Monday mornings, it can seem the meetings of the Jefferson County Commission often fill every seat set aside for the public, while the Monday evening meetings of the Port Townsend City Council don’t often sell out.

“We’ve had packed-house attendance on multiple occasions, but overall, barring any data, I’d say that’s true,” City Council member and Pro Tem Mayor David Faber said.

While City Clerk Joanna Sanders noted that attendance numbers at city meetings are not recorded, Faber agreed that it is “generally true currently” that the City Council meetings have “less engagement” from residents than those of the County Commission.

While Faber declined to say for certain why this is the case, he offered a few theories, starting with pointing out that Port Townsend’s population is roughly a third of the total county population.

“There’s also the demographics of those populations to consider,” Faber said. “We’ve heard some concerns from our constituents about driving after dark, especially during the winter.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s statistics for 2018, Port Townsend’s 65-years-and-older population is 30.4%, while Jefferson County’s is 35.6%.

Faber and Sanders joined Port Townsend Mayor Deborah Stinson in suggesting the disparity in attendance could owe to the nature of the issues being discussed, respectively, at the city and county meetings.

“The county has been touching on many more issues that relate to divides between Democrats and Republicans,” Faber said. “The city discusses a lot of technical issues that are not as controversial, whereas the county meetings feature the debates over Tarboo Ridge, shooting ranges and the housing crisis.”

Sanders added that issues for which the city draws more public interest are covered in the utility newsletter, with content oversight by the mayor and city manager.

“Oftentimes, such as at the last couple of council meetings, there were a fairly large number of attendees, but relatively little public comment,” Sanders said. “Some proclamations and special presentations draw individuals, and then those individuals leave shortly after the meeting begins.”

Sanders reported that attendance numbers visibly declined when the city started livestreaming meetings in 2009.

“Even the press stopped attending regularly,” Sanders said. “Livestreaming and recording just meant that you didn’t have to sit through the meeting, because you could pull it up the next morning, and jump right to a particular item of interest, or do a keyword search by topic.”

Although Faber could name a handful of “super-constituents” who regularly attend council meetings, he echoed Sanders’ assessment of the impact of livestreaming.

“It helps more people stay informed,” Faber said. “At the same time, simply streaming doesn’t enable citizens to communicate their concerns.”

Faber suspects much of the community dialogue that once took place at council meetings has since been appropriated by social media.

“If you look online, people are still communicating their concerns, but they’ve kind of bypassed the City Council,” Faber said. “We need to do a better job of capturing that, but government is a slow-moving beast.”

Stinson added that the city makes a habit of providing alternate venues for the public to engage on matters that interest them, outside of its regular council meetings.

“We try to meet them when it’s more convenient for them,” Stinson said. “If we can over-communicate these points, people won’t feel so blind-sided, and it’ll be easier to bring them along with us.”