Common Council President Andrea Shaut is asking fellow lawmakers to consider whether or not to continue accepting public comments over Zoom after an incident last month where racist and antisemitic trolls used the platform to bombard the council and the public with hateful rhetoric. The discussion could lead to the end of a pandemic-era initiative that lawmakers have credited with boosting public participation in the city’s legislative process.

Monthly meetings of the Kingston Common Council include a 30-minute public comment period, held early in the proceedings. During the pandemic all council business, including public speaking, moved online using the Zoom platform. When in-person meetings resumed, lawmakers, noting a significant increase in public attendance and participation in the lockdown-era online meetings, chose to retain the option of using a Zoom link posted on the city’s website to speak remotely.

At a June 4 meeting, with Council Chambers crowded with speakers for and against a controversial symbolic resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, a series of remote speakers began making antisemitic statements before they were cut off by City Clerk Elisa Tinti at Shaut’s direction. The public comment period ended after other speakers waiting in the Zoom queue were able to unmute themselves and began shouting racist and antisemitic epithets. An investigation by the city’s IT department determined that the disruptive calls came from all over the country suggesting a coordinated attack organized online.

In a June 27 communication to the council’s Laws and Rules Committee, Shaut asked lawmakers to weigh their options to prevent a repeat of the troll onslaught.

“Unfortunately, the bad actors entered our meeting the same way all of our Zoom public speakers enter, by accessing our information on the city's website. Just like our regular speakers, they were called on one by one and only given access to speak when their name was called,” Shaut wrote. “Because they followed our standard process, and Zoom has confirmed that the platform and system we use have the lowest security risk, I believe we need to examine our process.”

Shaut offered four options for lawmakers to consider. One would require Zoom speakers to appear on camera in order to be called. Shaut said removing the cloak of anonymity could deter disruptive or inappropriate remarks while still allowing citizens to participate in public speaking from home. Similarly, Shaut said, she could better enforce an existing council rule that requires Zoom speakers to register via email with the City Clerk’s office no later than noon on the day of the meeting. Shaut acknowledged that “bad actors” could simply comply with the process to infiltrate the speaking queue but suggested that adding “an extra hoop to jump through” might deter trolls who could be unaware of the requirement or unwilling to take the extra step. A third option, Shaut wrote in the memo would be to do away with Zoom public comment altogether. Shaut said that constituents could instead deliver their remarks via an email to the City Clerk’s office which would then be forwarded to the council and included in the meeting agenda posted online. Finally, Shaut said, the council could opt to continue Zoom speaking as is.

“The city clerk and I will do our best to handle any inappropriate speech if it happens again,” Shaut wrote.

Lawmakers had previously decided to shelve online public speaking at Tuesday’s regularly scheduled monthly meeting. The Laws and Rules Committee will meet on July 17 to discuss Shaut’s memo.