XENIA — The public will be able to watch Greene County commissioners’ meetings live starting Thursday.

The board’s office at 35 Greene Street, where meetings are held weekly on Thursdays at 1 p.m., is closed to the public in an effort to decrease the spread of the coronavirus.

All regular meetings — and work sessions which sometimes follow — will now be livestreamed via Facebook Live until further notice. Viewers should visit the Greene County, Ohio – Government Facebook page to tune in. This complies with Ohio’s Open Meetings Act, which requires all public bodies to conduct public business in open meetings that are accessible to the public. House Bill 197, which addresses issues related to the state’s response to COVID-19, allows local governments to hold public meetings remotely as long as the public has access.

Commissioners will attend the meetings via teleconference.

Public comments or questions to the board concerning agenda items may be submitted to Lisa Mock, clerk of the board, at [email protected] by 10 a.m. on the day of the meeting.

Beginning in February 2018, the board began videotaping each meeting and posting the video within a week on the county’s website at www.co.greene.oh.us. The move came after regular meeting attendees pushed for the addition, stating that meeting attendance was often low, possibly because people were at work in the early afternoon. The board ordered the equipment and developed a set of policies and procedures before starting the new system.

Before that, the public could access audio recordings from each meeting.

The commissioners will go live at 1 p.m. Thursday, April 9.