told me that plans are to have zoom links for remote access to the Planning Board meetings and possibly the Town of Highland’s Comprehensive Plan meeting that will take place on April 16th at 7 p.m. at the Eldred Central School. Laura also said that having Zoom capabilities will be very helpful with notification to our community residents during an emergency situation.

One question I had is whether the viewing public would have a way of participating during the Q&A part of the Board meeting agenda, and she replied they would by typing a question on the zoom page which will be read out loud at the meeting and answered as part of the meeting minutes. In the near future, the Q&A will be done live. Laura Burrell, as a newly elected Board member, has done an enormous amount of work getting the Zoom platform pulled together and up and running, and she asks the community for some grace while the kinks are worked out.

The only downside I can think of is those who choose to Zoom the Board Meeting will miss out on some pretty good homemade refreshments that are available at Town Hall during the Board meetings! For more information go to the Town’s website at www.townofhighlandny.com.