Hundreds of people come to speak at this meeting: lawyers, neighbors, Black and white, community organizers, old Democratic women, militants from the forest dressed up in business casual. Long lines out the building down the block. Chants resonate through the linoleum atrium, loud and unified enough to almost make you believe in democracy, even if the city council meeting begins two hours late today, and the bailiffs pass around a clipboard with far fewer spaces to sign up to speak than there are people in line. The police forbid the people waiting to speak from eating and drinking. The speeches last fourteen hours, dignified and gracious and civil, and overwhelmingly against Cop City. At five in the morning, the city council votes to approve the funding anyway. The assembled public jeers as the council members file out of the chamber. The sun is already rising when everyone goes home.