SAUGUS — The Board of Selectmen in Saugus is ready to go live.
The board will meet in the second-floor auditorium in Town Hall Tuesday at 7 p.m. for the first time since retreating to Zoom meetings last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And Chairman Anthony Cogliano is thrilled.
“I can’t wait,” he said. “It’s long overdue.”
Cogliano feels that as COVID protocols throughout the state ease, it’s time for local governments to follow suit.
“I think people are out and about everywhere,” he said. “Restaurants are open. Stores are open. Thank goodness Town Hall is finally open. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t do it too. It’s time to get everything opened up.”
Cogliano said he’d like it if the School Committee followed suit at its next meeting, “and I know the seniors are anxious to get back into their building too. It’s been a long haul, and those are the people you are trying to protect the most.”
Cogliano knows what he is talking about. He contracted COVID-19 over the winter and considers himself fortunate things didn’t get worse than they got with him.
“For 14 days I was OK, and then I ended up with vertigo and double-pneumonia,” he said. “So I got sicker at the end. I also lost taste and smell. But after 21 days or so, I was fine.”
Cogliano said he made the decision to reopen the selectmen meetings to the public because “I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t.
“There will be no mask mandate,” he said. “Of course, if people want to wear a mask they can. But they don’t have to. I won’t be wearing one.”
Cogliano said that while there’s considerable distance between where the board sits and where the public watches anyway, those distances will be made greater at Tuesday’s meeting.
“So there shouldn’t be any problems that way,” he said. “Most of the time, we have a regular number of people who attend. Most people who wanted to get vaccinations have received them, so it’s time to get down to business.”
Cogliano said he won’t miss Zoom meetings.
“You lose a lot,” he said. “I know I found it difficult sometimes. You get a lot of side comments that pop up on Zoom, comments made in the background that get heard. And people put postings in the chat boxes that you don’t hear at regular meetings. Some of the stuff’s appropriate, but some of it isn’t.
“And we had an incident a few meetings ago where someone was drinking wine and I wouldn’t let them talk,” he said. “You wouldn’t be doing that at a regular meeting, would you?”
However, Cogliano also acknowledged that “Zoom fit a need at the height of the pandemic.
“But people are out all the time now,” he said. “They’re back in the swing of things. It’s time.”
The agenda itself isn’t very earth-shattering. There will be two license applications for the board to consider, and some correspondence to go over.
“But,” said Cogliano, “I just miss it. I miss seeing my fellow board members.”
