LOS ANGELES (CNS) — With COVID-19 restrictions now lifted, the public was allowed into the Los Angeles City Council chambers during the body's meeting Wednesday for the first time since March 2020 — but with people no longer able to comment remotely, most of those who spoke urged council members to reverse that decision.

Adam Smith of West L.A. was the first to speak at the meeting Wednesday, and told council members that it's "good to be back in the room." But he added:

"I do think it's really troubling that, accessibility-wise, people can't call in and give public comment anymore. ... Accessibility has always been an issue at these meetings, and folks that are disparately impacted by the policies coming out of this room have trouble coming in to give public comment on a weekday morning."

On Wednesday morning, several Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action members gathered outside City Hall before the meeting to urge the council to allow remote public comment — saying that ending that policy would "eliminate the voice of Black and Brown communities who have borne the brunt of the highest positivity rates."

Diana Dean Hernandez, an ACCE member who spoke during the meeting, said that she is 39 weeks pregnant and took the bus to City Hall from her South Los Angeles apartment in the Chesapeake Apartments to speak to council members because "the choice of making my comments over the phone was taken away."

In response to members of the public requesting a hybrid option to allow remote public comment during meetings, Council President Nury Martinez's office told City News Service that the public comment process has returned to the way it was conducted before the pandemic, and people can fill out the Public Comment Form online if they're not able to attend.

The form is available here.

Hernandez and several ACCE members came to the meeting to urge council members to intervene at the Chesapeake Apartments, a 425-unit apartment complex that residents say has become a major health hazard. Residents of the apartment building on Obama Boulevard in the Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw area say they live with black mold, faulty heaters and broken pipes that spew raw sewage.

The calm return to in-person City Council meetings, with just about 35 members of the public present, took a turn when Ricci Sergienko and Jason Reedy, activists with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition and the People's City Council, gave their public comment and yelled at the council members — with Reedy accusing council members of not paying attention to the Chesapeake's residents while they were giving their public comment.

"These people are speaking about the deplorable conditions where they live and they deserve your full, undivided attention. None of y'all are really paying attention to these people when they're speaking," Reedy said.

Sergienko, who tried to serve Councilman Paul Koretz with a lawsuit from the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, was escorted out of the meeting following his public comment period after he continued to yell taunts directed toward Councilman Joe Buscaino for his low polling numbers in his mayoral campaign.

Buscaino requested Deputy City Attorney Strefan Fauble tell the public the rules regarding a member of the public's removal from the meeting.

People who are kicked out of the meetings are not allowed to come back the same day, and if they're kicked out twice over three business days, the person is not allowed to come back during the next meeting either, Fauble said.

"It escalates from that with more consequences if you disrupt more," he added.

The City Council had virtual meetings via teleconference for the first year of the pandemic, with in-person meetings continuing for council members in June 2021 before briefly returning to a remote format in January due to the Omicron variant's rapid spread. 

"When we closed these chambers' doors in March of 2020, the world looked very different," Martinez said to begin the meeting. "The last time we held public comment in person was on March 6 of 2020. A week later we announced that our city chambers were closed to the public, hours before the first death of COVID-19. Since then, we've had almost 32,000 deaths related to the virus in L.A. County alone."

While saying she was "so happy" that the city is able to resume public meetings, she warned anyone who might disrupt the meetings that "the yelling, the calling names, the derogatory language and causing disruption will not be tolerated."

People who attended the meeting Wednesday were required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test within the last 72 hours before entering City Hall. Masks were also required regardless of a person's vaccination status.

Wednesday's meeting had a relatively brief agenda. Council members repealed three COVID-19-related laws that gave exclusive shopping hours for senior citizens and people with disabilities at grocery stores; allowed occupants of self-service storage facilities to defer payment due to loss of income related to the pandemic; and made it unlawful to litter personal protective equipment.

Council members also confirmed Coro Southern California CEO and President Natalie Samarjian's appointment to the Civil and Human Rights Commission, and passed motions to install speed tables in Elysian Valley and Glassell Park, as well as a motion aimed at deterring the theft of copper wire and power in Council District 7.