Emails Show Vulgar Threats To Seattle Council Following Video

SEATTLE, WA — On Monday, a man used his time during public comment at a Seattle City Council meeting to make a threat. The man, who speaks at every meeting and often gives Nazi salutes, told the Council he would stick his "kosher sausage" down their throats "forever."

Council President Bruce Harrell cut the man off. Councilwoman Lorena Gonzalez called it a threat of sexual violence, and asked that the man be removed from Council chambers.

"This man just threatened to stick his genitals down our throats," she said.

It's an extreme example of how out of hand public comment can get. And it happened just a few weeks after a public comment incident that, at least briefly, made the Council infamous.

A video of Council members looking at their phones while a 72-year-old Seattle man spoke during public comment was viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit. It was initially publicized by Seattle right-wing radio hosts before local media picked up the story. Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, among others, posted about it on social media.

The Council — and other city departments — received hundreds of angry emails in response, some from nearby cities, others from as far away as the Netherlands and Florida.

Some emails, which Patch obtained through a public records request, contain deeply offensive and racially-tinged language. Some could be construed as threats. Many were politely angry, chiding the Council for making Seattle look bad.

"You're truly a revolting individual and a cancer that plagues the jewel of the Pacific Northwest," one person wrote to Councilwoman Kshama Sawant.

"I used to show dogs. You're the epitome of what we call female dogs in the profession. But I won't degrade my precious dogs by using it on you," wrote a woman named Barbara Neale to Councilwoman Debora Juarez.

The video was taken on March 11 when Richard Schwartz, a regular critic of the city's bike policies at Council meetings, got up to speak. Before he began his comments, he asked the Council members to look at him as he spoke. He insisted that they not start the clock on his public comment time until they did.

Councilwoman Debora Juarez responded, "Sir, you're on a 2-minute timer here, so let's go."

The video certainly looks bad — like a bunch of out-of-touch politicians just ignoring the public. But at the same time, Schwartz wasn't strictly following the Council's rules for public comment. He was not, according to the March 11 meeting minutes, speaking about an item on the agenda, and he was bound by the same 2-minute time limit that applies to anyone who speaks during public comment.

But the perception that the Council, Juarez specifically, was treating Schwartz rudely appears to have won out. A majority of the emails sent to Council use the word "disgust" in some form.

"Now that I have a copy of the video of YOU shutting down a Seattle Resident at one of your
so-called meetings, WHICH TOTALLY DEMONSTRATES YOUR DISGUSTING IGNORANCE AND ARROGANCE, I plan on paying to have this published on all the Seattle media along with CNN, as well as Facebook," a man named Steve Paulis threatened.

Juarez was the main target of the anger. One email accused her of "looking up recipes for tortillas" on her phone during the March 11 meeting. Another person called her a "disgusting cow." One man threatened sexual violence against her.

Juarez did not answer questions from Patch about how the Schwartz video has affected her. She is running for reelection in 2019. In some emails, people mention that they'll support one of her opponents, Ann Davison Sattler.

Sattler denounced negative comments, but said she entered the Council race because she didn't feel like Juarez was paying attention to her concerns about community health engagement sites.

"There's too much to be done right now to expend any energy towards anger or anything else negative — that needs to be directed towards engaging in the process and voting at the primary Aug. 6 and then in the general election in November," she wrote in an email.

Magnolia resident Edie Birk sent Juarez one of the longer emails of the bunch, although it opened with profanity. Birk said that the video of Schwartz underscored her larger feelings of being ignored by City Council.

Councilwoman Teresa Mosqueda, who was not at the March 11 meeting, responded to Birk, but the last line of Mosqueda's response bothered Birk.

"[W]hether it’s 20 minutes of testimony or 4 hours of testimony, we are listening and often taking notes or researching items that are said during testimony," Mosqueda wrote.

Birk says she doesn't think public comment is a good time to be doing research. It's time to pay attention to the people.

"I just didn't believe it," Birk told Patch. "There's just a continuous feeling of not being heard, from the federal government down to the City Council."

Gonzalez was the one member to issue a formal apology to Schwartz.

"Listening and learning from our constituents during public comment is an important part of my responsibility as an elected official. I apologize to the people of Seattle who believe we missed the mark on March 11," Gonzalez wrote in late March.

After the man at this week's Council meeting made his "kosher sausage" remark, Juarez spoke, backing up what Gonzalez had said about the threat. Juarez said she, Gonzalez, and Mosqueda, especially, have targeted for racial and gender-based attacks in recent years.

"I, for one, am tired of it," she said.

Still, Harrell allowed man to finish his full 2 minutes of speaking time, citing the man's constitutional right to comment on Council business.