It is customary for the Legislature to hold an open meeting during its annual summer tour of regions around the state. But this year the lawmakers are making a two-day visit to Davis and Salt Lake counties, and they say they will not have the time to hold a conventional meeting. Instead, they will offer constituents the opportunity to join in a "virtual town meeting."

"It's an experiment in democracy," Senate President John Valen- tine said. "It's a way to broaden the way people interact with their representatives."

Today and Friday, lawmakers from around the state will focus on the problems and challenges confronting the state's historic economic heart. They have scheduled tours of everything from Chevron's petroleum refinery and Hill Air Force Base to Salt Lake City's City Creek construction project and Antelope Island State Park.

A further obstacle to a town meeting was finding a central point amid the urban Wasatch Front's demographic diversity, said Valentine's chief of staff, Ric Cantrell.

"The logistical hardships of history have always been time and distance," Cantrell said. "By holding a virtual town meeting, we have evaporated both those issues."

The distance-shrinking nature of the Internet is obvious, but a Web meeting also is extremely convenient, Cantrell said. "You can be just as much a participant at 7 a.m. in your pajamas."

During past conventional town meetings, which typically last about two hours, people handed in their questions on cards.

The virtual public meeting, instead, will begin this morning and continue until Thursday evening. Citizens can submit questions online at any time, and lawmakers, who will be on tour, will respond promptly, Valentine said.

Cantrell admits something will be lost in taking public meetings to the Web. "You lose body language and the ability to look your representative in the eye," he said. "You lose the ability to judge the person."

Minority leader Rep. Ralph Becker says it's healthy for the Legislature to innovate ways to listen to the public. "A virtual town meeting is a great way for us to be accessible over a couple of days," the Salt Lake Democrat said.

Valentine promises that all questions will be fielded - unless they are libelous or personal attacks.

"I would hope that the only things they would clean out are questions that are simply offensive, such as obscenities," Becker said. "To screen on a political basis would be absolutely wrong."

Cantrell says the Senate's successful blog site has established a reputation for allowing debate to range freely.

"If [the virtual meeting] is a respectful, informative, even humorous conversation - that's great," Cantrell said. "But we are not going to let it degenerate into a partisan food fight."

gwarchol@sltrib.com