Robert Zirgulis has run for office often enough to stride boldly, confidently across the community stage.

He returns with a powerhouse message.

Often speaking in stentorian tones, the president of the Culver City Short-Term Rental Owners Assn., he is considerably vexed by the pace of the City Council’s airbnb task force.

They are dragging their wheels – and using offensive language because of their anti-airbnb stance, he contends.

The 9-year-old national concept of short-term rentals should have been approved months ago, Mr. Zirgulis believes.

“Instead of welcoming airbnb as guests and tourists,” he argues, “the Culver City task force has shown their bias by calling them transients.”

With that, Mr. Zirgulis reached for a bookshelf.

Said he: “Here is the definition of a ‘transient’ from the Oxford dictionary:

tran·sient

/ˈtranSHənt/

noun

• 1. a person who is staying or working in a place for only a short time. synonyms: hobo, vagrant, vagabond, street person, homeless person, … more.”

In different words, Mr. Zirgulis said, “guests and tourists can, by this definition, be referred to as hobo, vagrant vagabond, street person, homeless person.”

He said that Councilperson Meghan Sahli-Wells’s attempt to defang the term transient was a flop.

Skepticism raced across his troubled face.

Ms. Sahli-Wells said that “the term (transient) was not to be taken negatively. She said it is a technical definition.

“I say using that word is tantamount to call an undocumented immigrant an ‘illegal alien.’ That is the technical federal definition.”

Mr. Zirgulis asked fellow Airbnb advocates to “express their outrage to the City Council and their bureaucratic workers in the Planning Dept.”