A hacker disrupted the Zoom portion of last Thursday’s Sag Harbor Village Board budget meeting, displaying pornographic images alongside racial and antisemitic slurs on the twin screens in the meeting room.
“Those disgusting images are etched in my brain,” the board’s Bob Plumb said by phone Tuesday. “They were pornographic and also used the N-word.” Mr. Plumb couldn’t remember if they were static images or a video: “I looked away so fast.”
The Zoom was “quickly turned off,” he said, and the meeting continued as normal after the interruption. “Everyone was a little shaken,” Mr. Plumb said. “At least it was a short meeting anyway.”
Zoom links to village board meetings are accessible on the village website. Every public board meeting has a Zoom option that accompanies it, allowing for more community input.
“The Zoom meeting is open to the public,” Mr. Plumb stressed, “which is the point.”
The hacker was allowed in to last week’s meeting, but the profile he or she entered under did not display a user name or a phone number, which are usually required.
“This was unfortunate, to say the least,” Mayor Thomas Gardella said Monday.
It is the second time in two years that a village board meeting has been hacked. The Zoom portion of a meeting of the historic preservation and architectural review board on Dec. 14, 2023, was hacked under similar circumstances.
Having the option to join public meetings via Zoom has become commonplace, not only in Sag Harbor but for many elected boards across the East End. The option makes the public meetings accessible to people who are homebound, traveling, or have a disability, giving them the chance to observe and join in public discussion. Board members themselves sometimes jump on a meeting via Zoom if they are not able to attend in person.
Village Police Chief Robert Drake was at the meeting when the images were shown, and Mr. Gardella said he had spoken to the chief after it ended.
The hacker’s intrusion is “being referred to the computer crimes unit,” Mr. Gardella said.
“I’m glad they’re taking action,” said Mr. Plumb.
There is a possibility that the hacker does not live in the United States, let alone in Sag Harbor.
“I just don’t know why someone would find it amusing to do that,” Mr. Gardella said.
