New London ― The Board of Finance quickly adjourned its meeting Tuesday morning after video of a man performing an explicit sex act, and narrating it, popped up repeatedly during the live-streamed presentation.

The 10 a.m. Zoom meeting, hosted by Finance Director David McBride, was attended by several finance board members, including Chairman Donald Macrino, Arthur Lamoureux, Victoria Mueller – and a nude man who was linked in under the screen name “Lynda McCarty.”

“First time I’ve seen that at a finance board meeting,” Macrino said after the first of several unsuccessful attempts were made to block the X-rated content. “Let’s move along rather quickly.”

“I didn’t see that on the agenda,” quipped Lamoureux as McBride gave an accelerated overview of city capital improvement plan and bonding proposals.

By the fourth such interruption, Mueller noted the persistence of the meeting crasher.

“Oh, geez,” she said after the final intrusion before the meeting was ended.

When Macrino asked how such content was able to be streamed during the meeting, he was informed such live events are open to the public.

McBride, who had not yet discussed agenda items concerning school bonding plans, opted to end the meeting early in favor of sending the information to members via email.

Steve Fields, the city’s chief administrative officer, said police are investigating Tuesday’s incident.

“They’ll get to the bottom of it,” he said late Tuesday morning, noting, unlike even a year ago, very few New London municipal meetings are streamed via Zoom. “I’ll be speaking with our IT department this afternoon to see if we need additional resources to monitor these meetings and block (that content) immediately.”

Tuesday wasn’t the first time a locally streamed municipal meeting has been “Zoom bombed.”

In June 2020, a New London school board Zoom meeting with dozens of participants was hijacked by several individuals repeatedly yelling racial slurs and vulgarities.

In November 2020, several individuals used either a teleconference number or video link to interrupt a Norwich City Council Public Safety Committee with racist and sexist comments.

In response, Norwich officials recommended limiting municipal meeting video link invitations to participants only and asking public participants to use a telephone call-in that could be muted.

j.penney@theday.com