Officials call for full video of meeting

Edited version online omits mayor, council members walking out

The official video of Tuesday’s contentious City Council meeting where Mayor Meg Kelly tried to clear the public from the room and then left herself has appeared on the city website edited, prompting a call from some city officials for the video to be restored in full.

“City Council meetings should never be edited,” said Public Safety Commissioner Robin Dalton. “When this came to my attention, I requested that the meeting be released in full.”

The video that was posted did not include Kelly and other City Council members walking out of the room when she abruptly adjourned the meeting. The video restarted several minutes later after the mayor and council members were back inside the council room and were seated.

Commissioner Michele Madigan, who manages the IT department, said she didn’t know that the video was edited and that her team is working to restore it.

“I did not make the decision to post an edited video,” Madigan said. “Once I heard it was edited, I have asked that the full video be uploaded.”

Kelly did not respond to a Times Union request for comment.

The raucous council meeting was the first held since a June 28 press conference when Assistant Police Chief John Catone blamed Black Lives Matter protesters and Albany “gangs” for an incident on Caroline Street that ended in a stabbing and shots fired. Protesters and their supporters were at the meeting to push back on Catone’s comments, which many felt were unfair and racist.

In the uploaded video, the Rev. Joe Cleveland was speaking during public comment, saying Catone’s blaming “violence on social justice advocates is a denial of responsibility on the part of the police department and the city” and “a shocking betrayal of the community trust.” Some in the audience were making sounds of agreement. Kelly then can be seen threatening to remove the public.

“If you are going to be ‘uhhuh’ and making remarks, we are going to have you removed,” Kelly said. “I’m just putting that out there, OK ... You can leave and I have the police out there. This is public comment, not a dialogue. This is my meeting and I am running it. Yeah — so either we listen or we can empty the room.”

When the audience objected, the video shows her waving her arms saying, “out, out, out, out.” When no one would leave, she is then seen adjourning the meeting.

The video then resumes with Kelly saying “we will continue on with this meeting.” It does not show her walking out with Dalton and Public Works Commissioner Anthony “Skip” Scirocco. Nor did it capture Dalton’s return, then Kelly’s and eventually Scirocco’s.

Commissioner of Accounts John Franck, who with Madigan stayed in the City Council room throughout, said that he doesn’t remember a time when a meeting video was edited.

“That’s unusual,” Franck said. “Maybe (the mayor) thought that if she adjourned the meeting that it wasn’t editing it. But I’m not aware of any time we have done that.”

It’s also uncertain if Kelly restarted the meeting properly as she did not call it to order. Attorneys for the state Committee on Open Government were not available on Friday afternoon to respond to a Times Union request for comment regarding Kelly’s action.

City Attorney Vincent Deleonardis did not comment on how Kelly restarted the meeting but did say that the videos are always edited during recesses.

“Video of City Council meetings are typically edited to remove those portions when the council is in recess or otherwise not in session,” Deleonardis said.