Last week, Alna selectmen stopped their in-person and Zoom meeting about an hour and a half in, because the Internet went out. Monday, when Wiscasset's planning board chair could not get Zoom going, that in-person and would have been Zoom meeting proceeded in person and all the night's business got done. Both boards made the right call.

How's that?

For one thing, neither panel had a public hearing that night, so that removes a potential issue of the public's participation in one. The planning board had applications to decide on, and in Alna the selectmen and the public, in person and over Zoom, to the board, had been discussing the Ben Brook Bridge project.

Wiscasset's planning board regularly accepts public comments and questions, but, most of the time, gets nowhere near the public participation of Alna's selectboard meetings. While last week's Alna meeting broke no records on this, public comments were numerous as the board mulled how to proceed with preliminary aspects of the bridge project. And when the town office lost the Internet, a resident had been speaking. 

The project's planning and funding have time-sensitive aspects; however, delaying the discussion until the selectboard meets Dec. 19 has not precluded the board from making progress on these items in the meantime, including updating the action plan. By picking up the discussion next time, the board has maintained transparency, and the potential for more public input in a local issue that has drawn some debate.

Conversely, postponing the proposals before Wiscasset's planning board this week could have impacted the applicants and their projects for no reason that appeared to outweigh that impact.

Techno-issues arose in two towns, and both panels responded in the best interests of those towns.