Gadflies Versus City Council Policy

For decades, a key challenge for the City Council is the little matter of keeping council meetings short and compact. Public comment often changes the equation, especially during the era of the gadfly, the late 1990s and early 2000.

There were about a dozen of this Wild West crew, the flag waving Thomas “Ski” Demski, environmental activist Diana Mann, neighborhood watchdog Jim Sturm, council candidates Dan Rosenberg and even future congressman Alan Lowenthal, and the most consequential, 87-year-old Thomas Murphy could be counted on to stir up controversy during the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s.

It was Murphy who was able to neutralize the consent calendar, and perhaps initiate a goal-post- moving series of changes to the council rules.

He did it through the consent calendar, a standard device used by many governmental agencies, which combines various non-controversial issues into one item for one vote, thus saving time,

Murphy’s approach was unique, effective and maddening. In response to the time-saving consent calendar, Murphy simply took the agenda, and laboriously read each item and then offered his opinion. It turned a five-minute item into an hour-long comment.

Changes to stem public input problems were afoot, notably reducing the time for each public comment. More recently, at the Oct. 6 session, the council passed a new rule that would confine citizen comment to a period at the start of the meeting.

Opponents claim council members want the change to save time and cut the meetings short.

A backer of the change, Fourth District Councilman Daryl Supernaw said the idea for the change “developed in the council government operations committee which I chaired in April 2025. It was to look at ways to run sessions more efficiently.”

[Correction Submitted By Supernaw: "I did not chair the Goverment Operations and Efficiency committee in April 2025. It was chaired by Kristina Duggan (CD3) at that time, and she still chairs the committee."]

Asked if the intent of the measure is to reduce the time of meetings as opponents contend. “I’m not sure it’ll save time,” but it might reduce paid time for eight staff members providing council meeting support who sometimes work until after midnight. Supernaw estimated reducing meeting time could save up to $150,000 a year in staff costs.

Each mayor has had to deal with the persistent gadfly. Then-Mayor Beverly O’Neill invented the term CAVE (citizens against virtually everything).

Jim Sturm took on redevelopment policies that displaced residents and advocating for Victory Park on Ocean Boulevard. Colette Marie McLaughlin opposed redevelopment in Los Altos and criticized the Grand Prix. Ann Cantrell successfully opposed a proposed sports complex at El Dorado Park, supported by Councilman Les Robbins as well as attempting to stop AutoNation at Long Beach Towne Center.

Reggie Bannister and his wife, Gigi Fast Elk Porter, sued to stop construction of a police substation at Scherer Park. They eventually lost the fight and moved away. Tommy Tuchscher offered opinions on everything from television to the mayor’s performance. John Northmore, claiming to represent the “East Longo Alumni Association” focused on gang prevention and arranging outings for at-risk youth. Substitute teacher Dan Rosenberg was arrested and convicted of creating a disturbance during a council meeting.

Murphy recalled how his gadfly tenure began, “I had an idea on how to clean the beaches of all the debris. My plan involved a broom being slowly drawn up on a truck winch, enough sections to cover the channel.”

Murphy recalled that his idea was ignored, though a variation on his approach was tried years later, with the city taking credit for the idea. From then on, Murphy decided to make a weekly appearance at the council.

As to the current gadfly cadre, Supernaw observed, “there’s about a half-dozen regulars, now younger, aged 30ish.”

One-time council member Jerry Shultz wrote, “I do not support the council’s actions in the public speaking issue. While I dislike gadflies wasting time, I also feel that the public has the right to speak on issues that come before them. Limiting the public to speaking on only one issue is not conducive to good public policy. Restricting speaker comments to the beginning of the meeting is simply wrong. The public should be able to respond to remarks made by council members during the entire meeting. The public cannot respond to a thought or comment before it is made.

“That being said, I feel that the mayor, as the chairperson, has the right, and the duty, to keep all speakers on track. If they get off topic on another rant, they should be warned once, and if they continue, the mic should be cut off.

The plan is allowing the first ten speakers to address non-agenda items. Additional speakers would deal with agenda items. The time allowed for each comment would vary from one to five minutes depending on the number of speakers in a one-hour or 90-minute period at the start of the meeting, with council members present.

“I well remember the musings of Thomas Murphy, Collette, and others,” Shultz said, “I wrote a poem about Murphy in 2000 and read it at a council meeting. Murphy actually liked it and asked me for a copy.” The 12-stanza work taken from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” ends with “Stop the galflys? Nevermore.”