@The Guss Report — It is the proverbial loose thread on the free speech sweater. It should not have been pulled, but now that it has, it will undoubtedly cause endless additional aggravation for the Los Angeles City Council (and its committees and commissions) in this new year and beyond.

And it was so pointless and avoidable.

During the closing moments of the final L.A. City Council meeting of 2017 – a meeting that went an exhausting 4 hours and 45 minutes – after lengthy, often pointless and repetitive commentaries by the city’s elected officials, Los Angeles City Council president Herb Wesson instituted a new rule for any member of the public who signs up to speak on more than one agenda item:  He will count against the person’s already reduced speaking time, the amount of time it takes (Mr. Wesson) to state which agenda items the person signed up to speak on.

Why is that a problem? Let’s count the ways:

1. Wesson decided to first apply the unannounced rule on notorious City Hall gadfly Wayne Spindler, an attorney who already has three civil rights or free speech-related lawsuits against the city, each of which costs the city a fortune to defend, considering that Mr. Spindler is infamous for dropping 500-page briefs. During the meeting, Mr. Wesson did not appear to apply that rule against any other member of the public.
2. If Mr. Wesson continues to apply it against only Spindler in 2018, it would be a clearly discriminatory policy designed to limit only his free speech. Or, if Mr. Wesson applies it against all other City Hall regulars, it would still be discriminatory because it isn’t applied against other members of the public who might attend a meeting only once in their life to address a lien, and opt to also speak for an extra minute during the non-agendized general public comment.
3. If Mr. Wesson doubles down and applies the rule against all members of the public, regardless of how often they attend City Council meetings, it will serve to further reduce the input of all attendees, not that the city’s lawmakers pay much attention: they regularly leave the meetings to go to the back room for publicity photos, press conferences — or snacks — during the meetings.
4. And finally, in each of these scenarios, Mr. Wesson has now weaponized the gadflies, whose best practices are sure to now include signing up to speak on each and every agenda item, at each and every City Council, committee or commission meeting.

By instituting this rule, Mr. Wesson telegraphed to the gadflies what it is that annoys him the most. But make no mistake, many City Hall regulars who are subjected to Mr. Wesson’s 1^st Amendment abuses are not of the Spindler variety, but include City Watch contributor Eric Preven, who (along with his brother Joshua) was a 2017 winner at the Los Angeles Press Club awards.

It should be pointed out that free speech wasn’t always handled this poorly at the L.A. City Council meetings.

When Mr. Wesson’s City Council president predecessor, (now L.A. Mayor) Eric Garcetti, served in that capacity, the public participation rule was that members of the public could speak for a total of 5 minutes on agenda items, with no more than 2 of those minutes on any single agenda item, plus 2 minutes of general public comment for items generally under the city’s purview, but may or may not be on the agenda.

While Mr. Garcetti’s rules resulted in costly legal messes that the City of L.A. lost in federal court, the tone of the meetings was far less hostile. When Mr. Wesson took over, he cut down those times to 3 minutes of speaking time, no more than a single minute on any agenda item, plus a single minute for general public comment. And while Mr. Garcetti would regularly have general public comments at the beginning of meetings (enabling attendees to leave to go to other meetings) Mr. Wesson has vindictively called for general comments at random times during the meeting, including as soon as he sees gadflies step out to make a phone call or use the restroom, declaring them non-present and forfeiting their speaking time.

Not surprisingly, as a result, the tone of the meetings during Mr. Wesson’s tenure has gone from bad to worse, as exemplified by Friday’s meeting, when he ejected or reprimanded at least three people not named Spindler, including an infrequent female attendee whose criticisms unnerved him.

It may serve Mr. Wesson and the taxpayers well for him to spend some time at the County Supervisors meeting across the other side of downtown at  Grand Park, where such free speech problems are virtually non-existent. Whatever he decides to do with this ill-conceived rule in 2018, by tipping his hand, he may have already made things irretrievably worse.

Mr. Guss, MBA, is a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, and has contributed to www.CityWatchla.com , KFI AM-640, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @TheGussReport. Verifiable tips and story ideas may be sent to him at TheGussReport@gmail.com.