Asheville City Council continues remote meetings, virtual participation for July 14

Press release from the City of Asheville:

Due to the locally declared State of Emergency and the State Phase 2 Safer at Home order, Asheville City Council continues to hold its meetings remotely via the city’s Public Engagement Hub, which offers multiple ways the public can participate.

The agenda for Council’s July 14 meeting is posted at this link. 

City Council wants our residents to still have the opportunity to participate in the decisions of your local government. The procedure for listening to the meeting, providing comments prior to or during the meeting, remains the same, though the numbers and the email address change for each meeting.

Ways to comment advance of the meeting:

Voicemail

All voicemail public comments must be received by 5 p.m. on Monday, July 13, by calling the city’s toll-free Public Input Line at 855-925-2801, meeting code: 9553. Before commenting, please state your name, city of residence and the item you are commenting on (Examples: Consent Agenda Item A, Public Hearing Item B, Open Public Comment).

Comments will be limited to three minutes per person per item. All comments must conform to City Council rules of decorum. Those comments that do not may be excluded. City Council will receive the transcribed voicemail comments and the comments will be posted, but they will not be heard during the Council meeting.

Email

Comments can also be submitted by emailing AshevilleCityCouncilJuly142020@publicinput.com. For the public hearing items, emails will be accepted for up to 24 hours after the close of each public hearing. City Council will receive the emailed comments electronically and the comments will be posted, but they will not be read during the Council meeting.

How to follow the live meeting

Call toll-free to listen to the meeting on your phone: 855-925-2801, meeting code: 9553. Your phone will be muted but you will be able to hear what is happening in the meeting.

—  Watch the live stream through the City of Asheville Public Engagement Hub at https://www.publicinput.com/hub/88.

—  In addition to the stream on the Virtual Engagement Hub, a live stream of the meeting is also available on the City’s YouTube Channel at youtube.com/cityofasheville. All who want to view the meeting without engaging are encouraged to view through this channel.

—  Watch on Charter Cable channel 193 and on AT&T U-Verse channel 99.

If you are watching the meeting through your television or the live stream while you are listening to the meeting by phone, please be sure to turn down the volume on your television or computer. Please also be aware there is a broadcast delay of 4-10 seconds. Television has the least delay at about 4 seconds.

Live call-in

Public comment will also be taken from a live speaker queue. For this option, community members should listen to the meeting by phone by calling 855-925-2801, meeting code: 9553. Your phone will be muted and you will hear the meeting live. At this point callers will hear, “for more options please press *.” Pressing * will allow callers to continue to listen live and join a speaker queue. Callers should only join the speaker queue during the time the agenda item on which they would like to speak is being discussed.

Calls will be played during the Council meeting in the order received for up to an hour for each agenda item. All comments will be limited to 3 minutes per person per item. All comments must conform to City Council rules of decorum. Those comments that do not may be muted.

These remote format City Council meetings are a temporary measure for the health and safety of everyone, as we collectively work through social distancing techniques to prevent the spread of COVID-19, taking into consideration guidance from the CDC, N.C. Department of Health and Human Service and Buncombe County Health and Human Services. The top priorities are the safety of our community and to slow the spread of COVID-19.

We continue to coordinate City response with Buncombe County and State officials. These actions are all designed with public health in mind, as we pull together to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.