Long Beach Council Acts to Gag Gaggle of Gadflies

A motley assortment of self-anointed City Council watchdogs who live by the credo that silence is anything but golden are probably going to have to learn to hone their critical skills.

For they may soon be given a mere three minutes to tell the council what they think.

Often bogged down by the commentary of a faithful following of gadflies who seize the podium to complain, censure and sometimes even sing, the council is preparing an ordinance that would reduce from five to three minutes the amount of time an individual can take to address the council.

“We have to move along and do the business we were elected to do,” Mayor Ernie Kell said in support of the reduced comment period.

It is not, Kell said, that the council doesn’t want to hear from the public. It is that the council doesn’t want to hear quite so much from a few individuals who “have to be heard for five minutes on every subject.”

Councilwoman Jan Hall noted that “our meetings continue to get longer and longer.” Three minutes, she suggested, is quite enough to express one’s thoughts.

One of the more loquacious members of the council, Ray Grabinski, took exception, noting that “I talk as much as anybody down here.”

Indeed, Thomas (Ski) Demski, an occasional podium commentator, suggested that if the council members were willing to limit their speeches to three minutes, he would too.

A number of residents took advantage of their five minutes while they could, almost all of them opposing the move to shorten the speaking period.

“Don’t deprive us of saying what we need to say,” implored Ann Morgon, who later in the meeting gave the council a five-page memo outlining her concerns about life in downtown Long Beach. She asked that she be allowed to discuss it at three consecutive council meetings, so as to fully air her thoughts.

Arguing that even a three-minute comment period would be longer than that allowed by many other city governments, Councilman Les Robbins informed one speaker that his remarks opposing the ordinance could have been more polished and concise.

Dan Rosenberg, whose fondness for discourse on city matters is behind the three-minute proposal, told council members that they had it all wrong. “We need more open government, not less.”

The council, as it so often does, ignored Rosenberg’s advice and asked its staff to prepare the ordinance on a 7-2 vote. Grabinski and Councilman Warren Harwood voted no.