increase font size Municipalities push to retain remote meeting capabilities adopted for pandemic Maine was one of only seven states before the COVID-19 pandemic that did not allow municipalities to hold remote meetings. But attitudes have shifted in the past year. Share Municipal leaders across Maine want the option to continue holding remote public meetings even after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, describing enhanced public access as one silver lining of the disruption caused by the coronavirus. Prior to the pandemic, Maine was one of only seven states that did not explicitly allow municipalities to conduct public meetings remotely. So when state lawmakers granted that authority in March 2020 as COVID-19 cases first began appearing in Maine, town councils, school boards and other municipal governing bodies scrambled to figure out how to do it.