City councilors will require “cameras on” for virtual commenters
Antisemitic comments prompted the city council to update its code of conduct. Hateful comments, delivered virtually, overwhelmed public comment periods two meetings in a row.
Responding to a deluge of antisemitic comments, the Laramie City Council has updated its code of conduct for public meetings.
Members of the public wishing to address the council via Zoom will now have to show their face on camera. They’ll also have to keep their comments relevant to the council and its work.
“These code of conduct revisions really are the result of some of the things that we’ve had in our public comments recently,” Mayor Brian Harrington told his fellow councilors. “And they’re an effort to try to deter some of that.”
Last month, a council meeting was disrupted by antisemitic and other bigoted comments from virtual commenters, at least some of whom were using false names.
As the council met Tuesday — in part to pass the code of conduct resolution — antisemitic remarks once again flooded in during the open public comment period at the outset of the meeting. The commenters, at least three of them back-to-back, appeared to be calling in from outside Wyoming. None of them could name a real address in the city, instead offering up fake addresses. And their descriptions of Wyoming — if they talked about Wyoming at all — were general, pontificating about Yellowstone and buffalo rather than anything relevant to Laramie or the southeast region of the state.
Mayor Brian Harrington gave the first three commenters a chance to speak, interrupting them to point out the addresses they gave were fake, but letting them speak until their comments became obviously antisemitic — such as when they started referencing specific conspiracy theories and referring explicitly to “the Jews.”
Once they crossed that threshold, Harrington booted them from the meeting.
“That sort of antisemitism won’t be tolerated and if the next folks have similar ideas, you will also be removed from the meeting,” he said.
After the third such comment — and preparing to welcome a fourth commenter who looked about to offer the same — the mayor started weighing the possibility of shutting down virtual public comments altogether.
“If this continues to be a pattern, I’m not sure that I am interested in providing a platform for folks to insert their hateful comments into our meeting,” he said.
City Attorney Bob Southard gave him the green light.
“It’s disruptive to this meeting, besides being odious,” Southard said. “And this council, in this meeting, does not have to listen to these people spout this filth.”
The council then voted unanimously to close virtual public comments. Before moving on, Mayor Harrington offered one final condemnation of the antisemitic commenters.
“I will let the folks know online this will be your welcome every time you join our council,” he said.
Later in the meeting, the council took up Resolution 2023-84, which updates the general rules for public comments. The resolution adds language requiring that call-ins keep their comments “germane” to the item they’re commenting on (or, during general public comments on non-agenda items, germane to the city and that which the city can control).
“No attendee or speaker at any council meeting may impede the orderly conduct of the meeting by, including but not limited to, making threats, using obscene language, making personal attacks, engaging in indecent or threatening behavior or violent actions, or engaging in loud or disruptive behavior, or violate rules governing council meetings,” the new language states. “The mayor may order the expulsion from the meeting of any person engaging in such behavior, which order may be appealed by any member of Council according to council’s normal rules.”
The resolution also requires commenters to turn their cameras on when addressing the council, and it requires the councilors themselves to turn their own cameras on when speaking or voting. The provision requiring cameras was actually in the works before the council started fielding antisemitic comments, Councilor Brandon Newman said.
“Honestly, I started writing this way before that last meeting,” he said. “We want transparency throughout the city but there are members of city council who, when we Zoom in, we don't turn our cameras on when we’re speaking to the public or to the council.”
Newman said he was guilty of this himself, and had been called out for it.
“And I didn’t have a real answer on why I didn’t turn my camera on,” he said.
The original resolution requiring cameras was expanded to include the code of conduct updates after the antisemitic comments last month. Harrington said he hoped the new rules would deter that sort of behavior by giving him, as mayor, the power to shut down bogus, bigoted comments more immediately.
Councilor Erin O’Doherty supported the resolution but said it could raise other issues. At least once before, the council’s meeting was Zoom-bombed by somebody streaming pornography.
The new resolution might give the mayor greater latitude to boot commenters, but no solution will ever be perfect, City Clerk Nancy Bartholomew said.
“If we give members of the public on Zoom the ability to be seen — so you can see facial expressions and things like that — there’s no way to 100 percent block that out,” Bartholomew said.
Ultimately, the councilors said they were disappointed by the hateful comments that have poured in across the last two meetings.
“We literally fought a war against Nazis and it was the same propaganda that’s being regurgitated,” O’Doherty said. “People have free speech, but we don’t have to give them a platform to do it. We don’t have to provide the soapbox.”
Thanks for this write up. I really hope these new rules stop this crap.