March 28, 2025 - BOSTON - The Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA), Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC), Massachusetts Association of Regional Planning Agencies (MARPA), Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC), and Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions (MACC) issued a joint statement today thanking the Legislature and Gov. Maura Healey for enacting and signing legislation, respectively, to preserve authorizations to hold hybrid and remote public meetings in Massachusetts.

The authorizations under the state’s open meeting law, which date back to the beginning of the COVID pandemic five years ago, were scheduled to expire on March 31 if not for the bill that the governor signed into law today, which extends the options through June 2027.

“The MMA and local leaders across the state greatly appreciate the House and Senate’s quick action — and the governor’s support — to enact and sign a bill continuing these essential and effective public meeting options,” said MMA Executive Director Adam Chapdelaine. "These allowances are critical for conducting the business of municipal government in the 21st century. Over the past five years, they have increased transparency and accountability and boosted public participation and confidence.”

“We’re grateful this legislation moved to Governor Healey’s desk for consideration, and thankful for the access it has brought to government and enhanced engagement in our communities," said MAPC Executive Marc Draisen. “We, and communities across the region, unequivocally support the extension and look forward to continuing to work with, and support, municipalities to improve hybrid and remote meeting participation.”

“Having this flexibility is essential for good governance — the flexibility for how to hold public meetings allows every community, from the largest to the smallest and from urban to rural, and every committee, from the largest to the smallest subcommittee, the chance to promote public participation,” said MARPA Co-Chair and Franklin Regional Council of Government Executive Director Linda Dunlavy. “We are grateful for this extension of current practice.”

“This legislative action is critical for municipalities that were uncertain how to proceed with meetings scheduled for the coming weeks,” said MARPA Co-Chair and Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District Executive Director Jeffrey Walker. “We are grateful for this longer runway to work with the Legislature and the Administration to pursue a permanent change to the statute to enable these temporary measures to be available into the coming years.”

“School committees in Massachusetts have seen overwhelming success through the option provided for remote or hybrid meetings,” said MASC Executive Director Glenn Koocher. “The flexibility currently provided has been central to this success. MASC strongly supports making these provisions permanent.”

“The Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions applauds Gov. Healey, the House and the Senate for extending flexibility and the right to conduct in-person meetings, hybrid meetings, or virtual meetings as determined by the local commissions and boards,” said MACC Executive Director Dot McGlincy. “We hope this flexibility will become permanent in the near future.”

The five organizations are backing the permanent codification of existing Open Meeting Law provisions, as included in the Healey-Driscoll administration’s recently filed Municipal Empowerment Act.

The MEA would make hybrid and remote public meetings an explicitly allowable format under the state’s Open Meeting Law, which governs the public’s right to access government meetings. These authorizations have been extended several times now since the pandemic forced remote accommodations in 2020.

The five local government groups say that codifying the current authorizations would ensure that municipalities can decide when to implement remote or hybrid meetings, while taking into account staff capacity, public interest, and financial as well as technological resources such as technology, staff and space.

If the authorizations are allowed to expire in mid-2027, remote and hybrid meetings would become impossible under the Open Meeting Law.

Each city and town has dozens of boards, councils and commissions, which hold numerous meetings per year — often simultaneously. In total, there are more than 10,000 such boards across the Commonwealth.

In addition to the Open Meeting Law provisions in the Municipal Empowerment Act, the MMA, MAPC, MARPA, MASC and MACC also strongly support bills filed by Rep. Danielle Gregoire and Sen. Jacob Oliveira, H. 3342 and S. 2197, respectively, entitled An Act to modernize municipal meetings, town meetings, and local elections. All of these proposals would codify the public meeting provisions that have been overwhelmingly successful over the past five years.

“Despite good intentions, mandates for hybrid meetings are not practical and logistically infeasible given how local government operates,” Chapdelaine added. “We’re grateful to Gov. Healey for her thoughtful and common-sense proposal, and greatly appreciate similar bills filed by Rep. Gregoire and Sen. Oliveira, which provide additional options for legislative action this session.”