(JENNIFER STAHN / iNFOnews.ca)

Kamloops council meetings just won't go smoothly, two years into the current term. For the first time, the entire Tuesday meeting was shut down early.

This week it was hampered by back-and-forths with inquisitive residents and bickering between the mayor and councillors, which is nothing new for this council. Then a startling disruption by a Zoom caller streaming pornography into city council chamber derailed the meeting entirely.

Although the meeting wasn't immediately ended following the pornographic images on screens both in the chamber and on the livestream, it affected staff for sometime after.

"The visuals that were broadcast over Zoom during public inquiries that many in this room laughed at were deeply disturbing for staff watching this meeting online," corporate officer Maria Mazzotta said.

Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson interrupted to say he "didn't even see" the images, but Mazzotta said some who did, including those taking minutes, were struggling to focus on the meeting and asked for a break.

READ MORE: Kamloops City Hall ups security in response to heckling, threats

She added that the laughter from the gallery was as disturbing as the graphic images and audio.

Council and staff returned briefly several minutes later, only to cancel the rest of the meeting.

It comes as security measures have been bolstered during council meetings, with bylaw officers regularly watching over the proceedings. They often attempt to quiet down hecklers in the gallery and have had to remove people in the past.

A major factor taking the Sept. 24 council meeting off course, along with many in the past year, is the "public inquiries" section of the meeting.

It's a segment where residents can ask about topics on the meeting agenda for the day, but it's not commonly used in other cities, especially not twice in the same meeting as Kamloops does.

Residents may not always get answers on the spot and it doesn't always go smoothly when pressed. Sometimes the public section of the meeting can last upwards of an hour, with residents getting few answers and Hamer-Jackson urged by his fellow council members to control the meeting.

He will sometimes attempt to answer questions, sometimes point to staff or councillors for answers, or he might tell the resident to email their questions. Councillor Dale Bass suggested looking at the way it's been managed before.

READ MORE: Kamloops council meeting goes off the rails; mayor removed as chair again

"One of the options we have to deal with public inquiries would be how we did it last term, where the mayor answered the questions and, if he was unable to, then it would be referred to staff to deal with them later," Coun. Bass said.

Hamer-Jackson seemed to take the suggestion as an insult.

"Yeah well guess what, this mayor isn't quite as intelligent as your last mayor," he said. "I'm not an encyclopedia. If I was that smart I would be working with Bill Gates in Seattle."

He would later say Bass' comments were "out of line," perceiving that she was suggesting past mayors had "all the answers." What she was doing, however, was suggesting the mayor could bring more order to the meeting if he chose to.

Councillor Katie Neustaeter said she was disappointed by the mayor's comments about himself.

"I'm sad to hear yourself that way. I don't support that. I think you're intelligent and I don't think there's any question about intelligence, it's just process we're struggling with," she said.

When council returned from their recess, Mazzotta said staff needed more time, which resulted in councillor Bill Sarai's call to cancel public inquiries entirely.

"I've been sitting around this horseshoe six years now. The decorum and the civility that comes to us — the accusations, the finger-pointing and the laughing — has gotten to a point where it hinders us from doing our job," he said.

Coun. Sarai said he had been contemplating the utility of public inquiries for a number of months as residents have other options to seek information from the City.

It was the last topic discussed before the meeting ended early.

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