Sacramento mayor not seeking major changes despite repeated council meeting disruptions

Disruptions have been replacing discourse at Sacramento City Hall, with recent chaos in council chambers forcing public meetings to be shut down.

Sacramento City Clerk Mindy Cuppy responded Tuesday to the outbursts by reciting government codes to bring the council meeting to a halt. 

"The City Council will take a brief recess so that decorum in chambers can be established," Cuppy said.

Mayor Kevin McCarty has not barred anyone from returning to the chambers because of the recent disruptions, even as some councilmembers have raised questions about how the city should respond.

Earlier this month, Vice Mayor Karina Talamantes was heard on a hot mic asking McCarty about how disruptions should be handled.

"We should go over this disruptions thing ... because if we want to ban someone in the future, like take them out, we have to point out specifically," Talamantes said.

"We're always balancing the First Amendment," McCarty said. "It's not always black and white. And we have sidebars all the time as far as what should we do managing that meeting."

Giselle Garcia, program director for NorCal Resist, said she supports the protests and the disruptions taking place during council meetings.

"I think that this is the result of their behavior," Garcia said. "Disruption is not disruption for the sake of chaos, right? It's disruption for the sake of results."

NorCal Resist opposes the council's recent agreement to share data with a federal task force aimed at combating terrorism. Opponents have raised concerns that the information could be used to target immigrants.

Disruptions in Sacramento City Council chambers are not new.

During protests following the 2018 police shooting and killing of Stephon Clark, his brother, Stevante Clark, jumped onto the dais near then-Mayor Darrell Steinberg's seat during a protest that took over a council meeting.

"It hasn't been, you know, as it was in years past," McCarty said. "I know I spoke recently to Darrell Steinberg, who was mayor, and they had plenty of meetings that were shut down."

For now, McCarty said he is not calling for major changes to council chamber protocols and expects the disruptions will eventually subside.