APPLETON, Wisc., (SPECTRUM NEWS) — Official meetings with one local government leader are completely out in the open.

Maryann Goymerac describes her ideas for the new Appleton Public Library.

She’s telling them to Appleton Mayor Jake Woodford who is sitting a safe distance away in the pavilion at Pierce Park.

The meeting is just one of about a dozen that Woodford scheduled in a two-hour window Friday morning. It’s a way for residents to have a direct connection to their local government in the middle of a pandemic.

“It’s a much more comfortable way to get together, get the points across that we feel are important for our community and discuss the new options for our new public library,” Goymerac says. 

The outdoor meetings are designed to be a safer way to meet. Rather than sitting in a conference room, the mayor and residents take to the outdoors, sitting in a light breeze on a sunny July morning.

You just don’t get that through email, and it’s hard to get that through video conference.“When you talk to another human being face-to-face, you have a different quality of interaction,” Woodford says. “You really see the person sitting across from you. For me, that’s really important so I’m really able to hear people and feel what they’re feeling. You just don’t get that through email, and it’s hard to get that through video conference."

Woodford expects to continue the meetings in the future, a prospect that makes Goymerac raise her eyebrows in excitement.

“It’s just a nice way for us to get to know one another,” she says. “As a community, as we’re growing larger, it still gives us that small-town feeling — and we love that.”