February 12, 1998

A TOWN HALL MEETING FOR SMALL BIZ -- ON THE NET, OF COURSE

What's become of the Electronic Town Hall? For decades, politicians and civic do-gooders touted technology -- from radio to television to satellite hook-ups -- as a way for workaday citizens to jawbone with their elected officials back in Washington. While some of the tools have brought the capital, and all its TV-unfriendly processes, into the nation's living rooms (see C-SPAN), they have yet to create true interactivity between pol and plebe.

On Feb. 12, the Senate's small business committee will try to close that interactive gap, as it converts an otherwise humdrum hearing on IRS reform into an elaborate electronic experiment. Using video-conference testimony from St. Louis and Salt Lake City, a live Internet broadcast, and a real-time Net chat room, the committee hopes to create a "groundbreaking" way for citizens and Congress to tackle the issues of the day.

"If it all comes together and works it will be a big feat," says Paul Cooksey, the committee's deputy chief counsel. "We're laying the groundwork for something that will become a rule rather than an exception."

That's not to say that the committee is abandoning tradition. It will still meet in one of the chamber's wood-lined hearing rooms, and two witnesses will make real-life appearances in front of the gathered panel. But, via teleconferencing, the committee also will hear from three small-business owners testifying from an office building in St. Louis (not so coincidentally, the home base for committee chairman Christopher "Kit" Bond), as well as from two other small business advocates from Salt Lake City. The Senate has used teleconferencing before, says Cooksey, but never from multiple sites.

This will also be one of the first times that a Senate committee will use Internet "chat" technology to ferry citizen questions directly into the hearing. Cooksey says committee staff members will monitor the live chat session -- available to anyone who downloads the proper software -- and send any "relevant" queries to senators on the panel.

The hearing begins at 9:30 a.m. ET, and is accessible at www.senate.gov/sbc.

By Dennis Berman in New York