Board Of Aldermen - Minutes - 3/9/2021 - P42
Board of Aldermen 03-09-2021 Page 42
PERIOD FOR GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT
President Wilshire
Now is the period for public comment. | will open it up, | will remind people that are speaking that you should
give your name and address for the record and you have a maximum of 3 minutes. So who is up first? Ms.
Ortolano?
Laurie Ortolano Hi, yes, 41 Berkeley Street. | wanted to just share a couple of thoughts with the Board,
comments. | don’t understand why the City did not make any effort to have a mechanism for the public to have
their abatement applications stamped this year. | understand the Assessing Office was under renovations and
closed. But no one anticipated that it would be closed for 95% of the time. All other cities seemed to have a
mechanism available for the public to get assistance and get those applications stamped, and we did not. And
that ultimately resulted in my arrest. | just recently got the Police Reports on that arrest. And | wrote a letter to
the Board several weeks ago and told you | felt Attorney Leonard should be fired. | am on the phone tonight
to tell you how strongly | feel that she should be fired because this was taken way out of line. When you go out
publicly and you go to the press and you challenge someone’s mental capabilities and you use language like
“unstable” and “erratic”, you really cross a line. And when you equate somebody to a DC rioter which | don’t
think | was anything like that. | watched the video yesterday of me going into City Hall and | looked as
nonchalant and casual as you could come.
| certainly didn’t go there to go to Legal, | wanted to get my application stamped in the Assessing Office, not
the office but the temporary office moved into Ms. Kleiner’s office. But that just wasn’t possible. | didn’t need
an appointment, | had gone in twice without an appointment; no issue. And it was just totally taken out of line.
The berating Jessie Neumann described to the Police 11 days later that my actions in there was that | berated
the people. The phone call by Mindy Lloyd to the Police is anything but a hostile scene. And to have Jessie
Neumann and Cecilia Leonard describe the situation and their concerns as if it was a DC rioting situation. And
then to listen to Mindy Lloyd on the phone with them there and the dispatcher saying, “are you concerned, is
she threatening”, “no”, “do you want to stay on the phone until the Police get there?”, “No, I'll hang up”. And
she just hangs up. It just doesn’t match. It just doesn’t match. And the bullies and the threatening and the
erratic and the unstable people are right in that Legal office. When the Mayor has to call business leaders to
apologize for the conduct of Attorney Bolton because he’s so out of control on the phone screaming, that it
requires the Mayor to make an apology, maybe he’s the unstable one. Maybe we can talk about that in court.
President Wilshire
Ok you need to wrap up Ms. Ortolano, please.
Ms. Ortolano | will.
President Wilshire
Thank you.
Ms. Ortolano And | am going to play a tape of Celia Leonard’s conduct; that’s going to go out on the Internet.
And we can evaluate that and decide whether she is stable too, | think what the City did was horrendous, just
horrendous and | don’t think it needed to go to that level.
President Wilshire
OK your time is up Ms. Ortolano. Thank you. Anyone else from the public that wishes to give comment. Name
and address for the record please?
