A meeting is a meeting is a meeting
By JOSH RESNEK
The city council Zoom meeting broadcast live on the city’s Facebook site Monday was a pleasant though tiring combination of city officials trying to be serious and Saturday Night Live.
It was not so different from the goings on at a regular meeting inside the Council chamber at city hall.
Many of the councilors stared bug eyed into their screens as though they were looking into machines that broadcast transmissions from as far away as Mars or Venus.
Councilors forgot to turn on their mute buttons and often forgot to turn them off.
One councilor had the television on throughout most of the meeting, causing Councilor Fred Capone to complain vociferously: “Please shut off the TV. We can hear the advertisements or leave the meeting!”
Council President Rosa DiFlorio was a bit too close to her monitor all night. She appeared to be right in our face. She did her best to carry on the meeting with respect and professionalism.
At one point, when she had turned off her mute button but continued to speak with no one being able to hear a word, a councilor shouted up: “Madame president you are muted!”
To which she replied humorously: “Me being muted doesn’t work for my family!”
There was a wonderful informational with the city’s Animal Control Officer Stacia Gorgone about coyotes running freely in Everett.
Ms. Gorgone gave the council, all the members but Councilor John Hanlon watching from their homes or personal offices on their computers, a close look at the problem.
Hanlon listened in using his telephone to hear what was being said and to respond.
“I can’t touch a coyote,” Gorgone told the councilors, some of whom wondered why she had done nothing to deal with coyotes running about the Cambridge Alliance Hospital at the top of the hill. “It is against the law for me to do so unless they are acting in a dangerous fashion or wounded,” she added.
She detailed how she had been in touch with state officials, all of whom responded to her by claiming there was nothing they could do.
“Why are there coyotes in Everett right now?” she was asked.
“Because of all the building going on ruining their natural habitats,” she replied.
The request by Verizon to place 5G antenna systems at the top of seven telephone polls throughout the city to increase the city’s connectivity and bandwidth passed unanimously.
But two antennas Verizon was hoping to put up failed the political test because several people on two streets complained they didn’t want the antennas on their street or near to their homes.
Councilors Fred Capone, Hanlon and Matewsky want- ed more time to discuss the issue, which has been discussed on and off by Verizon and city officials for about our months.
Mind you, the antennae give off less radiation and heat than the sun.
It was as if the councilors were upholding the right of residents to debate science as wishful thinking.
The residents might as well have been asking for sewers to be shut or moved because they were located too close to their homes.
Verizon had a doctor, a lawyer and a vice-president on the Internet attending this meeting trying to outdistance Capone, Matewsky and Hanlon.
Those were bad odds in Everett. Verizon should have known better.
Science will again be debated. A new measure offered by Capone put off voting on the other two antennae until the next council meeting in June.
The need for bandwidth is tremendous as the use of the Internet in a city the size of Everett is enormous and growing everyday.
The business community could not live without the
Verizon expansion of its communication capabilities.
Frank Parker called in and pleaded for more band width for the students and teachers.
His point was valid and was taken as such.
Parker had not a word to say about the true measure, the real measure, that with- out bandwidth, the city’s biggest commercial companies would likely leave for another location.
In addition, most of us are now experiencing a slow- down in Internet speed on our personal computers because so many people are working from home and using their computers.
Councilor Stephanie Martins evoked the image of the new politician on the block in Everett– young, well spoken, a woman, attractive, polite, and businesslike.