A ‘screaming mob’ got me kicked out of a City Council meeting this week 

Let me start off by saying I was not a participant in the “screaming mob.” If you’ve ever met me in person you’d probably doubt that I had that kind of energy in me, and at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, you’d be correct to assume that. 

I’m not calling it a “screaming mob,” that’s how City Attorney Dawn McIntosh described the disruptive protestors when she called me to explain why the decision was made to kick everyone out of the meeting Tuesday night. 

The “mob” has been a presence at City Hall for the past two weeks with members clad in Palestinian flag garb and shouting coordinated chants attempting to get the City Council to support a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. 

Approximately an hour into the most recent meeting, Mayor Rex Richardson decided that the crowd was too raucous as they pressed the council to say anything about why it hadn’t put the issue on its agenda. Despite their repeated questions, they’d been getting no response.

At Richardson’s signal, the council retreated into its closed session room and after the mayor came back out and unsuccessfully tried to calm the crowd, which continued to shout over him, he ordered the room be cleared. It’s a power the council has under a new state law, and to my knowledge, it’s the first time the council chambers have been completely cleared like that. 

I hung back just outside the entry to the council chambers fully expecting to be let back in. Journalists are generally shielded from bans like that, and although I didn’t have that section of law right in front of me, my inclination was that I was covered. 

My gut feeling was correct, but the Long Beach Police Department officer in charge of the forced exodus, who likely knows less about press freedoms than I do, told me I could watch the rest of the meeting from home. 

The important point of this newsletter isn’t about me having to drive home early. Other non-participants were forced to leave the meeting, too, so hopefully, the city can devise a more precise way to usher out people who it feels are disrupting a meeting. 

What was on my mind as I drove home Tuesday was the source of the protester’s anger.

A resolution has many functions. Pragmatically, it’s a tool that the council constantly uses to allow the city to enter into contracts to do things like fix streets or purchase cybersecurity insurance. But it’s also a way for the council to score political points by taking a stand for or against something. 

What the “mob” was asking for — a resolution supporting a ceasefire — isn’t a terribly big ask. Yes, it’s a touchy subject that many have avoided commenting on, but elected officials are put in office to lead and make tough decisions. 

And I hardly doubt that Long Beach’s resolution is going to make its way to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desk and change the course of history if we’re being honest. 

The council has certainly poked its nose into legislation that it has no bearing on in the past, like when it passed a resolution barring official city travel to Georgia or Alabama over anti-abortion legislation being pushed by those states in 2019. 

In 2009, the council also passed a resolution backing an effort to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020. 

Conversely, the council blocked a resolution from moving forward in 2021 when a minority of the council asked for more local control over statewide housing policies. 

“Right now my vote for this would be a symbolic vote and I don’t do symbolic votes,” said Councilmember Roberto Uranga at the time. 

As a growing list of cities begin to craft their own ceasefire resolutions, Long Beach might have to prepare to take a symbolic vote in the near future.

The city’s Equity and Human Relations Commission will meet Friday to vote again to ask the council to take the ceasefire issue up at a future meeting. And one of the commission members noted Wednesday night that “no action is an action.” 

I suspect the chamber will be packed again Tuesday night.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS WEEK:

If you didn’t see our story from Tuesday night, the city announced that the Utilities Department’s payment portal is back up. If you remember, that was taken down along with the city’s other websites after it detected the cyber security breach in mid-November. If you happened to miss a payment because of the portal being down, you shouldn’t be facing any late fees, according to the department. The announcement was made during a presentation to the council where the Utilities Department general manager was briefing the council on the locked-in, low gas rates customers will be paying for the next three years. You can turn up the thermostat and read my story from October here.

PAY ATTENTION TO THIS NEXT WEEK:

While there isn’t much on the city’s agendas this week, which is typical of the holiday season, there is some rather big news coming out of our own newsroom. We announced yesterday that the Long Beach Post and Business Journal have officially shifted to a nonprofit model, which means our bosses (and hopefully investors) are you guys, the readers. A lot of work has been happening behind the scenes to make the Long Beach Journalism Initiative a reality over the past few months, but it’s finally here. Once our 501(c)(3) status is finalized, all of your contributions will be tax deductible retroactive to today. And nothing makes supporting local journalism better than being able to write it off at the end of the year when you file your taxes.