SACRAMENTO, California — Sacramento City Council meetings dedicate a portion of time to residents making their voices heard, but recently, that time has been hijacked by anonymous callers using the platform to spew racism and profanity.
More than one-dozen anonymous Zoom calls launching into racist tirades, particularly against Mayor Darrell Steinberg, made it into the Sept. 5 city council meeting.
He left the room after a series of calls that evening, and the city officials took an unplanned break.
The trend of anonymous calls began in May after faith leaders gathered outside City Hall to denounce an anti-semitic in-person speaker.
"We need to stand up and say loudly and clearly together in one voice, 'Not in our town, not in Sacramento, not in America, not anywhere ever again'," said the Jewish Federation's Sacramento Region President Barry Broad on May 30.
One social media post praising the callers and encouraging more calls to the city council received over 8,000 impressions.
Though some of the racist callers claim to be advocates of inclusive speech, city officials like Councilmember Sean Loloee said the comments are nothing short of hate speech.
"I'm in favor of walking away from Zoom (calls) and really give the platform to individuals who want to come and have real major concerns about our city," he told ABC10. "We can really spend time resolving those instead of spending hours listening to Zoom calls that have no place in our forum."
Zoom meetings were initially launched during public comment in 2020 to accommodate COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders.
"During the last few weeks, we've seen the calls increase but it also appears to be the same callers," Loloee said. "We will not tolerate any kind of prejudice in any form."
Councilmembers like Lisa Kaplan and Karina Talamantes have also said they are troubled over the increasing presence of hate speech in the chambers.
While there remains concern over residents with disabilities being able to call into meetings, Loloee said officials are still working on solutions and plans to discuss in coming weeks.
"I would like to make an ask to the city attorney and city clerk to no longer do Zoom public comment and phone calls for the time being. So at the next meeting, (we) just read it into the record, if possible," Talamantes said at the Sept. 5 meeting.
