Written by Thane Grael
WESTPORT — The Zoning Board of Appeals meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday night was canceled due to internet connectivity issues with the town’s website.
Chairman Jim Ezes said he had heard there were problems with the Optimum connection.
“Due to an issue with the Optimum cable, we have had to cancel tonight’s public hearing due to concerns that interested parties who wish to attend may not be able to access the town’s website due to issues with Optimum and Zoom. I didn’t get it.’ Please link,” Ezesu said during what was supposed to be an online ZBA meeting.
“What we have decided to do is cancel tonight’s public hearing, make some adjustments to let people have their say, and we will start in April,” he said. “And to those who were coming forward tonight, [Deputy Planning and Zoning Director] Michelle Perilly is calling…”
“I think this was the best thing for the town to do. We don’t want to give people the option of coming forward,” Ezes said. “In the spirit of transparency, we want to give everyone that choice.”
There was no mention of internet outages on the town’s website, westportct.gov, Tuesday.
But there is no doubt that there has been a problem since at least Monday.
The Westport Journal received repeated error notifications Monday afternoon saying the server was unresponsive when trying to access the site.
Access to the online meeting that night was not an issue for the journal. However, it was impossible to access it overnight afterwards. I got the same error message even though I used different browsers.
There was no communication from City Hall, so it wasn’t clear how widespread the access problem was.
It’s unclear if Optimum is the town’s internet provider or if Optimum customers are the only ones having connection issues. On Tuesday night, she called one of the women selected, but she did not immediately respond.
Two other meetings scheduled for Tuesday night went ahead as scheduled.
The Architectural Review Board met at 7:30 p.m., and Chairman Ward French said he had not received any notice of any connectivity issues.
The Environmental Committee of Representative Town Meeting will also be held at 7:30 p.m., and District 7 Chairwoman Ellen Rothenberg also said she has not heard of any technical issues.
Members of another town association told the Westport Journal on Tuesday that they had received information that some officials’ emails sent from the town account were bouncing back.
Thane Grael grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in and around Fairfield County for 36 years.please contact him editor@westportjournal.com.Learn more about us here.
