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Date: 11/14/2023
NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton City Council conducted a special meeting on Nov. 9 at council chambers to examine rules around public comment after incidents of hate speech occurred during a prior meeting.
The discussion was sparked by incidents at the Nov. 2 regular City Council hybrid meeting where a group of “Zoom bombers” used their allotted two minutes for public comment to spew offensive comments.
During this particular public comment session, several people over Zoom used fake names and kept their cameras off while making racist and antisemitic remarks.
The City Council eventually took a 10-minute break to regroup and determine the course of action in response to the revolting comments. When they returned to the meeting, the council decided to suspend the remainder of the public comment session.
“I think we handled things as best we could then,” said City Council President Jim Nash, during the Nov. 9 special follow-up meeting. “We were all here for each other…and here this week, we need to consider a way forward.”
The goal of the Nov. 9 meeting was to examine ways in which the council could refine public comment rules to eliminate hate speech but also still allow people to talk freely about any topic they want.
This is not the first time the city has dealt with incidences of hate speech. Multiple participants made anti-Jewish remarks and displayed offensive images during public comment at a Board of Health meeting in 2021 when the board was discussing whether to implement a vaccine mandate across the city.
Under the City Council’s current rules around public comment, members of the public may address the council and all council committees on any matter for a period of two minutes, and public comment is accepted for no more than 90 minutes.
The rules also state that the City Council, which now operates its full meetings in a hybrid format, will take public comment in person or by remote participation, and they will not respond to any of the public comments.
City attorney’s comments
During the Nov. 9 meeting, Alan Seewald, the city’s attorney, stated that the public comment period during City Council meetings is what is known as a “limited public forum,” which is a public forum opened by the council for a limited purpose.
Seewald said that it would be difficult to stop people from talking about anything during public comment because the council’s current rules under public comment only restrict time, not content.
“You’ve limited as far as the time goes, there’s a time limitation, but you haven’t done any other limitations,” Seewald said. “And so it’s very difficult to stop people from speaking if you give them the right to speak about whatever they want to speak about.”
Seewald added that the Supreme Judicial Court and other courts have ruled that just because something is offensive doesn’t mean it’s not protected by the First Amendment. In other words, hate speech is protected by the First Amendment and the council cannot define hate speech to be something more restrictive than what’s protected by the First Amendment.
“This concept of group defamation talking about a group as opposed to talking about an individual person is really not recognized as an exception to the First Amendment,” he said. “So, you have this problem when you open a forum without any restrictions at all.”
As a result, what was said at the Nov. 2 meeting was considered allowable under the city’s current laws regarding public comment, and the only way to curtail those incidents is by limiting the amount of topics people can discuss during that time.
But enacting those types of limitations could affect other aspects of public comment.
Seewald noted how the majority of people who approach the council do so in an appropriate manner and what happened on Nov. 2 was more an “exception” rather than the “rule.”
He cautioned that any limitations enacted to address what happened on Nov. 2 could also affect the appropriate uses of public comment.
“You’ve created the forum and you can limit the forum,” Seewald said. “But any limitation on the forum to avoid what we saw last Thursday, will inevitably sweep with it some of those legitimate uses of public comment. And that’s the balance that this body has to really reach on.”
Although hate speech is generally protected by the First Amendment, Seewald added that a doctrine called “Fighting Words,” or words that are spoken face-to-face that would cause a reasonable person to react with violence, is not protected by the First Amendment, and therefore the council could address those incidents on the spot.
Seewald noted how there is little to no precedent that applies to fighting words over Zoom since the doctrine only deals with in-person incidents.
During the Nov. 9 meeting, City Councilor Karen Foster presented an amendment to the public comment section of City Council rules.
Under her proposed amendment, the rule would still allow members of the public to address the council and all council committees for up to two minutes, but only “on matters on the agenda for that meeting only,” rather than “any matter.”
The rule would also state that anyone wishing to speak at public comment over Zoom must sign up through the link embedded on the meeting’s agenda no later than one hour in advance of the meeting.
According to Foster, the idea of a signup form before a meeting for remote public comment is inspired by what Cambridge currently does with its public comment, which asks for name, email address, phone number and agenda item they wish to discuss through a Google form prior to their meetings.
The Northampton council already utilizes a signup sheet in-person at the podium but the added language in the presented amendment would also provide a remote signup sheet for those wishing to speak on Zoom.
“The goal has been to kind of thread the needle to allow for the public participation of our residents who can’t physically be here while also creating the steps that may help to direct it within our meetings,” Foster said.
In response to the proposed amendment, some councilors were wary of limiting public comment to only items on the agenda, including City Councilor Alex Jarrett, who was hesitant to support these major changes since they would add barriers to people speaking during that time.
“Personally, I’d rather go for something like a signup first before we consider limiting [public comment] only to matters on the agenda for that meeting only,” Jarrett said.
City Councilor Jamila Gore agreed with Jarrett’s sentiments, saying that although what was said on Nov. 2 was horrible, public comment is still a treasured aspect of City Council meetings, and limiting topics or creating another signup sheet would create unnecessary barriers.
“I think that limiting the public comment is kind of limiting an exchange of ideas between the public and the council,” Gore said. “I would still say that I would like to hear public comment about any matter, not just things that are on the agenda.”
City Councilor Garrick Perry, meanwhile, argued that a swift change of rules to the public comment section would make him uncomfortable, and he also suggested changing the rule around signing up an hour before the council meeting, so it is more accommodating.
“I am very uncomfortable having them only talk about stuff on the agenda,” Perry said.
The council ultimately decided to send this proposed amendment to their Legislative Matters committee for more discussion at a later date.