MONROE — Abusive hate speech by anonymous people online during the public comments period of the Dec. 5 City Council meeting has prompted the city to temporarily halt taking remote public testimony at all of its council, board and commission meetings.
The council established the new rule by a unanimous vote at its Dec. 12 meeting. The council’s next scheduled council meeting is Jan. 9 inside the Monroe School District office, 14841 179th Ave. SE.
The suspension on remote comments will stay for now, but would be re-evaluated in the spring, Mayor Geoffrey Thomas said last month.
Thomas said the city wants to hear from its residents about things important to the city of Monroe, and can through both written and in-person comments. People can send written comments to councilmembers@monroewa.gov
Monroe was one of the most recent affected by a trend seen in multiple cities in multiple states of online speakers making disruptive hate speech.
Lake Stevens’ council meeting was disrupted by anti-Semitic speakers in October, for example. Lynnwood was hit in November. Everett was hit in late September. A Tacoma council meeting saw similar interference, according to the Tacoma News Tribune.
Everett edited the hate speech out of the meeting recording poted on its YouTube channel. As of Dec. 28, Monroe hasn’t published any video or audio recording from Dec. 5’s meeting.
The public speakers at the Dec. 5 meeting included nearly one dozen residents who spoke about safety concerns at crosswalks in reaction to recent accidents where people were hit in crosswalks.
But seven people gave comments irrelevant to city business that were anti-Semitic. Some opposed Israel’s military. More than one spoke blatantly in favor of white supremacy, from a reporter’s review of the recording.
One faked a voice and said he was Dr. Tony Martin (who died in 2013), who was an author of books widely regarded as anti-Semitic.
Thomas halted the first anti-Semitic speaker and council moved to postpone public comment time to the end of the meeting agenda.When public comment time reopened about 50 minutes later, a wave of speakers speaking against Judaism came back again. They took up about 30 minutes.
One person the mayor warned would be muted began insulting the mayor back.
Thomas made a statement before the end of the meeting that “a group of remote participants using fake anti-Semitic names made a series of racist and anti-Semitic public comments. While the City of Monroe supports the public’s First Amendment rights, it does not tolerate hate speech
and it outright condemns hate speech. People who attempt to abuse the City of Monroe’s public forum in the future — virtually, that is remotely, or in person — should be on notice that hateful speech or behavior will be swiftly condemned.”
Cities can pre-emptively disallow remote public comments. Gig Harbor set its rule after seeing disruptions at meeting in other Pierce County cities, the Tacoma News Tribune reported.
The Municipal Research Service Center says outside of banning remote comments altogether, two alternatives to are to limit public comment to just items on the meeting agenda, versus having a general public comment time, or secondly to try to verify and vet online speakers ahead of time by requiring them to sign a speaker sheet to be allowed to give public comments remotely. The Monroe school board uses a control similar to this where online speakers must sign up many hours ahead.
