Best laid plans fell apart Tuesday night when Bow School District officials attempted to host the first stage of the annual school district meeting in the age of social distancing.
Officials set up a phone line to call in and a streaming video feed for residents to tune into the meeting, which was set to begin at 7 p.m.
The phone line worked, but the live stream did not.
After 20 minutes, officials decided to call it quits and delay the virtual meetings and drive-thru voting by a week.
“If the public can’t access the meeting, we are required to terminate it,” School District Moderator James Hatem said on the phone call Tuesday night.
During this emergency, executive orders were developed for how to run board meetings and respect open meeting principles and adhere to the Right to Know law, Bow School Superintendent Dean Cascadden said. The public must be able to access the meetings in real time, all votes must be taken by roll call, and meetings should be broadcast across multiple platforms. There also must be a way for the public to notify officials that access to the meeting is not working.
“It has been difficult to communicate with the non-school community members of Bow as this process has unfolded,” Cascadden wrote in a letter sent out to the community Wednesday morning.
Staff on the call said delaying the meeting by a week will give the district a chance to give more notice to residents, some of whom said they weren’t aware Tuesday’s meeting was happening.
Starting over next week, the first step of the process is set to begin Tuesday, April 21 night at 7 p.m., when residents will have the chance to tune into a live-stream presentation of the warrant articles or by phone.
No live comments will be allowed during the meeting.
On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of that week, residents may submit public comment by “telephone, email and other electronic means.” Comments can be emailed to DistrictMeeting@bownet.org or messages can be left at (603) 415-3585.
“Questions and comments should start with the voter identifying his or her name and street address in Bow, and include any questions and comments about the Warrant Articles and these procedures,” Hatem said in a memo about the procedures.
Then on Friday, April 24, at 5 p.m., the Bow School Board will hold another virtual meeting to review all of the public comments and make any amendments to the warrant to be voted on Saturday. No live public comments will be taken at that meeting, either.
Ballots will be available online after the Friday night meeting and residents are invited to print them at home to bring to the drive-by voting at Bow High School starting at 9 a.m. on April 25. Those with last names starting with the letters A-M are asked to arrive between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Voters with last names with letters starting with N-Z are asked to show up after 11 a.m. Polls will close no earlier than 1 p.m.
People will drive up in their car, show their licenses to the supervisor of the checklist by pressing their identification card to their closed window, and vote either using a pre-printed ballot or one provided to them on site.
Ballots must be delivered in person.
“One voter may exit the vehicle, demonstrate to the moderator that a proper number of ballots are about to be cast, and deposit the marked ballot into the ballot box,” Hatem said.
Social distancing will be enforced.