City official throws cat, guzzles beer during Zoom meeting in California, video shows

Near the end of a long Vallejo Planning Commission meeting via Zoom, Charles Platzer holds a striped cat up to the camera at his home in the Northern California city, a video shows.

“I’d like to introduce my cat,” Platzer says, before throwing the feline off-screen in the April 20 video. The cat landed with a thud. A fellow commissioner covers his face with his hands, while another laughs.

At another point in the video, Platzer walks off-screen, then returns with a green bottle and guzzles it, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. The Vallejo Times Herald identified it as a beer.

Platzer resigned from the commission Saturday, The Vallejo Times Herald reported.

“I did not conduct myself in the Zoom meeting in a manner befitting of a planning commissioner and apologize for any harm I may have inflicted,” Platzer wrote in his letter of resignation, according to the publication.

“I serve at the pleasure of the council and no longer have that trust and backing,” Platzer wrote, The Vallejo Times Herald reported. “I extend my gratitude to those who have supported me during my tenure. I have always felt that serving Vallejo in a voluntary position is honorable because Vallejo is worth serving. We are all living in uncertain times and I certainly, like many of you, am adjusting to a new normalcy.”

The Planning Commission in Vallejo, a city in the San Francisco Bay Area, has been meeting from home via Zoom during a lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The Vallejo City Council had been scheduled to take up a resolution removing Platzer from the commission over the incidents at the April 20 meeting, a city memo shows.

Along with the incidents involving the cat and alcohol, city employees heard Platzer use a “derogatory and highly offensive epithet” after the public meeting had ended but before he disconnected from the meeting, the memo says.

In a statement, Vallejo said the city “does not condone” Platzer’s behavior on the video and his actions “do not model the core values” of the city, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

“The issue for me is his whole demeanor during the entire meeting,” said Mayor Bob Sampayan said, The Vallejo Times Herald reported. “This hurts the credibility of the city.”

This story was originally published April 26, 2020 at 10:51 AM with the headline "City official throws cat, guzzles beer during Zoom meeting in California, video shows."