By David Fortier

A city council workshop, featuring an economic development presentation, was hacked Saturday afternoon, and the virtual portion of the meeting abruptly ended while the in-person segment continued to its conclusion.

About 20 minutes into the presentation by Goman and York Advisory Services, a white male spuming racial and religious slurs took over the Zoom portion of the meeting. While the vocal insults roared through the audio, a swastika and more racial slurs appeared in red letters and rudimentary handwriting across the screen.

The meeting continued in-person at the council chambers, under direction of Mayor Jeffrey Caggiano, who, after the meeting concluded, offered a succinct summary of the episode–“It was a bad Zoom hack”–and left.

The workshop, which began at 4 p.m., featured a presentation, “Economic Development & The Commercial Real Estate Industry,” by Michael Goman.

As recently as Nov. 18, a DeKalb County, Ga., school board meeting was hacked and an apology to those in attendance issued the next day by school board officials. Typically, such incidents are reported to police and the FBI for investigation.