For three years, Debra Cagle has been trying to get rid of some land in Lawrenceville. So the retired nurse was eager for the city to restart the meetings that would let her get it rezoned so she could sell.
Many local governments have moved meetings online since March or encouraged remote public comment or other access to reduce the number of people coming in to the same room throughout the coronavirus pandemic. But public hearings — like the one required to rezone Cagle's land — must be conducted in person, according to state law. So those have largely been on hold.
But as many of Gov. Brian Kemp’s restrictions have expired, governments are taking steps to return to normal. Some are reopening city halls that were closed or bringing more people back to work. And for the first time since March, many are beginning to schedule public hearings for land-use decisions or budget discussions, potentially bringing residents back into government buildings en masse.
“I would’ve liked for it to happen last month or the month before,” said Cagle, who plans to sell 14.5 acres she inherited from her parents so a developer can build townhouses. “If they’re opening up restaurants, I don’t see the difference.”
The meeting was awkward, City Manager Chuck Warbington said, as people got used to wearing masks and sitting eight feet apart. But he said Lawrenceville's meeting was a success and local leaders will continue to get used to the new normal.
Still, others think it’s too soon to have the kind of meetings that demand public involvement.
One is Brian Mock, the Chamblee city councilman who was diagnosed with COVID-19 after attending a May 14 public hearing. He was asymptomatic at the meeting, but began feeling ill the next day and was diagnosed over the weekend.
Mock wore a mask, as did many other attendees at the meeting. Still, a statement said all city employees who were at the meeting would self-isolate for 14 days.
In an email Thursday, Mock said it had been a”rough couple of days” and he thought it was way too soon to hold public hearings. In a phone call Friday, Mock called on the state to relax requirements for in-person meetings.
“I think this kind of demonstrates what can happen,” he said. “There’s a lot of things in life you have to go do in person, but zoning meetings is not one of them. You don’t want to put a bunch of people together in a room if you don’t have to. There’s just no reason for it.”
Michael Rich, a political science professor at Emory University, said other states have changed their laws to make public hearings more accessible through the pandemic. In North Carolina, written comments are now allowed for 24 hours after a public hearing is held. Votes are delayed until the comment period is over. In Vermont, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns put out guidance for taking public comment during remote meetings.
Rich said public hearings are critical for governments, especially as they debate budgets or make decisions that could help jump start the economy. Residents have the right to express their support or concerns, he said, and elected officials can sometimes be swayed by the number of people showing up to voice their opinions. He said if governments are able to move public hearings online, they need to ensure that residents understand the difference between commenting — on social media or in a chat — and official public comment, which can be part of the government record in making its decision.
And as the risk of the coronavirus continues, Rich said, people will have to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of in-person participation. Online, some people without internet access wouldn’t be able to participate either.
“Some people will come out, but a lot of people will be reluctant to do so,” he said. “It’s going to be a challenge. We have to find a way to allow governments to continue to function. Whatever decision you make, it’s going to have implications for some segment of the population.”
‘It’s better to put it off’
That debate raged over several weeks in Gwinnett County, as commissioners talked about whether they could move zoning meetings online. The county attorney, Mike Ludwiczak, said he didn't think they could. So the county will hold its first public hearing since February on Tuesday over the objections of three members of the board of commissioners.
Because Kemp’s orders requiring older adults and those with a medical risk from COVID-19 to continue to stay home doesn’t expire until the middle of June, Republicans Tommy Hunter and Jace Brooks, as well as Democrat Ben Ku, said they had concerns about holding the meeting. They worried that they were giving people ammunition to get zoning cases overturned, or potentially putting residents in a position to choose between their health and their public interest.
“It’s not worth the risk,” Hunter said. “It only takes one or two to really foul things up.”
Ludwiczak said the government order has an exception for participating in “critical infrastructure activity, to use tortured language.”
County officials will take temperatures before letting people into the building and the capacity of the auditorium has been reduced to 72 seats for the public, from 445. The cafeteria has been made into an overflow room, and at a well-attended Zoning Board of Appeals meeting earlier this month, county employees ushered residents in and out of the auditorium, wiping down the podium and the microphone after each case. People also have the option to send written comments.
Gwinnett zoning meetings often draw crowds, and though commissioners said they would defer some contentious proposals, they still worried that there would be some high-interest cases they didn’t know about in advance, that someone would come to the meeting sick or that someone who falls under Kemp’s order and determined they could not attend would challenge the result.
Commission Chairman Charlotte Nash said if there were specific cases that presented a problem, leaders could deal with those.
“The bulk of cases are going to be just fine,” she said. “I hate to hold up those because we have concerns.”
In Smyrna, city attorney Scott Cochran said there could only be so many delays for public hearings as part of the process to pass the budget. But he said the city knew it needed to take more precautions. So it moved from council chambers to the city's biggest gym, and spaced chairs 10 feet apart. There were temperature checks at the door and masks were required.
Cochran said zoning matters have been put off indefinitely, though, particularly those that are expected to have a lot of community interest.
“You don’t want to put people at any kind of risk,” he said. “Zoning cases are sometimes the most contentious things that you see — they’re more contentious than a lot of court battles. When you look at that, it’s better to put it off.”
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