YACHATS — The Yachats City Council barely missed a beat Wednesday when their conversation about hedge heights and nuisance complaints was suddenly disrupted by loud wailing and the appearance of a naked man masturbating on the meeting’s online Zoom link.
“The reasonable repair is in the nuisance category, and it’s trying to bring in the issue of … ” Planning Commission member Lance Bloch was saying when he was interrupted by loud wailing that blared throughout council chambers from speakers connected to the Zoom screen.
Appearing in the upper left box of the adjacent TV monitor was a naked man reclining in an office chair masturbating enthusiastically as his wailing turned to moaning.
There were gasps and murmurs of shock and laughter from those in attendance as a slow 14 seconds passed before deputy city recorder Kimmie Jackson pulled the plug on the link.
“Was that an interloper?” asked mayor Craig Berdie, who had somehow been spared from seeing the man.
“I thought I had bad vision,” councilor Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey quipped, which elicited big laughs from those who had not been spared.
“Maybe that’s a good example right there,” Bloch said in getting the meeting back on track. “That would be an unreasonable intrusion…”
Although the incident is the first of its kind to happen in Yachats, so called “Zoom-bombing,” where masturbating men infiltrate Zoom meetings, became an issue during the pandemic and continues today.
“Clearly we were all mortified,” Jackson told YachatsNews on Thursday. “That was what we did not need. Hopefully we won’t have that problem again.”
Jackson reported the incident to authorities and the IP address the man used was blocked, but because the meetings are open to the public it is illegal to block unknown people from attending in person or via Zoom. Seven years ago the city’s website was hacked resulting in visitors to the site seeing pornographic images.
— Garret Jaros/YachatsNews
