West Jordan’s City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to change a 14-year-old rule governing council members’ electronic participation in its meetings.
The new rule will allow council members to connect remotely to meetings according to state law. Previously, the rules would only allow electronic participation in case of a city emergency, if a council member was out of town for official city business, for unique circumstances or for any reason if the rules were suspended.
“It was very old,” said Councilman Dirk Burton about the previous rule. “The one we have now follows very closely the state’s requirements.”
The issue came to a head this summer when some members of the council would not allow Chad Nichols, an at-large councilman, to participate in meetings via webcam. Nichols is on temporary work relocation to Alaska with the Federal Aviation Administration.
At the time, Nichols told The Tribune that his colleagues were blocking him over “hurt feelings.” Burton, who voted with two others to oppose suspending the rules to allow Nichols to participate, said he was just following procedure.
“Because of the situation we had before, I didn’t feel that the remote connection fit under our rules,” Burton said. “And after talking with several people and with the council member who had that [need], we decided what we really need to do is make our rules updated so we can make a determination and give them the right to do that.”
Nichols said he is “very excited” about the change.
“It wasn’t an issue about me — it was an issue about inclusion, about hearing the voice of each council member,” he said. “I think that’s the win. The fact that we can have all voices heard on the council, regardless of our situation for business or even family travel, allows us to be more inclusive.”
Nichols won’t be gone longer than a year and said he’ll only need to attend one more meeting electronically for the rest of his term. That means state residency law, which requires elected officials to live in the district they serve, will likely not come into play in his absence.
But Burton said his preference is still for councilmembers to attend meetings in person rather than electronically.
“I believe in-person meetings are much better because you can see body language and movements and you can have a better connection when you speak to people,” he said. “So that is always my first choice, and I would encourage members to always do that as their first choice.”