- Seattle Channel
- While he's berating council members, Alex Tsimerman usually also does a Nazi salute because he's the worst.
Sometimes, being a member of the Seattle City Council is all kittens and ping pong and passing history-making minimum wage legislation. Other times itâs people yelling âThe fuck are you doing?!â or calling you âgangstersâ or âNazis,â or âThe Gestapo."
Those are all actual things Alex Tsimerman and Sam Bellomioâboth members of the fringe activist group StandUP-Americaâhave said to the city council during public comment periods over the last few years. In 2013, Bellomio used his public-comment tirades to attack Council Member Sally Bagshaw, against whom he was running in that yearâs election, and got banned from speaking at the council for two weeks for calling nowâcouncil president Tim Burgess a âdick.â
Tsimerman, whoâs filed to run against Burgess this year for one of two at-large city council seats, was banned from attending all council and committee meetings for a month on two separate occasions last year for shouting at council members and citizens. Hereâs a gem from Burgessâs letter informing him of the exclusion in September: âYou repeatedly use vulgar and offensive language that is unrelated to topics appearing on our agenda or made outside of your public comment period. For example, you repeatedly disrupt meetings with outbursts after the end of your public comment, by shouting such things as âyouâre fuckersâ or âyouâre fucking idiots.â"
Now, Burgess is looking for more ways to crack down on disruptions, but can he do it without suppressing protest?
The council already has rules defining what qualifies as a âdisruptionâ during a meeting (outbursts, not following time limits, etc.), and defining when those can lead to temporarily banning someone from council meetings. Currently, citizens can be barred from council meetings for 28 days for disruptions. Burgessâs proposed changes would increase the number of days people could be banned for subsequent disruptionsâfirst to 90 days, then to 180. The changes would prohibit disruptions before or after meetings and add this to the list of punishable disruptions: âBehavior that intentionally disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes attendance or participation at a council or committee meeting.â
Not exactly specific.
âEven assuming the best intentions on the part of this resolution, Iâm concerned that the language is written in such a broad manner that it could be used by future councils to attempt to silence protests that are such an important part of our democracy, especially in Seattle,â Council Member Kshama Sawant said at a meeting Monday.
The rule changes aren't a response to events earlier this month, when protesters against police brutality temporarily shut down a council meetingâBurgess says he first sent them out to the council back in Octoberâbut that protest loomed large Monday.
Sawant said she's worried the changes could have a chilling effect on public expression like the council saw at that meeting and at debates over the minimum wage and the budget.
âAll of these vocal demonstrators were important for propelling Seattle to take some of the most progressive steps in our country,â Sawant said. âSometimes protests need to be disruptive.â
A spokesperson for the ACLU of Washington says that group is "not objecting" to the changes, and Sawant didnât find much support from the rest of the council. Council Member Nick Licata, often her ally, questioned the change allowing the council to ban people for their behavior before a meeting and called the number of days they can be barred âexcessive.â But heâs supportive of the broad language Sawant criticized.
Disruptions like the one earlier this month, Licata said, are âsliding into a situation that allows other bodies to come in here and take over a public space that we the people of Seattle have designated as an area for the exchange of information and to have dialogue. If you canât have a dialogue, itâs not a democratic process.â
After a little chiding from Burgess for not bringing up these concerns earlier, the council delayed voting on the rule changes until next Monday.
Burgess told me after the meeting that âall the examples Council Member Sawant gave are not what this is attempting to address.â Instead itâs about âone individual.â He wouldnât confirm that that individual is Tsimerman, but, according to council staff, Tsimerman is the only person whoâs been excluded from council meetings in the last year.