Bangor city councilors decided unanimously Monday night to remove the option for people to give public comments at city meetings via Zoom, at least for the time being.
Councilors agreed they would revisit the public comment rules and consider bringing back Zoom participation in January.
The policy change follows four consecutive weeks of disruptions by agitators who joined meetings under fake names to deliver slurs and other hate speech. It also comes as three new members join the council and officials say they hope the group can have a fresh start after a chaotic few months.
“It’s taken away from the job we have to do,” City Councilor Michael Beck said of the disruptions in a workshop.
Councilors decided at the start of Monday’s meeting, before approving the policy change, not to allow any remote comments that night, and there were no disruptions.
Some councilors have previously suggested taking steps to regulate remote participation without banning it outright. Four community members spoke in person at Monday’s meeting to make similar suggestions.
“In a perfect world, I think there would be a technology-based way to manage this issue effectively” while still allowing remote participation, City Manager Carollynn Lear told councilors in a workshop before Monday’s meeting.
However, she added that city staff would not be able to do so in the short term, especially since registration tools would not necessarily prevent participants from lying about their identities.
“We need to give staff the guidance and the ability to prepare for that,” said Councilor Joe Leonard, saying he wanted the council to implement remote participation in the future but that city staff needed time to find an effective way to do it.
Community members will still be allowed to watch meetings remotely and request a reasonable accommodation if they want to speak and legitimately cannot attend in person, Lear said.
Lear emphasized that people can also reach city officials by email and phone. “We do read and usually respond to every single comment that comes in through email, so it’s not as though those aren’t effective means to communicate with the city and council,” she said in Monday’s workshop.
The spate of hateful attacks that prompted the rule change began nearly a month ago and came to a head at last week’s council meeting, when outgoing Council Chair Rick Fournier ended Zoom comments early for the night after cutting off six speakers for making personal attacks against community members and spewing antisemitic remarks and racial slurs.
Councilors said last month that they wanted to revisit the policy on Zoom participation, but a decision was postponed until this week so the three new councilors elected last Tuesday could weigh in.
Bangor City Solicitor David Szewczyk noted during a Monday’s workshop that remote public comment is not required under state law.
While the state of Maine mandates that public meetings include “a reasonable opportunity for public comment” on city business, the law “does not preempt or restrict the municipal governing body from adopting and enforcing reasonable standards governing public comment, including time limits and conduct standards.”
Under the First Amendment, meetings like town halls and city councils are usually considered “limited public forums,” and officials “may impose reasonable content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions” on speech so they can conduct their business efficiently, according to guidance from the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center.
