The City of Pleasant Hill said it will become the latest Bay Area city to suspect remote comments during public meetings, after it was targeted Tuesday by hate speech.
Pleasant Hill joins San Francisco, Walnut Creek, Concord, Union City, San Ramon, Livermore, and Sonoma County as municipalities that have restricted Zoom and phone-in public comments during public meetings, which became popular during the pandemic as a way for boards to hear from constituents.
In many cases, the callers remained anonymous or used fake names to push antisemitic and white nationalist and other far right views, much of which had nothing to do with city or county business.
Pleasant Hill Mayor Tim Flaherty said Thursday in a statement Tuesday city council meeting was “the latest target of an organized effort by an anonymous group to disrupt local agencies’ orderly conduct of public meetings with vile, offensive hate speech.”
“In light of this incident and reflecting upon the rise of these incidents in the Bay Area, the state, and throughout the nation, the City of Pleasant Hill has made the difficult decision to suspend the availability of remote participation in city meetings,” Flaherty said.
“The meetings will continue to be livestreamed, and residents can view them via the city’s YouTube channel, website, and on cable television, but no remote access for public participation will be available for any of the city’s public meetings until further notice.
Showing up to meetings to comment is still allowed in all California public meetings. The state’s Brown Act, which governs the rules of public meetings in the state, requires municipalities to allow people to comment in person.
Written correspondence is also permitted in most cases. Flaherty said comments submitted via email or through the mail on any agenda item, or a general statement on a non-agenda item, can be received by staff up until 4 p.m. on the day of a meeting and be included in the meeting’s minutes.
“We recognize that this will be an inconvenience for those viewing our meetings remotely, and we apologize for that,” Flaherty said. “However, in order to prevent the disruption of our public meetings, it is a necessary step. Hate speech and attacks on members of the population are not welcome in Pleasant Hill, and we cannot permit our public meetings to be disrupted.”
Translated: Israel right or wrong!
If you have something to say go to the meetings and sign up to speak. Haven’t heard the telephone calls so I don’t know how bad they are.
As long as in-person commenting is available, I don’t see a problem with this, other than the term “hate speech.” All speech except a vanishing small number of exceptions is protected under the constitution, and use of the term should be frowned upon by government actors. Just the same, if someone wants to spout that garbage, they need to show up in person, and show their face to the world, not hide behind a phone line.
100% with you in regards to the “hate speech” comment. No government official should ever utter such a broadly used, ill defined term in a discussion about restricting speech.
I recommend the Clayton City Council follow suit after watching the meeting on 10-17-2023.
Pursuant to your comment, I just watched the public comment portion. What exactly did you find objectionable?
@Rollo Tomasi
Calling the Clayton Mayor and two Councilmembers “scumbags” and “three stooges” wasn’t necessary, especially by a man in a tank top………eew. It was all just the same old, same old…….everyone bashing the Mayor. The meeting even had an ex-mayor (appearing to attempt to try and stay relevant) instructing the Council and how to act. A woman called in twice who sounded like she couldn’t stop eating while she was speaking. Just another pathetic display of townspeople NOT DOING THE RIGHT THING!!!
Sounds suspiciously like you’d prefer to silence the speech of those you disagree with or disapprove of. How patriotic of you. I have a very low opinion of the former mayor myself, but I have no desire to see him or his wife silenced. Speech we approve of doesn’t need the first amendment, does it?
@Rollo Tomasi
I apologize that my post was not clearer. Never have I advocated for anyone to be silenced…..just the opposite in fact. I was not being unpatriotic, I was just informing you of what you missed, and that’s all there is to it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some books to burn.
I responded to your request; however, the expletive words I referenced that a zoom public speaker said caused my post to be censored—watch 3hr20min into the meeting and tell me if this is not hate speech.
OK, listened to all three speakers. I’ll need you to define “hate speech”. What I heard were three speakers using some coarse, vulgar language to express their disagreement with some council members and their policies. Again, if you believe sophomoric name calling constitutes hate speech, I’m going to need a definition from you since there is no legal definition.
Hate speech is defined by the whiners as anything that “offends” them.
You are right, there is no ‘definition’ of hate speech; however, social media already has algorithms to filter what they believe the definition is… I say let them spew their vulgar language in person—cara a cara!
Presumably you were triggered mostly by first of those three speakers, who was right there with his face on the camera for everyone to see. If what he has to say vexes you so much, isn’t it simpler to just cut his Zoom feed than to have security remove him from the meeting in person?
There was no triggering for me, it is cumulative after watching almost 4 yrs. of zoom meetings—level of decorum has reached rock bottom, in my opinion– It feels like watching an episode of Jerry Springer (sans the paternity test). I am glad you inferred that the speaker would’ve been removed if in person. It is time to bring back civility.
Why not let the public record a comment then play them at the meetings after they’ve filtered out any “offensive” ones?
@Captain Bebops – I have been wondering the same thing. We always have had the ability to write a letter that will then be published as part of “public comments.” To avoid infringing on someone’s “rights” the writer needs to also provide full contact information that will both be vetted and will be published as part of the letter. Public comments via audio or video would be handled the same way. They get recorded, transcribed, and published assuming the identity of the sending can be established.
I’m not sure how to best handle someone writing or speaking on behalf of an organization many of which use deceptive or misleading names.
If there is any filtering it should be in a somewhat public way. I like what Yelp does where there’s a button to see filtered reviews. I don’t have a good fix for how to deal with information that may be deemed false or misleading or that advocates attacking or violence against specific people or groups.
“… to push antisemitic and white nationalist and other far right views.”
I didn’t realize, Tlaib, Omar, Pressley and Bush were such far right lunatics. They are the main sources of the most recent rabid antisemitism.
Look at it this way:
Those Nimrods up in Oregon still believe all their problems are due to far right views. Meanwhile, Antifa regularly attempts to burn down their cities. Hey, I respect their right to be slow learners.
It’s easy for our local Nimrods to feel the same, especially as they have not experienced far left violence yet. Perhaps that’s why they are so scared.
Recording of PH meeting was on YouTube. Six consecutive callers sounded to be supporters of Rashida Tlaib or possibly Harvard University students.
What a surreal argument to have…which of the two apparent ideologies is more prone to violence. Both sides get real quiet when their ideology sins, but screams in outrage when the other does. I watch it every day. That sh&t has to stop or we’re all doomed.
Well, you guys are, I have fresh passports. 😝😎