At Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, the council and attendees were subjected to repetitive, hateful comments, which included cursing, racial epithets, and antisemitic and homophobic statements by callers on Zoom.
Like other organizations in our town, Village Laguna is in firm opposition to those who intentionally use disruptive methods to prevent our city business from taking place.
Village Laguna appreciates our City Council’s efforts to uphold our values of inclusivity, respect and integrity. We very much support the right to free speech and the right to engage in a democratic process using civil discourse. Unfortunately, what we experienced Tuesday night was anything but, and the meeting was closed and will be rescheduled.
Unfortunately, Laguna Beach residents, and not the perpetrators of the Zoom bombing, are being punished. We understand why the city has decided to shut down the Zoom capability for all city meetings, but we hope this is only temporary and that a way to safely restore this important community participation tool will be found as soon as possible.
Anne Caenn, president of Village Laguna
Thank you, Anne Caen.
All city meetings should still be on ZOOM and on COX without comment ability so residents can monitor meetings. Those that wish to participate can attend the public meetings.
Frankly, I was deeply disappointed that at the time of the highly prejudiced and racist hate speech interference Mayor Kempf our leader had nothing to say about the behavior what so ever. We had to wait on written comment days later. There is no place for hate, defamation and this level, or any discrimination in Laguna Beach, or any place on this planet. A strong leader would have made zero tolerance for this behavior clear to everyone.