On this night, eight Ulster County legislators with over 75 years of legislative experience among them are attending their last regular meeting. Family members and adored ones gathered in the gallery chairs to watch the political theater play itself out. Casual wear and fashionable suits lend a relaxed holiday air to the occasion. The deputy clerk wears a large bow in her hair.
Stand for the pledge of allegiance. Roll call. Consideration of resolutions before the body. A few speeches. Barbs and zingers traded on the public record. And when the people’s business is over, wax poetic, say farewell to long-suffered and well-liked colleagues. Snap some pictures and head over to the Santa Fe across the street from the county office building for the after-party to reminisce and revel out of the public eye.
That was the plan.
A faction of the crowd wearing Covid face masks, or draped with the keffiyeh, the white-and-black scarf of the Palestinian people, had piled up like storm clouds in the hallway outside the legislative chambers. Two police officers assigned to the chamber proceedings eyed them as the most likely group to require their law-and-order skill set.
About 40 protesters had come to watch comrades speak during the public-comment period before the deliberations began. The 21 legislators in attendance faced the tempest of the protesters. The speakers had two minutes each at the podium.
At the beginning of the session, the protesters chanted together in uncanny monotone, repeating over and over, “Let us speak. Give us three,” They wanted three minutes each for public speaking. In the rudiments of successful sloganeering, three syllables repeated twice hits the sweet spot:
“Four legs good. Two legs bad.” Or “USA,” or “Lock her up.” Easier than getting a crowd to clap together on the beat, three syllables can be learned quickly and repeated indefinitely. That chanting earned the first of many rebukes from legislature chair Tracey Bartels. The hearing got under way.
The protesters spoke.
“Stop funding the military-industrial complex.”
“Are beheaded children what you want to dream of tonight?”
Said one speaker, “They have cancelled Christmas in Bethlehem.”
Varieties of free expression
Some speakers were deadly calm, while others screamed and ranted. One or two sang heartfelt songs, joined by an uncertain chorus. Another gave a concise discourse on fascism.
Speaker Chelsea Vilalba, wearing a Ceasefire t-shirt, read from her phone. When her two minutes expired, she refused to stop speaking. The microphone was shut off, and her voice rose, lambasting the legislature with her delivery of the statistics of the wounded and injured in Gaza.
The police officers finally approached her, attempting to diffuse the worst outcome. Safe in the eyes of many cellphones recording, she persisted. Two women holding “Free Palestine” signs joined her.
Forced to sit through pedantic lecturing and wild accusations, conservative members of both caucuses, exasperated by the chaos, reacted predictably.
Get them out of here, they said.
“We can’t functionally hold a meeting,” explained chair Bartels, “if people aren’t respectful of the time.”
After the public hearing section of the meeting had run its course, the protesters remained in the room and contented themselves with intermittent comments.
“Do the right thing!” or “Shame.”
Funding genocide?
The ostensible purpose for the protest was the consideration of two resolutions up for a vote, #709 and #710. The first provided cameras for interrogation rooms along with wired mics, covert sensors, motion sensors, server lights and switches. The price tag was $111,588. The other resolution paid $440,172 for body cameras for sheriff’s deputies. The two resolutions authorized paying Axon Enterprise Inc. over half a million dollars.
Speaking at the hearing, Kingston resident Callie McKenzie Jane disparaged the association between the county and Axon.
“Axon Enterprise’s largest shareholder is Black Rock, Inc, the world’s largest investor in military weapons,” said McKenzie Jane. “Black Rock is investing in the violence in Gaza, as well as in other areas of the world. Axon is profiting off of all the genocide taking place. And I don’t want my tax dollars to fund a genocide, and I believe there’s a lot of other people here who would agree killing innocent civilians and lining the pockets of Axon’s execs is not where my tax dollars should go.”
The protesters advocated for a memorializing resolution signed by the legislature calling for a ceasefire. McKenzie Jane noted that a letter calling for a ceasefire had already been sent to congressmember Pat Ryan.
“I want to express support for the ceasefire letter sent to Pat Ryan and thank legislators Erner, Hewitt, Petit and Sperry for signing on. On the record. I would like to express my disappointment that my legislator Peter Criswell’s name is not on the list of those who have signed on.”
Calling out her legislator drew an angry rebuke from minority leader Ken Ronk who said that calling out individual legislators was a breach of decorum.
“So I can vote for him,” riposted McKenzie Jane from the crowd, “but I can’t say his name?”
Axon and Taser
Legislator Chris Hewitt had researched the company on his cellphone in real time.
“As the public was speaking, I did research about Axon and was surprised to hear that it’s Taser,” he said. “Taser has a very bad public relations [sic] after people started catching on fire from their products and having heart attacks. But they tried to hush that up because these products aren’t supposed to be dangerous. They’re just supposed to subdue people.”
Hewitt would prefer to find a local company to supply the sheriff’s office with the equipment. “Although I’m the deputy chair of Law Enforcement and Public Safety [Committee], and I see how important our safety is for our community, I’m going to be a no on both resolutions. And I want to know what the alternative is.”
Legislator Erner expressed his solidarity with the protestors.
“I want to go with the will of the people who are here in this room tonight,” said Erner, “and I suspect many more in opposing our continued relationship with this company. We’ve got to figure something else out. And I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing our continued relationship with this company.”
Legislator Criswell attempted to refer both resolutions back to committee for further review.
His action failed. Both resolutions passed. The booing protestors sounded like they were imitating sheep.
The least amount of harm
After the session had adjourned, Herb Litts, one of the legislators who voted for the resolutions, explained his reasoning.
“The two resolutions were to provide safety equipment for our police,” said Litts. “And to protect human rights. Let’s face it. If in a situation, a police officer can neutralize the assailant with a Taser, which they can recover from, rather than pull out their pistol, that’s always a good thing. The least amount of harm to anybody and everybody, including a stray bullet that might hit some innocent person.”
Litts wasn’t angry about the effort of the protesters, their conduct, or their goal of having the legislature call for a ceasefire in Gaza. “There’s somewhat of a misconception,” said Litts. “Quite often, people come to our legislative session and asks us to change things, to enact laws that are outside of our purview. We’re not Congress. And literally, we cannot tell Congress what to do. Yes, we can send letters just like every constituent in the county can send the letter to their congressman, or to their assemblyman or, state senator. But this is not Congress, and we need to really start paying more attention to county issues.”
With the business of the night over and most of the protesters gone, only one remained to boo retiring legislators Brian Cahill and Ken Ronk during the chair’s goodbye speeches, a bonhomie had returned to the scene. For the last time, this group of legislators had gone through the trial by fire, together facing the displeasure of a motivated public while the clock ran out.
They would see the group of the protesters brandishing signs and the Palestinian flag waiting for them outside the Santa Fe Restaurant. Outgoing legislator Phil Erner joined the protesters out of solidarity.
Ceasefires and pauses
Four days later, a resolution passed at the United Nations that “extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip.” Russia, one of the five permanent members of the council, introduced an amendment to revert to an earlier draft of the resolution introduced by the United Arab Emirates calling for an immediate ceasefire. The Russians argued the text gave Israel freedom of movement to further clear the Gaza Strip.
The Russian amendment was defeated.
Both Russia and the US abstained while the other 13 members of the Security Council backed the final text that now calls for creating conditions “for a sustainable cessation of hostilities.”
At least 20,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Words about war
A conversation with protesters outside a restaurant
A group of eight protesters have staked out the Santa Fe Restaurant, inside of which the traditional after-party for the year-end legislature meeting is under way. The protesters stand in the biting wind holding a Palestinian flag and other anti-Gaza-war and anti-genocide paraphernalia. The interview begins with Chelsea Vilalba until a masked protester interjects.Then both are responding.
Rokosz Most: What are you guys doing following around these legislators on their big night?
Chelsea Vilalba: We are asking these legislators in the County of Ulster to call on federal representatives, including Patrick Ryan, our senators, and up to Joe Biden and just officialize through a memorializing resolution that we demand a ceasefire,
RM: A memorializing resolution from the county government would make you guys happy?
CV: I think it’s just to show that elected people need to listen to their constituents.
RM: What about the argument that it’s beyond their purview that the job of county legislator is only to worry about the local stuff?
CV: The local stuff is, you know, to appropriate funds to go to these different military arms suppliers that are funding the genocide that we are seeing and funding with our tax dollars.
RM: So in the case of Axon?
CV: Specifically in the case of Patrick Ryan, he has not been listening to constituents. They have been rallying, they have been calling, they have been contacting, emailing, writing letters. It’s not getting through to him. But these are local people, these are our neighbors. So all we’re asking is, we are willing to come up here to a legislative meeting and stand outside on a cold night in December. We’re just asking for the majority of the people in Ulster County, to just write a piece of legislation. It doesn’t take a lot. A memorializing resolution does not take a lot. But there is precedent for local governments, local municipalities, passing memorializing resolutions to further issues and causes on the state and federal level. So it’s like it’s recording history, because we’re not going to pretend like everybody in Ulster County was okay with our representative saying that, ‘No, you know, we support Israel, we support the war crimes and genocide happening on people in Palestine.’
Masked Protester: The Democratic Party is a Zionist party.
RM: What do you mean by that?
MP: The Democratic Party’s official stance on Israel is Zionism. And if we can weaken the Democratic Party from below, we can create a better effect higher up.
RM: Wouldn’t you be stuck with more Republican control? If you weaken the Democratic Party?
MP: We have to weaken both. It’s not a zero-sum game.
RM: How are you going to replace them? Democrats or the Republicans?
MP: Democrats need to be voted out. Republicans need to be voted out. We need people with more democratic positions.
RM: So we need more parties?
MP: No parties, we need independent people who actually respond to the democratic will of the people. Because, like you were saying, it’s not necessarily these people’s jobs to do this…
RM: No, I just heard that argument. I was relaying the argument.
MP: The reality is we don’t have a lot of actual leverage or power here. So making memorializing resolution speaking out loudly and making sure people feel our discontent is one of the only options we have until Election Day, and articulating how undemocratic that entire system is, is as much a part of this as anything else.
RM: Well, it sounds like what you’re asking is for very dramatic change where probably all you’re gonna get is incremental change.
MP: That’s not good enough. Incremental change is not good enough. And if we only believe that that’s what we’ll get, that’s what we’ll get. Right. Our society has produced the Israeli state. So we have to unmake our society as we know it in order to unmake Israeli genocide.
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