Why did the city deny the ceasefire petition?

Because it can't admit it's wrong.

As most of Worcester knows at this point, City Council Tuesday night was unable to conduct any business, due to the chair (Mayor Joe Petty) not allowing people to speak.

While their petition was denied by the clerk, they were addressing an item on the agenda, pertaining to the law department's familiarity with constitutional law.

In this situation, their petition had been denied while a similar one initiated last year by Mayor Petty and filed Councillor Bergman was allowed, despite constituents specifically raising concerns about it violating the rule they were hiding behind to deny it this time. This practice of applying rules to some people, but not others, is not providing “equal protection under the laws,” as the 14th amendment mandates, and so this was quite pertinent.

It is a somewhat common practice for people to tie in their issue to a different agenda item, and Mayor Petty has allowed this regularly in the past.

But he did not let them speak.

Amid chants of "Let them speak" Councillor Candy Carlson motioned for a recess, and then left with Donna Colorio. Councillor Morris Bergman left in such a rush that he forgot his phone and had to come back in to get it. Councillor George Russell left, followed closely by Councillor Kate Toomey. Councillor Jenny Pacillo moved to sit next to Councillor Luis Ojeda, while Manager Eric Batista, Solicitor Mark Traynor and Clerk Niko Vangjeli huddled in a corner talking.

Councillor Thu Nguyen joined protestors on the floor in the public area, chanting with them, and Councillor Etel Haxhiaj clapped in rhythm.

It was beautiful, and sad, but so strong.

After their recess, Mayor Petty prevented Councillor Nguyen from speaking on the matter of adjournment, after Councillor Kate Toomey complained about them being out of order.

Later that evening, Kate Toomey shared screenshots, showing that someone had threatened and body shamed her. It was someone texting her saying that everyone knew where she lived, that there was blood on her hands, making fun of her body, and repeatedly texting her "GENOCIDE". The comments were full of people expressing sympathy for her, saying she should call the police. It occurred to me that Kate Toomey and every single person on that thread was more upset about these texts than dead children and an ongoing genocide. These feelings and texts will no doubt be a heavy focus in their upcoming executive session discussing security measures at city hall.

On a radio show this morning, Mayor Petty said he's not going to allow chaos and hate in the city council meetings, which is disingenuous at best - there was no chaos, or hate, from the public at least.

To the contrary, the protest was extremely well organized and entirely peaceful. He gave us the closest thing to accountability I think we're going to get here, speaking on Rule 11: "We've probably been inconsistent in the past, and I regret that" and later stated that it was "probably a mistake" to allow Bergman's resolution a year ago but this is disingenuous at best, and more about getting caught in the blatantly problematic behavior than sounding like any regret for prior actions. It's certainly not an indication that the problem will be addressed, or accepting any responsibility.

He said that some city councilors felt unsafe, citing that their names were called out and things shouted at them. I don't think it was just me, but I'll take credit for shouting some of their names, and was part of the crowd shouting "Do your job" and "Shame on you".

George Russell and Kate Toomey have of course been praising the police for handling the situation well, but like usual, the only thing WPD protected and served was white comfort.

We are already seeing how the old white people in power are trying to spin this, claiming the protestors were chaotic and that the problem was their determination in the past, not their prejudiced inconsistency now.

The Mayor Clerk and Solicitor get to point their finger back and forth at each other while the public gets no closer to accountability.

This is a demonstration of why our city doesn't ever really fix it's problems - they have been doing things wrong for so long that they simply city can't admit that it's wrong, because they know the floodgates will open and they will have to change many things. So instead, they double down in their wrongness, so they can keep doing things as close to the way they have as possible.

Petty said in his interview that moving forward he wants the Council to stick to City business, which is an interesting choice of words, as the night before Councillor Nguyen said to him "Mr Chairman, we cannot continue business as usual during a genocide of Palestinian folks and everyone in Gaza" but that seems to be exactly what he intends to do.

The protesters were neither hateful or chaotic, but this cities administration has been.

We don't just need new elected officals, we need new people in the law department, and we need systems of accountability. We need to have documentation, so it's not just one person who is the resource of knowledge and procedure, allowing their discretion to gatekeep at every turn.