Incoming city councilors elected Tuesday said they want to update Bangor’s public comment rules following repeated uses of hate speech in recent public meetings.
Sitting councilors and new ones alike have shared a range of ideas to address the issue, with some in favor of ending Zoom video participation completely and others hoping to improve behavior by implementing new restrictions. Many seem to agree that the council needs to take action to prevent speakers joining in via Zoom from derailing meetings.
Three newcomers are joining the council at a particularly chaotic moment. Speakers likely using fake names have disrupted four meetings in the past three weeks, calling in to make hateful attacks using slurs and white supremacist rhetoric. Councilors put off considering any policy changes until after Tuesday’s election, which means the new members now have the chance to weigh in on solutions.
“I find them appalling,” Councilor-elect Susan Faloon said Wednesday of the hateful comments, “and really unfortunate because it’s just been such a distraction from the regular work of the council, unnecessarily.”
The recent spate of attacks began Oct. 15 when multiple speakers on Zoom were cut off for using profanity and homophobic slurs. At the time, councilors said they would reconsider the rules around Zoom participation, but that discussion won’t be held until after the new councilors are sworn in.
Incidents of hate speech have only increased since then, with speakers making similar remarks during the Oct. 21 Planning Board meeting, the Oct. 27 council meeting and Monday’s council meeting.
The attacks came to a head Monday night, when outgoing Council Chair Rick Fournier ended Zoom comments early for the night after cutting off six speakers for making personal attacks against councilors and other community members and spewing antisemitic remarks and racial slurs, including a council candidate who lost Tuesday, Richard Ward.
“I would be completely fine with just eliminating them,” Faloon said of the Zoom comments. “It’s just been abused.”
Faloon added that she thinks the council could still allow community members to request to join virtually if there are extenuating circumstances, but that most community members are able to come to meetings in person. “And they still have the option of emailing council members,” she said.
Daniel Carson, another incoming councilor, said Wednesday he wouldn’t support ending Zoom participation altogether, but that he thinks the city should add more requirements, such as mandating that participants join with a Zoom account rather than joining as a guest.
While he said it was unfortunate that people were making hateful comments, he wanted to keep the option of virtual participation to accommodate community members who want to engage but cannot come in person.
“People work long hours, and it’s really important for the city to have these modes of communication so that people can make their voices heard,” Carson said. “I don’t think it works for us to go the direction of removing pathways for people to talk.”
Angela Walker, the third candidate elected to a City Council seat Tuesday, did not respond to a request for comment.
Faloon also noted that if the council decides to continue allowing comments via Zoom, it could implement more robust requirements.
“Some other options would be, perhaps people register ahead of time and request a link,” she said, adding that she thinks speakers should also have to turn their cameras on to show their faces before speaking.
The commenters who have disrupted recent meetings all had their cameras turned off and seemed to be using fake names, often referencing neo-Nazi terrorists or code names that sound like hateful slogans when spoken aloud.
Bangor’s public comment policy requires people to state their full name and whether they are a resident of Bangor, but that rule is not always consistently enforced. Although Fournier pressed speakers to share this information Monday, some mispronounced Bangor, raising suspicions that they were lying about their places of residence.
The policy also states that the council chair can interrupt and remove “obscene, truly threatening, and overly repetitive remarks” and “disruption and disorderly behavior that interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting.”
It’s unclear when the new council will formally discuss potential changes to the rules around Zoom participation.
