Pennington is working on drafting a new Zoom meeting policy converting the borough council’s virtual format from webinars to potential meetings with a waiting room option.
Council members discussed the change in a work session meeting on Feb. 24. The borough has been researching a switch in virtual meeting formats for council since 2024.
“As you know the webinar format is the one we have now,” Mayor James Davy said. “We are moving away [from that].”
A request from a Pennington resident prompted the borough council and staff to review methods to potentially allow for the public to view who else from the public is attending the monthly council Zoom meetings even if they are not actively participating.
The borough has examined four formats – webinar (the current format), meeting format (people enter a passcode), a waiting room option (where the host of the virtual meeting individually admits each attendee), and a hybrid format (people can attend a meeting in person at Borough Hall or online virtually through Zoom).
“As soon as people access the meeting, everyone is in the meeting room [with the meeting room option],” Davy explained. “The big problem with that is if we ever have a problem like we did last year with Zoom bombers and the Zoning Board has had Zoom bombers, you can’t get rid of them. You can try to, but they can come back in.”
Zoom bombing happens when individuals join a Zoom meeting or online meeting and cause disruptions with offensive remarks and disruptive audio or video.
Davy noted how the waiting room option was an interesting format option.
“People come into the waiting room initially,” he said. “They have to wait for the host to be admitted into the main meeting. The host, Betty Sterling (borough clerk), is going to admit each participant to the meeting.
“If you are in the waiting room as briefly as you are, you cannot hear anything, you can’t see anything until you are admitted to the main room. The challenge here is that it is going to take the host Betty time to admit each participant if it is a large meeting…. people who come late to the meeting might not get noticed right away they might be admitted later on in the meeting.”
With the waiting room option there was concern with the logistics of admitting council members and participants at the same time. Davy explained, council members would have to come in sooner than participants to allow for Sterling to see and interact with council members.
“We think this waiting room option is the best way to go,” he said.
Due to Zoom bombers, the borough’s position has been to only admit people who have their full name on the screen for public comment.
In March 2024, council experienced a Zoom bomb with multiple individuals who made antisemitic remarks and cursed.
“We will probably have to have information on the website to say when you come into a council meeting put your full name on the screen, so we know who is coming to council to present,” Davy said. “The problem that presents is phone people. People who are on the phone you usually just see their number.
“A lot of this has to do with providing some level of security to avoid some of the vile things that we heard when people were Zoom bombing.”
Borough officials will still ask people when unmuted who they are and for their address.
The borough’s professional Josh Dill, partner at RnD Consulting, LLC, a firm that provides information systems analysis and information systems support, said a weak link to identity is that people don’t have to give their real name.
Councilman John Valenza noted that the free Zoom app downloaded on a smart phone gives all the same permission as someone accessing from a laptop.
Dill said the council could turn off the smart phone feature that would give audio access to a meeting.
A hybrid format, where people can attend a borough meeting in person and view virtually online, is not possible for the borough due to cost and logistics, officials said.
Proposals to retrofit Pennington’s council chambers with recording equipment would cost Pennington about $20,000 or more, Borough Administrator Gian-Paolo Caminiti had previously explained.
