Four years after Rhode Island's pandemic-era remote meeting rules expired, most city and town councils and school committees still don't let residents participate in public meetings from home, according to a report the ACLU of Rhode Island released July 21.
The report reviewed the websites, agendas and related postings of all 39 city and town councils and all 34 school committees in the state, checking each for four things: whether the public can watch a meeting live online, whether a recording is archived afterward, whether agenda packets are posted, and whether residents can actually participate remotely rather than just watch. Only 16 of the 73 bodies reviewed met all four standards — 11 councils and 5 school committees, according to the report.
The councils meeting every standard are Coventry, Cranston, Cumberland, East Greenwich, Lincoln, Middletown, Pawtucket, Portsmouth, Richmond, Scituate and West Warwick. On the school side, Barrington, East Greenwich, Little Compton, North Smithfield and Scituate met all four measures. Exeter and West Greenwich were the only town councils offering no remote access at all, the report found.
Livestreaming and archiving turned out to be the easy part. The report found 33 of 39 councils livestream their meetings and 35 of 39 post recordings afterward; on the school side, 30 of 34 committees livestream and 29 of 34 archive recordings. Posting agenda packets — the documents and backup material council and committee members are actually voting on — was less consistent, especially among school committees, only about half of which post them. The steepest drop-off came on remote participation itself: the ability for a resident to speak or comment during a meeting without being in the room, a practice that was common during the pandemic and has since become rare. The report noted one wrinkle in that count, saying the ACLU was told the Cranston School Committee does allow remote participation, but that option isn't listed on its agenda or website.
The underlying rules trace back to an executive order Gov. Gina Raimondo issued in 2020 requiring public bodies to provide remote access during the pandemic. Gov. Dan McKee let that requirement lapse in March 2022, and in-person meetings became the default again, with virtual access left up to each council or committee to offer voluntarily.
"The decisions that are regularly made by city and town councils and school committees markedly affect residents' lives every day," ACLU of Rhode Island Executive Director Steven Brown said in a statement accompanying the report. "At the very least, there is simply no excuse in this day and age for any of these public bodies to fail to livestream or record their meetings or post their agenda packets online."
Zoe Chakoian, the ACLU's communications associate and one of the report's authors, said the stakes go beyond convenience. "If we have learned anything since 2020, it's that virtual access is possible for every council and committee to offer should they choose to," Chakoian said, adding that remote options matter most for residents with disabilities, older residents who don't want to drive at night, and people whose jobs or child care make an in-person meeting difficult to attend.
Uprise RI has started addressing part of that gap directly. The outlet is now transcribing and summarizing publicly available recordings of town and city council meetings and school committee meetings from across the state, publishing written summaries so residents don't have to sit through hours of video or show up in person to find out what their local government did. That effort applies regardless of whether a given municipality livestreams, archives or accepts remote testimony on its own.
Legislation known as H 7676 would eventually make several of the report's recommendations mandatory. The bill, which the ACLU supports, would require all city and town councils and school committees to livestream their meetings starting in 2027 and to allow remote public participation starting in 2028, along with posting agenda packets. It passed the House 59-12, with four members not voting, on May 5 and would still need Senate approval before becoming law.
The ACLU's full findings, broken down by municipality, are posted on the organization's website.