“Gambling Public Funds” Mayor Declines Divestment Again
Thursday afternoon, Gainesville activists gathered outside City Hall during the City Commission meeting to demand that the city divest from all corporations.
The protest came shortly after Palestinian-Lebanese Gainesville resident Bana Kabalan was barred from entering the morning meeting on the Gainesville General Employees Pension Plan. Mayor Harvey Ward refused to allow her to make a public comment.
Kabalan would return for vengeance, with dozens of protesters. The protest was planned a few days in advance; however, Kabalan’s barring from public comment at the pension meeting reportedly caused the number of attendees and public commenters to increase at the general meeting.
At the past two city meetings, Kabalan and representatives from various Gainesville activist groups have spoken against Palestinian genocide and asked the Gainesville City Commission to divest from all corporations.
64 activist organizations and businesses have signed an endorsement calling for the City of Gainesville to divest from corporations unanimously.
At the last meeting, Commissioner Desmond-Duncan Walker moved to ask staff to come back with a recommendation for eliminating corporate notes from their investment portfolio. It did not receive a second.
Prior to public comment, Kabalan announced, “We are here because we want the City of Gainesville to divest from all corporations, which includes divesting from weapons companies that are violating international law. We are aware the City of Gainesville is investing in almost $7,000,000 in these companies to fund the pension plan…. The county divested from all corporations because they saw it would help with capital preservation…. The [General Pension Plan] report they gave said there was more risk that they’re not disclosing and to request the list of risks (Page 31). They denied my ability to make public comments. They closed the door and said the meeting was ‘adjourned.’ It's clear the City of Gainesville is very discriminatory is who they allow to speak and who they choose to listen to.”
After about 30 minutes of chants, the protesters went inside.
City Manager Cynthia Curry and her senior assistant Sean McDermott were in attendance along with the city commissioners. Commissioners Cynthia Chestnut and Reina Saco showed up late.
Santa Fe College police Chief/City Commissioner Ed Book was attending the meeting virtually; however, he was the lone vote against public comment’s extension and left shortly after it started.
Kabalan was the first to publicly comment and told the commissioners what she was going to say at the pension plan meeting. “I read through the General Pension Plan Actuarial Report, and a few key points came up. On page 30, there’s a discussion of risk as the plan matures, and the definition of plan maturity is members who participate in the pension…. The retirees. The plan has matured by 9.6% since October 1, 2016 to 2023…. It’s in [city workers’] best interest to have conservative investments with guaranteed money for their pension plan. There is also a report on the interest rate at the low default risk obligation measure of 4.86%, which is close to the rate of interest at the 20-year U.S. Treasury bond, which is at about 4.2%. On page 31, the report goes into further risk of the investments…. The graph on page 38 shows how volatile the market is. It's more volatile than the actuaries are predicting. Nobody can predict events like COVID, the climate crisis, [and] rising global tensions which are on the horizon…. U.S. Treasury bonds are safer for long-term gains and the preservation of capital, especially when you consider the maturing nature of the plan. The list of risks [provided] is not exhausted and can be provided upon request. I’d like to request that those risks are provided to the public to allow the city commissioners, the city manager, and Mayor Ward to make more informed decisions…. Alachua [County] divested from corporate investments in favor of capital preservation. We please request that the city does the same. There are your pecuniary reasons, thank you.”
Ward could be heard audibly pouring his coffee cup while Kabalan spoke.
Superette business owner Maya Velesko said, “Our city workers have this guaranteed retirement that many rely on. The fact that based on the volatility of the market, it feels like there’s less security for our local citizens and city workers. Maybe instead of gambling public funds in the volatile stock market and refusing to your local constituents regarding this, you can demonstrate that you actually care about the people you’re here to serve, not only do the city workers but also the citizens…. Who do you serve?”
Terrance Conn thanked the mayor and commissioners for the opportunity to address them and said, “The facts of what’s happening in Gaza are not in dispute. There can be some argument on if a specific legal definition of genocide has been met or ethnic cleansing has been met.... The structures in Gaza have been absolutely destroyed. Hospitals have been destroyed. Schools have been destroyed. 40,000 Palestinians are dead. 40% of those Palestinians that are dead are children. American doctors volunteering over there have confirmed they’ve treated as young as 12 who’ve been subject to targeting by snipers. They had bullets in their heads. What’s going on in Gaza is a moral outrage…. It could not being going on without the support of the United States government. We don’t have the power as citizens to determine how U.S. tax dollars are spent. The only thing we can do when the government is acting immorally is express our outrage and disagreement and do all we can by speaking out and having solidarity with the Palestinians. That’s also what I’m doing here today and requesting the community of Gainesville do as well. It's spreading beyond Gaza and going to the illegally occupied West Bank. People are being killed, land is being stolen, homes are being destroyed. This is a process that’s been going on for 100 years, and Palestinians have been a majority to historic Palestine for over 2,000 years. These people have lived there forever and are being displaced and killed. Their civilization is being destroyed, so on that basis, as a motivator, I ask you to take the action of divesting.”
Gainesville Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) member Robert Pitts spoke to the commission as a PSL member and working-class constituent of the Gainesville community. “Last time we spoke on August 15, Harvey Ward, you delivered a condescending monologue where you said, quote, ‘State statutes make it very clear we cannot do what you’re asking.’ As the county’s divestment has proven, this is just another lie in your arsenal of excuses of why you don’t want to do your job. The charade of confusion for how the county upheld its community’s demands does not absolve this commission from your disregard in the Democratic process and the people you pretend to represent. [This] highlights a dangerous level of incompetence that makes you incapable of even opening up a dialogue with the governmental body [the county commission office] across the street…. You’ve chosen a childish game of excuses and a redirection of complaints rather than upholding the duties of a democratically elected governmental body. Your continued insistence on investing on the murder, rape, and displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank while refusing to acknowledge the material impact of these dollars being sent without the community’s consent…. Companies like Nvidia, Caterpillar, Chevron, General Dynamics, Honeywell, and the Twin Capital private investment portfolios they are contained in are wildly unethical, undemocratic, and a disgusting stain on this city…. Your excuses are nothing more than a cover for this commission’s support of imperialism and genocide. How many children need to be murdered before you care? How many thousands need to be forcefully displaced and watch as Caterpillar bulldozers that this commission is investing in teardown homes until you show a heart…. You must immediately bring divestment to the agenda and free Gainesville from these unethical and unstable investments. Free Palestine.”
Ward said, “Thank you, that was a powerful argument.”
Jamie Hoover said, “It's been shown the financial and pecuniary aspects of this investment and how Treasury stocks would be a more reliable investment for the long-term pension plans of our city…. The fact that Alachua County was able to divest in the same state we live in shows that your argument that it's impossible to divest because of Tallahassee and Florida law is untrue. There are avenues you can take to divest just like they did for moral, pecuniary, and environmental reasons. As this genocide continues almost a year in, really 75 years, but it becomes clearer and clearer that the city wants to sit on their hands and blame Tallahassee instead of actually doing the right thing and divesting from corporations involved in war profiteering.”
Gainesville resident Joshua Smith said “I have a long familial history in the Southeast United States, like 500 years. I’ve had family members in the military and family members protesting against that same military. All of them are dead now, but I’m here. I feel the need morally to request strongly that you divest funds from wasteful things like Israeli genocide of Palestinians…. Something much smarter would be to have Florida not be a state of Israel but a state of the U.S. and invest money locally in pension plans instead of toward weaponry which has been used against children and weaponry that should not be used, like white phosphorus. I feel the need to tell y'all to stop investing in that.”
United Campus Workers of the University of Florida representative Quinnton Cooper said, “Every day [working families] wake up and see the economic tailspin our county has been in for years. What working people need is money back into our community and stability, and we want our city investments to reflect that. Nearly two months ago, the International Court of Justice ruled Israel to be an apartheid state. History has shown us in South Africa that apartheid states and the companies associated with them incur a huge amount of public ire, protest, and subsequent economic loss. The same can be seen today. Starbucks stocks are in free-fall because of the intense pressure of the BDS movement. Intel has canceled an over $25 billion dollar contract with Israel that has sent shutters through the market. The Yemeni blockade has made billion-dollar companies dependent on sea-fare shipping declare bankruptcy all within this internally recognized apartheid state…. Mayor Harvey Ward, after standing with an Israeli soldier posing for photo ops, will you and the city commissioner Casey Willtis stand with working families like you claimed to at last Saturday’s Labor Day breakfast?”
Cooper was referencing a deleted Instagram story that began resurfacing because someone took a screenshot and sent it to GnvInfo.
Last February, former Israeli soldier and October 7 Nova Festival Massacre survivor Rom El-Hai spoke at UF on his experience escaping from Hamas soldiers. El-Hai's speaking was protested by around 200 people due to his affiliation with the Israeli military and the Israeli military's war crimes.
Sometime before the protest, El-Hai and a fellow former Israeli soldier, Shlomi Kahana, who works at UF Hillel, took a picture with Ward in his office. Ward told GnvInfo two weeks ago that El-Hai "represented himself as speaking about the massacre” and said he’s “pretty sure he had” when asked if he’s shook hands with pro-Palestine protesters; in the same way, he’s shook hands with former Israeli soldiers.
Gainesville resident Dan Hernendez closed out public comment. “You’ve heard the arguments for why divestment is possible. You’ve seen the countless videos of slaughtered children. Mothers and fathers picking up what’s left of their children’s bodies so they can be buried. Families being burnt alive in displacement tents. These are images that cannot be erased from our minds. If you have yet to see these videos, I would like to ask you why you’ve decided to bury your heads? Why it is some lives are more important than others? This is the bare minimum [that] you can do. As I stand here today, I see some of you who I’ve voted for in the past, and I know how I will vote in the future…. We will be here again.”
16 people total spoke in favor of divestment.
Ward responded, “I will reiterate like I said a couple weeks ago. This is not an issue that we have the opportunity to make. I understand that Alachua County has an entirely different reading of the same law. They’re welcome to that and the consequences thereof. I do not believe the law gives us any room to make what you’ve all made is the argument of moral judgment. Yes, you also added the pecuniary side, but you came to us for moral reasons. It doesn’t matter whether I’m sympathetic to those or not. The law is pretty clear. That’s where I am, and that’s where I’ll be.”
All the commissioners were completely silent. None of them said a word for the entire item. Commissioner Duncan-Walker did not offer a rebuttal or response to Ward’s comments.
Reina Saco used to be a member of UF Students for Justice in Palestine but was doxed by the Cannery Mission.
The commenters who spoke in favor of divestment left the room.
Outside one of the protesters, Farah said Ward gave a “very dumb reason.” as protesters shouted “SHAME.”
Farah said, “The reason he gave was that the county interpreted the law differently, and they’re going to deal with the consequences of that…. Ward said even though we brought up the pecuniary reasons and the financial reasons, because we brought up moral reasons immediately, that's why they can’t consider it."
Kabalan responded, “That’s not true. We’ll be bringing a lawyer next time.”
