On Tuesday, the Antioch City Council voted to move forward with council meetings in person and opted not to bring back Zoom or teleconference participation back.
This was brought to the council at the request of Mayor Pro Tem Tamisha Torres-Walker who requested the item during the June 7 meeting. If approved, it would have allowed the public to chime in during public comments or on items of an agenda through teleconference and not have to physically be in the council chambers to participate.
Back on February 28 the council unanimously approved its motion to conduct its meetings without Zoom and instead be in person—which included city council and city boards, commissions, and committees (note – Torres-Walker & Wilson both were absent)
During public comments, several members of the public advocated to bring back teleconference in an effort to allow more people to participate in meetings. One public commenter accused the mayor of not wanting to hear from the public as he blocks or limits people from commenting on social media.
Torres-Walker accused Mayor Lamar Thorpe of making up the rules as they go in limiting public comments while stating teleconference allows more members of the public to participate and offer their opinions on items–she also shared the council would remain in person, but the public could participate remotely.
“There is a large public who want to be here. Older people have called me, people with disabilities called me, people who work join in. They join in while they are at work because they want to be informed but are not here because they just can’t be here,” said Torres-Walker. “Whether you have 100 people in a room or 100 people on zoom trying to comment, it’s the same math. Its not different.
Torrs-Walker There have been things implemented by the Mayor Lamar Thorpe that limits public comments.
“Like the mayor coming in saying you can’t comment on every public comment period, if you comment on the first one you can’t comment on the last one” sad Torres-Walker. “There are rules being made up as we go. There is a large part of the public who can’t be here in person.”
She argued that part of their business as councilmembers is listening to the public.
“If we can’t take time to listen to the peoples business we are doing, then none of us should be up here,” said Torres-Walker. “At least the public should be allowed to teleconference in. I didn’t know why we didn’t allow it to continue for the public anyway. I sat here for almost three years with people calling in everything from child of god, grossly misinformed all the time and I was told to get thick skin and this is what I signed up for and everything. Nobody wanted to vote to take teleconferencing away until they started experiencing that same backlash. Now its like, if somebody want to talk crap to me, then they have to show up in public to do it.”
She urged the council to bring teleconference back for the public.
Thorpe shot back at Torres-Walker stating he wanted to clarify comments.
“We are not making up rules as we go along,” said Thorpe who said not making two comments during the meeting was pointed out by the city clerks office and confirmed with city attorney. “It wasn’t a rule that was made up as we were going along. We just didn’t enforce the rule and it was pointed out to me to enforce the rule by the city clerks office.”
Without any other discussion, councilmember Mike Barbanica made a motion to move forward to conduct meetings in person and without bringing back zoom/teleconference.
The item passed in a 3-1-1 vote Thorpe, Barbanica and Ogorchock voting “yes” with Torres-Walker dissenting and Monica Wilson abstaining.
At the end of the meeting during future agenda items, Torres-Walker again asked they bring the item back in the future while telling the public to pay attention who they vote for in the 2024 election because the council didn’t want to hear from the public.
Editors Note
- With Zoom was available, the Antioch City Council meetings have been utilized for folks to make anonymous comments through teleconference and attack the council.
- On Sept. 20, the City of Sacramento issued a statement that council meetings are now done in person and have phased out virtual meetings and will hold in-person meetings for all its boards, commissions and committees.
- Over the past year, the City of Walnut Creek, San Jose, Richmond were the target of several people calling in spewing “hate”.
- Sept. 25 – Antioch Could Bring Back “Zoom” for Council Meetings
3 comments
This council has much more important issues to focus on.
Why on earth would anyone sitting there abstain from voting? Monica doesn’t seem to have her own mind or opinion? Walker made some valid points on public participation.
They want to take away the zoom because they know that it’s more difficult for a hard-working responsible residents to make the meetings in person. This way they can do whatever they want with less objection. Barbanica is a pawn, he might almost be as worthless as Thorpe.
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