The mayor has ordered city agencies back to the office as of today, and while community boards are not mayoral agencies, CB1 will start staffing the office as of now at least four days a week. However, committee meetings will continue to be remote — for now.

In the words of district manager Lucian Reynolds, it’s “back to the office (kinda).”

The meetings will continue to be remote until the governor rescinds the emergency executive order permitting that quorum for public meetings be achieved via remote meetings (right now the law states that you have to be there in person to vote). But once he does, the board is kind of stuck: none of its spaces are anything close to covid-friendly, as anyone who’s ever been to an SRO Licensing Committee knows.

So the CB1 office is hoping that the governor/state legislature will modernize the Open Meetings Law to permit remote or hybrid meetings by statute, for both members’ and the public’s sake.

In the meantime, there will be one person in the CB1 office to manage the phones and be available for the rare person who comes in for service. The conference room will be rearranged to adhere to six-foot distancing guidelines for the occasional meeting now. And Lucian noted that just before quarantine, the board purchased software and hardware that allows for 360-degree video. They haven’t plugged it in yet, but could get it going in a pinch.

So stay tuned, but it sounds to me that there will be some opportunity for meetings to continue to be live on YouTube. Here’s hoping.