At 1:30 pm on Tuesday, March 24, 2026, the City of Ely is zooming a Landform Comprehensive Review Plan Proposal meeting. This might be the first time any City meeting has been zoomed? This is indeed progress towards transparency, but was proper and/or adequate notice used to inform the public about an open meeting?
What is the zoomed meeting about?
There are no easily accessible details provided. Look at the screen snapshots below. This certainly limits informed public transparency and input. Does this official city meeting follow open meeting laws? Is this zoom meeting sponsored by Planning & Zoning or the newly formed Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee? How is the City of Ely expecting the public to get details? Some people don’t want to call City Hall – and shouldn’t have to in this age of technology – for details. City Hall isn’t accessible 24/7/365.
The City of Ely contracted with Midco to broadcast live only 3 meetings, not all public meetings. The Telecommunications Advisory Board could not – didn’t have the will – to select or negotiate a contract with Midco that would provide free 24/7/365 access to stream all City meetings. City Hall, the Mayor, and City Council did not push for free 24/7/365 streaming access. Someone came up with the idea of Zooming as a potential partial solution. Thank you to whoever came up with this idea, however . . .
The problem with this specific meeting is that there seems to be no official public notice, at least not on these City of Ely websites.
Ely Public Notices website https://www.ely.mn.us/notices
The only notice to the public seems to be on the City Public Calendar website https://www.ely.mn.us/calendar
Most/all of us only see “1:30 pm Landfor” on our screens.
Here are the commissions, committees and boards in the City of Ely. Only 3 meetings are (re)broadcast. If you do not subscribe to Midco, you cannot watch. You have to live in Ely and pay for TV access and not just internet to watch these 3 meetings.
Click the link on the calendar for a link to the zoom
Click the link on the calendar for a link to the zoom https://www.ely.mn.us/calendar
The link for details gives the email addresses for those invited to the meeting. The addresses are not posted here, because those individuals might not know the addresses are publicly posted.
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