But it was probably the chaos over Item 15 on March 23 that caused Councilman Bill Rosendahl to declare: "Gadflies have taken over the agenda. They have seized every item, they're constantly mentioning their websites. Add to that, some of them are verbally abusive."
When L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky proposed consolidating public comments, in part to reduce the time used by gadflies, he was widely derided. His own blog site says the plan is "on hold."
PHOTO BY HILLEL ARON
Live from Van Nuys: Gadflies Donna Pearman, left, Rick Nightingale, Zuma Dogg and Miriam Fogler
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"It would have only affected a small number of people," says Joel Bellman, a top Yaroslavsky aide.
Rosendahl has asked City Council President Herb Wesson to dream up a gadfly-abatement ordinance, but "Mr. Wesson has no plans to create an ordinance," emails a Wesson aide. "Mr. Wesson encourages speakers to conduct themselves in a respectful manner, and will continue to do so."
When the City Council discusses a big issue, such as the proposed football stadium or the widely pilloried gerrymandering of council district boundaries, hundreds of citizens turn up. Each fills out a comment card and gets two minutes. They must stick to the topic and cannot curse but can say whatever they like. This being America, they don't even have to give their real name.
On lesser matters, often the only commenters are gadflies — like Sachs, Dowd, Zuma Dogg and the inimitable Walsh, who dislikes "gadfly" — meaning a pest.
"I'm a pest like testicular cancer's a pest," he spouts. "They lump me together with Arnold Sachs, a homeless Jew. What the fuck is a homeless Jew? I thought that was what Israel was for."
The term gadfly goes back to Socrates, who, while on trial for corrupting the youth of Athens, said, "I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you."
Athens needed him, Socrates argued, to point out its inadequacies. The jury disagreed, and he was sentenced to death.
At City Hall in Van Nuys, gadflies include Rick Nightingale, an elderly Republican who favors speeches about illegal immigration. As angry as he seems at the podium, he can be kind in conversation. But he once asked Councilman Eric Garcetti to "step outside" after Garcetti called him a racist.
Donna Pearman and Miriam Fogler are present, too; their comments vacillate between incisive and utterly confused.
Raphael Sonenshein, a government expert at California State L.A., says gadflies "often have an unusual level of expertise, especially on rules and procedures, and they can often correct a public official on that."
Gadflies can do far more. Walsh in the 1990s dug up scandals involving shoddy construction of the Red Line subway, often backed by documents leaked to him from deep within Metro. His scoops helped delay construction and led to improvements on the Red Line.
Nowadays, Walsh has an iPad and enjoys a far less cordial relationship with members of the press, whom he excoriates in emails written in all capital letters.
Says Walsh's friend and HollywoodHighlands.org co-blogger Miki Jackson, "He's putting on a bit of a show, but his information is good." (Both Walsh and Dogg admit to exaggerating their performances in order to attract attention.)
Many at City Hall feel that the gadflies monopolize government time. Avak Keotahian has worked for the city 34 years and has seen gadflies from General Hersheybar, a Vietnam vet, to the articulate Leonard Shapiro, who ran for mayor. He says the current crop is so bad it's "preventing the city government from efficiently functioning."
Retorts Jackson: "People get inside the government and they decide they're royalty. They have these long meetings, and they talk and talk and talk — and they feel resentful because people have two minutes."
What got to Rosendahl finally was the insults. Dogg, a sometime-karaoke DJ with decent talent, does a derisory, funny impression of Rosendahl's frenetic way of chirruping, "Great! Great! Great! Great! Great!"
"We have to sit there, day in and day out, with them yelling at us, calling us names," Rosendahl says.
"Our founding fathers would be appalled," Keotahian says. "I don't see them preserving any kind of First Amendment rights."
But Steven Rhode, a First Amendment lawyer who has represented Dogg and Dowd, begs to differ: "I have read and reread the First Amendment, and I haven't found the section that says free speech only applies to ordinary people."
Reach the writer at hillelaron@mac.com.
