File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

'We Cannot Go On Like This'

Kamloops council offers apology, exasperation after pornographic ‘Zoom bomb’ during public inquiries

Sep 24, 2024 | 4:30 PM

KAMLOOPS — The City of Kamloops and Kamloops council have issued a public apology after their regular meeting was interrupted by a pornographic video Tuesday afternoon (Sept. 24).

During the public inquiries portion of the meeting, a person joining in on Zoom played the video, which was then broadcast into council chambers and through the streaming feed of the council meeting.

Laughter was heard from the gallery as the video played for several seconds before IT staff were able to cut the feed.

“There was a lot of shock,” Councillor Katie Neustaeter told CFJC Today after the meeting had ended. “We attempted to press on with the work for a little while and then [Corporate Officer Maria Mazzotta] made the wise suggestion that we take a recess, which we did.”

Upon return from the recess, Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson explained that he wasn’t aware of what was being played on the video feed.

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“When the image was up there, I never did see any act that people saw,” said Hamer-Jackson. “What I did see was an elderly lady. When I looked down and looked back up, I thought it was cartoon that I had seen, so I didn’t see what you saw.”

Neustaeter slammed the mayor for “gleefully laughing” as the video played and said the situation called for an apology that did not come.

“[Hamer-Jackson] in no way rebuked what had happened, apologized to people who were watching on their screens — anticipating a professional council meeting and, instead, getting this,” she said. “It was a horrifying display of incompetence that was disturbing to the public, to staff and to our council.”

The meeting was adjourned a short time later.

The incident had Councillor Bill Sarai calling for an end to public participation in regular council meetings. Kamloops council allows members of the public two spots per meeting to ask questions directly pertaining to agenda items. Sarai says most communities do not offer such latitude.

“I’ve been sitting in this horseshoe for six years now and the decorum and the civility that comes to us and the accusations and the finger-pointing and the laughing — it’s just gotten to the point where it hinders us from doing our job,” said Sarai.

Mazzotta told Sarai putting an end to public inquiries would require a bylaw change and would need to be discussed in full at a future meeting.

For Neustaeter, the presence of public inquiries on the agenda would not be as problematic if the meeting chair was more adept at keep proceedings under control.

“Absolutely fed up with the lack of leadership,” she said. “Today was another opportunity to set a higher standard — to show the dignity that office deserves, that the people of Kamloops deserve, what is acceptable and what is not in that space.”

“We cannot go on like this. We continue to do the work. We should be celebrating the exceptional things that are happening right now in Kamloops. We should be dealing with the difficult business that is in front of us and the challenges of our community instead of daily having to deal with this ridiculous inability to provide sound governance.”