On Tuesday, the Brentwood City Council will review its process for public comments and the use of virtual platforms for public comments.
Staff is asking the council to provide direction of how it wishes to move forward with the use of virtual platforms. This comes after during its Sept. 26 meeting, subjected to vile, racist, and offensive comments from anonymous public participants virtually through what is described as a “zoom attack” or “zoom bomb.”
Brentwood came out this week where they condemned the attack.
Other cities have had to deal with Zoom public commenting where the City of Antioch rejected a proposal to bring back zoom, El Cerrito suspended zoom public commenting, while Walnut Creek announced it was ending zoom commenting.
During its Sept. 26 meeting, staff was able to mute speakers because those using hate speech were not talking on the specific agenda item—if they were able to speak during general public comments, they would be unable to mute the virtual participate.
According to the staff report, currently, the City Council allows public comment to occur both in person and virtually through Zoom. The vast majority of these recent verbal attacks across the state and country have occurred virtually, not in person. The City is not required to offer public participation via Zoom or any other virtual platform when public meetings are taking place in person. Virtual participation was instituted during the early days of the pandemic, when it was judged unsafe to meet in person and the public needed a way to participate; it has been carried over as a courtesy as public meetings have resumed and the pandemic has waned.
The council will discuss Public Participation Options:
Option A keeps the status quo, and will not stop or restrict a virtual participant from sharing hate speech.
Option B, without any additional measures, will not stop or restrict a virtual participant from sharing hate speech. The purpose of this option is to try to mitigate the impact of hate speech on residents and others participating in a council meeting. A variety of mitigation measure can be instituted, but it will not eliminate the risk.
Options C and D are the only two options that would protect the City from hate speech shared over Zoom during a Council meeting. The City Council is not required by law to allow virtual comment, and the current process was established as a courtesy to allow other options for public participation during COVID
Although options C and D would mitigate virtual hate speech, a participant could still attend in person to express their views and opinions. Just in the last month, the cities of Walnut Creek, Concord, Sacramento, Ceres, Modesto, Livermore, Redwood City, Santa Rosa and County of Santa Rosa all eliminated virtual comments due to its abuse and many more jurisdictions are considering similar measures. All of the options, including C and D, would not restrict a resident or any other individual from providing written comment to the City Council if they were unable or did not want to attend in person. Residents would still be able to view the meeting on Zoom, YouTube, and the City’s website.
According to the staff report, any change to the current public comment process will affect those seeking to participate in Brentwood’s public meetings, but this agenda item allows the City Council to discuss and consider changes. Regrettably, once a community is targeted by these vile attacks, it has not been a one-time occurrence.
Brentwood City Council Meeting
CITY COUNCIL/SUCCESSOR AGENCY AGENDA
Zoom Webinar ID: 760 1397 0037
