My political adversaries, aided by Chevron, have been circulating a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gf7unY7h0k), that purports to connect me with City Council disruptions. It also endeavors to put Mayor McLaughlin and Jael Myrick in a bad light and portrays Nat Bates as the calm voice of reason. It includes outtakes from the meetings of March 8 and March 18, 2014.

I offer some context to what is shown on the Bates/Chevron sponsored video.

There has been a very perverse and cynical conspiracy over the last several years, fueled by Chevron, to encourage disruptions at City Council meetings, then blame others, including the mayor, for not being able to control meetings and subsequently for the presumed “dysfunction” of the City Council. Nat Bates and Corky Booze are the primary City Council fomenters, aided by a handful of regular attendees in the audience and by organizations such as Men and Women of Valor.

Corky is the agent provocateur, and Nat is the straight man, blaming the mayor and others for encouraging the disruptions and then criticizing her for ultimately calling the meeting into recess in an effort to quell it.

When such demonstrations get out of hand, the presiding officer, in this case the mayor, has only a couple of options to try and restore order: first, asking for order, sometimes emphasized with the gavel, and two, calling a recess to break the spell and give people a chance to calm down.

I have to confess that I have taken the bait more than once, myself. I am a firm believer in maintenance of civility and decorum in City Council meetings. In my opinion,  applause after every speaker, as has become routine, is counterproductive and ineffective simply because it is so routine. Not only is it ineffectual because of its repetition and predictability, it often degenerates into catcalls, boos, hoots and hollers. There seems to be a fine line between applause and verbally demonstrative reactions, and that line is often quickly crossed.  Many City Councils do not allow or do not encourage applause at all, but the City Council majority seems to think it has value and continues to encourage, or at least allow, it. On April I, 2014, all members except for me voted to continue to allow applause.

On several occasions, I have patiently waited my turn to speak, only to be hooted down by a faction in the crowd who don’t want to hear anything except the message they came to convey and support. We are not talking about some grumbles and sighs, we are talking about a full-fledged disruption so loud that hearing what I have to say becomes impossible.

In such situations, I have several alternatives. I can simply give in to the crowd, abandon my turn to speak and allow the meeting to move on to comments by others. Or, I can wait to see if the mayor can bring order to the chamber. Or I can just leave, being unable to contribute any further due to the hostility of the crowd.

On March 8, 2014, I began to speak against a motion to immediately issue Section 8 vouchers to Hacienda residents and relocate them, which would cost the City over a million dollars it did not have. Before I could even get into my explanation, the crowd drowned me out with yells of disapproval. The mayor asked for order several times, but the audience just became louder. Trying to avoid another recess, for which she knew she would be criticized, she continued to no avail to beg the audience to come to order. In frustration, I got up to leave. But things just got worse. The mayor never did recess the meeting, and in frustration, I lashed out at her and accused her of not being able to run a meeting. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGvHGAsaGOo.

On March 18, 2014, I asked the mayor to request the audience to hold applause until after everyone had spoken, and to her credit, she did. The meeting resumed but with no abatement of the normal applause as the crowd, largely made up of building trades representatives, not only ignored the mayor’s request but doubled down with even more applause that morphed into yells of approval after Greg Feere spoke. The mayor then asked for a vote on whether or not to allow applause. After some spirited debate, the mayor elected not to move the motion but to simply ask the audience to refrain from applause until after the speakers have finished.

Then Booze made a motion to allow applause, and Rogers seconded it. When I spoke on the motion, the audience once again erupted into hoots and hollers, and I stated, yelling over the din from the audience, that I was not going to participate in a meeting with that level of disruption. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoibUZXtXt8.  

Gayle and I had an extended dialogue about both issues and process, but in the end we worked through our frustrations. On May 2, 2014, I emailed Gayle:

First of all, I want to apologize to you for yelling at you during the April 26 [actually March 8] City Council meeting. It was inappropriate. I was extremely frustrated that the audience would not let me speak, but that is no excuse.

Second, I want to be clear that, in my opinion, the disruption that night, and the typical disruptions almost every meeting are, in my opinion, due largely to a culture that Corky Booze has fostered by his own acts and the  encouragement he continually provides, both patent and latent, to the audience. We now have a culture in the audience where a small number of people attend meetings not to participate in public policy debate but for the purpose of entertainment and disruption. We are also seeing, as we did on the 22nd,  people who were paid to come and disrupt the meeting.

Corky is completely out of control and has no respect for parliamentary procedure, but unfortunately, there is little you can do to bring him under control except temporary measures. Hopefully, the voters will do that permanently in November,

I want to be clear that I support calling recesses, ending debate and, if necessary, clearing the Chamber, as measures to restore order and decorum.

I was disappointed that my proposal to reduce applause failed to pass, that is not the main problem.

For Nat Bates’ version of the march 8 and March 8 City Council meetings, see http://www.radiofreerichmond.com/nat_bates_the_most_dysfunctional_city_council. You can find plenty of videos featuring Nat Bates (and his pal mark Wassberg) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub2IiKQtr04), Nat Bates and hate speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftLjerZYwa0) and disruptions condoned by Bates (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d9f2iHGW04).