Dozens of activists swarmed the Arcata City Council meeting, demanding everything from Arcata becoming a sister city with Gaza to divesting from CalPers to reforming Arcata’s relationship with its homeless population. About two hours and 15 minutes of the two-and-a-half-hour-long meeting was taken up by public comment. 

City staff were ready for disruption after protests at a special meeting of the city council meeting last week forced it to end prematurely. The only substantive items on the agenda were a proclamation supporting Two-Spirit and intersex people and the consent calendar; a report from the Energy Committee was postponed. An area in the back of the chambers was reserved for people with signs, of which there were plenty. Posters around the chambers reminded people to not disrupt the meeting by clapping or insulting council members and told them that if they did, the mayor has the power to eject them. City Manager Merritt Perry also asked the crowd to be calm at the beginning of the meeting.

“Let us now be sweet to each other and nice,” Mayor Alex Stillman said, “and not clap and make each other feel odd.”

The city council had trouble passing even their abbreviated agenda. Half an hour into the meeting, after seven public speakers addressed the council, the council attempted to move the meeting along and accept the consent calendar but was overwhelmed by jeering and chanting. They left the chambers, and Perry attempted to convince the crowd to let them at least get through the consent calendar. 

“All I would ask is that we would be ready to go through the consent calendar,” Perry said. “It’ll be two minutes, and we can spend as much time as we need to hear from everybody in this meeting.”

The council did end up accepting the consent calendar.

Despite the requests, the protesters didn’t go easy on the council, mostly blasting them for not passing a resolution to become a sister city with Gaza and for supposed sweeps of homeless encampments and perceived Brown Act violations. (Perry denied last week that Arcata was destroying homeless encampments.) Dozens of protestors spoke in a row, interrupted only by occasional moments of screaming, yelling, and clapping, and transitions from one to the next.

“Alex Stillman, you have been a politician as long as I have known your name, and I can’t name a single fucking thing you’ve done for this community,” said one speaker. “You are incompetent, senile, and jaded. Just quit your job.”

“Why not spend your money on shit the Arcata people actually want?” another asked. “Fuck you. You guys can’t even do a cease-fire? That’s the bare minimum! Those are words on paper, and you can’t do it! You would allow the Nazis to come and kill my ancestors. I will never forgive you.”

Most of the public commenters on Zoom slammed the idea of an Arcata-Gaza sister city and were roundly mocked by the in-person commenters.

Two hours after the start of the meeting, most of the demonstrators had left. Public comment went for another half hour or so, and the meeting ended. 

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BELOW: Some moments from last night’s meeting. Full meeting here.