Due to Lee State Orders, Town meetings still virtual
Despite high hopes that in-person governmental meetings could resume this month, Farragut officials have decided to continue virtual meetings through Aug. 29, in conjunction with Gov. Bill Lee’s most recent Executive Order extension.
Lee had been expected to lift the State of Emergency and not extend orders allowing for governing bodies to continue to meet electronically.
However, with a recent spike in COVID-19 cases across the state, the governor did just the opposite Tuesday, June 30.
Among the Orders issued, No. 51 (extending Orders 16 and 34) specifically concerns electronic meetings, allowing “governing bodies to meet electronically regarding essential business as long as they provide electronic access to the public and meet the safeguards established in that order to ensure openness and transparency," Lee stated in a press release.
The Order will “ensure that governmental entities are able to carry out essential business in a safe, transparent way without creating large gatherings in a confined space and endangering persons, particularly those at increased risk of suffering severe illness from COVID-19, while determinations of how best to return to safe, in-person governmental meetings remain ongoing,” the governor further stated.
Farragut officials and staff had been meeting in earnest, saying they are trying to establish a safe and clean return to in-person meetings, even though they likely would have resumed at the Town Community Center and not Town Hall, and would have still been operating on limited capacity even there.
Town administrator David Smoak said Wednesday, July 1, “The logistics would have been very difficult with the manpower we would have had to use to clean and take temperatures of everyone.”
Mayor Ron Williams issued the following statement following the decision: “We had hoped to resume public meetings after a few months of conducting virtual town meetings. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 case count has shown a sharp increase, and we have to pay attention to the numbers. For the safety of our Board and Committee members, our staff and the public, we will continue to meet virtually until Gov. Bill Lee’s Executive Order No. 51, which allows governing bodies to meet electronically, expires on Aug. 29.
“For information about how to participate in these meetings, please see townoffarragut.org/virtual meetings," he further stated.
“I urge everyone to join me in wearing their mask and practicing physical distancing to help keep us all safe.”
