Idaho Water Resource Board Meeting Rescheduled After Zoom Debacle
By Sarah Clendenon • September 13, 2023The Idaho Department of Water Resources (IDWR) Board attempted to hold a public meeting on the topic of “cloud seeding” last Wednesday, September 6 through Zoom. The meeting was ended abruptly.
Members of the Idaho Water Resource Board include:
Jeff Raybould, Chairman
St. Anthony – At LargeAdvertisementJo Ann Cole-Hansen, Vice Chair
Lewiston – At LargeDean Stevenson, Secretary
Paul – District 3Dale Van Stone
Hope – District 1AdvertisementAlbert Barker
Boise – District 2Brian Olmstead
Twin Falls – At LargeMarcus Gibbs
Grace – District 4AdvertisementPatrick McMahon
Sun Valley – At LargeThis was the agenda for the September 6 meeting:
Cloud Seeding CommMeeting No. 2-23 Finance9-23AgendaFINALIt was immediately obvious there were potential problems. When joining online, all cameras and microphones defaulted to the ‘on’ position for every person joining the meeting. Typically in a public meeting of this kind, the moderator is knowledgeable in Zoom settings and can restrict participation to keep order.
Problems did arise, nearly immediately. Rowdy and disruptive participants wrote inappropriate statements in the chat window, shouted out offensive language, took control of the presentation screen, drew inappropriate doodles over the presenter’s slides, and verbally heckled acting Chairman Marc Gibbs.
The staff of the IDWR was able to quickly shut down the chat feature, but did not mute participants, did not find a way to stop the hijacking of the screen, and could not stop the disruptions.
Eventually it was suggested the meeting be postponed. Some attendees spoke up, voicing their frustration that the public would not be able to view the information, ask their questions, or in any way participate in what was supposed to be a public meeting. Despite those concerns, Gibbs agreed the meeting should be stopped and postponed for another time.
An email was sent on Monday, September 11 from Brian Patton, Executive Officer of the Idaho Water Resource Board, which included an amended agenda for a work session of the Board while they are on location in Salmon on Thursday, September 14, and the ‘cloud seeding’ presentation will take place Friday, September 15 beginning at 8:30am MT. Patton explained:
“You will notice that the Amended Agenda for the Idaho Water Resource Board does not include a Zoom link for remote participation. It has been replaced by YouTube link where the meeting will be streamed. I regret the necessity of making this change as I have worked to make the Water Board meeting as accessible as possible. However, as many of you are aware, the Water Board’s Cloud Seeding and Finance Committee Meetings last week were “Zoom-Bombed” forcing the Cloud Seeding Committee to adjourn without completing its business. Therefore, we are forced to make this change to prevent that unfortunate occurrence from happening again. Thank you for your understanding.”
The meeting will now be found on YouTube, which means viewers will likely not have an opportunity to ask questions or participate in any way: https://www.youtube.com/@iwrb.
7-23BoardMeetingWorkSessionAmendedAgendaFINAL (1) 7-23BoardMeetingAmendedAgendaFINALYou can find previous and future meeting dates and materials on their webpage here: Idaho Water Resource Board Meeting Materials | Idaho Department of Water Resources. The meeting from September 6 is not acknowledged in any way.
Tags: Albert Barker, Brian Olmstead, Brian Patton, Cloud Seeding, Dale Van Stone, Dean Stevenson, Idaho Department of Water Resources, Idaho Water Resource Board, Idaho’s Collaborative Cloud Seeding Program, Jeff Raybould, Jo Ann Cole-Hansen, Marc Gibbs, Patrick McMahon, Water, YouTube, Zoom
16 thoughts on “Idaho Water Resource Board Meeting Rescheduled After Zoom Debacle”
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So either the people putting this together were hopelessly incompetent with the technology or they acted like that to intentionally allow sabotage so they could move the meeting to a venue they could control, i.e. prevent comment on.
I’m not liking either option here…
So we all lose out due to a couple miscreants. Shame on them. Great excuse. Get a new tech guy to find the hackers and let the rest of us watch and comment.
No, no. They knew EXACTLY what they were doing and what would happen if they did what they did. This was planned so they could hold their meetings at a later date without opposition. Not one of you can tell me the person who set up the Zoom conference was dumb enough to think wide-open mics and full control over the screen for any Tom, Dick and Hank was totally acceptable.
Government officials have finally found a way to stifle the public and do whatever the hell they want, there’s not one thing anyone can or will do about it either. After all, those that oppose this kind of crap have no way to attend in person to dispute these insidious proceedings because we have jobs and need to work daily so we can continue to support these criminals by way of taxation.
Agreed.
Sure appears to be a set of leftist tactics to me!
You know they did, they know they did, and we all know there’s nothing any of us can do about it. That’s why “conspiracy theorist” was invented: It’s simply an effective rebuttal and shutting down of anyone who smells the rat in the room.
The Left has developed a complete and effective set of tools for taking advantage of your own decency and law abiding nature. They encroach just slowly enough to always be able to offer a stinky smelling excuse. I think they even have a word for it…..”plausible deniability”.
Either way, the fact that the excuse is always one that allows them to get their way, while removing more of your input and rights, is one that stands out as regular, and even predictable, over time.
And it has a bonus of being able to transfer the stench to us, their opponents, with a simple label that smugly demonizes any questioning, or noticing of how it always works in their favor.
Preventing people from commenting or asking questions changes the very structure of our democratic republic. They spoke about the cloud seeding at the water summit and told us it was absolutely safe. They failed to mention that long term use & the effects have not been studied. Oh and the studies were conducted by PG&E. You know, the people who poisoned the residents of Brinkley, CA.
I wonder if the hecklers were paid actors. There should be a money trail . . .
You know they were intentional at least, whether paid or just happy to oblige.
It’s obvious the hecklers were the people in this comment section. Take some responsibility or at least gain some self awareness.
I believe this would qualify for serious investigation. Someone could sic Veritas or O’keefe on them?
Great suggestion!
That ‘someone’ is YOU, Bill.
Why was it a flippin ZOOM meeting anyway???
We The People are standing up for ourselves. Too much government and too much intervention.
This reeks of obama era tactics, and is the new way politics are done. No sense of a sincere apology of course because it was “someone else’s fault”. And no need to even attempt fixing the actual problem, just moving directly on to a non-participation format. How clever.
Get used to it folks.
Unaccountability scams are the new normal. You see it happening in Maui on a larger scale. Everything just “didn’t work” at the right time, was withheld for strange offers of plausibility ‘reasons’, and people were told to flee toward the fire, not away from it, all with no logical explanation, and of course the ability of gov to deny knowledge.
You have to admire how well it was all coordinated though, and how no one person can be blamed, therefore no one can be blamed.
Do you see now how big government works, and the size/complexity alone is a cover for corruption that cannot be effectively questioned or challenged?