LETTER: Unintended consequences of streaming meetings
March 24, 2026
By Travis Fifield
The following was submitted to The Rising Tide as an open letter to the community:
The issue of streaming Stonington select board meetings was again on the agenda at the March 16th meeting and I wanted to articulate my position a little better here than I could have over zoom that night. Yes, I was the one calling in remotely, but there is a difference between accommodating unusual circumstances and building an entire system around them.
One of the things I really like about our select board, and about in person meetings, is that you can genuinely sit down at the table undecided. There have been no outside deliberations, no side conversations, no outside decision making—it’s live and it’s transparent. To me, this is what makes our meetings, and the conversation, real. Our board’s conversation can sometimes appear like a messy, informal process but that isn’t necessarily a weakness of the process. It’s the real-time working conversation, and the real-time decision making. It is open government. When a board member comes to a meeting undecided, it’s a prime opportunity for a townsperson to also gain understanding, say their piece, and sway the board in the direction they want to see it move in. We saw that at Town Meeting a few weeks ago—one or two voices at a pivotal, undecided juncture can shift the direction of the entire town.
How might all that change with streaming and archiving? First, nobody wants to see or hear a clip of themselves circulating on social media the morning following a meeting saying “I don’t know” or maybe struggling to understand, and so board members come to meetings with their position already decided. They stop asking questions that might make them look uninformed and they stop saying “actually that changes my mind.” Every sentence gets pre-scripted and lawyered-up before it gets spoken. The meetings become a presentation of pre-determined positions instead of real working conversations. It’s meeting theater and it’s how you get performers and politicians on these boards instead of citizens.
Second, any townsperson can now come to a meeting and talk about something sensitive. Be it a property issue, a neighbor problem, or something involving their business. They say what they say, it’s entered into minutes, everyone is engaged, and life goes on. With streaming and archiving, that same sensitive conversation lives on the internet forever and is able to be sliced and diced into snippets that suit whatever narrative a poster is trying to push at whatever time. Some townspeople may decide it’s not worth the eternal internet fame and simply stay home, silent.
On paper, a streamed and archived meeting appears more transparent, but in practice, the board—any board or committee really—would tend to become more scripted, more guarded, and more performative. The real decision making moves to a different venue outside of public view and outside of public sway. It’s not nefarious, it’s not malicious, and it’s not a conspiracy. It’s simply human nature for the real citizens who serve. In the meantime though, the folks watching from home right down the street have convinced themselves that they’re getting more access and more engagement through their headphones. In reality, they’re getting less effective involvement, less effective engagement, and less transparent government. It’s the opposite of the intended outcome. That meeting sure does sound good on YouTube though.
—Fifield is chair of the Stonington select board
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