LOOK WHO'S FALLING SHORT ON DECORUM.

Byline: BRENT HOPKINS Staff Writer

The Los Angeles City Council, newly charged with protecting decorum and propriety in council chambers, started late Wednesday.

At 10 a.m., when the session was supposed to begin, Councilman Dennis Zine was the sole member visible. Council President Eric Garcetti, who's made it a point to start meetings on time, arrived shortly thereafter, followed by a handful of other members.

After nearly 20 minutes, Garcetti, adopting the tone of a frustrated teacher calling the class to order, asked the other members to show up.

It took an additional five minutes for them to arrive, though few took their seats or even looked up from the other tasks they were doing when the meeting finally was called to order.

The chamber was packed with activists, lobbyists and concerned citizens anxious to speak their minds on term limits and ethics reform.

Yet, as they rose to speak, council members talked on their cell phones, chatted with staffers and typed on their computers. Even the most provocative speakers drew little more than a glance from the 14 elected representatives present.

There was no sign that, a day after approving rules governing the public's behavior while in chambers, the council gave any thought to its own.

Throughout the session, the Los Angeles Police Department officers who serve as sergeants-at-arms sternly shushed audience members whose conversations rose to indecorous levels. Behind them, staffers and bureaucrats chatted away.

``I notice that people get up from their chairs and walk around,'' complained Daniel Wiseman, who represented the Van Nuys Neighborhood Council via video link. ``You fail to listen to the public during public comment.''

He then went over the two-minute time limit for speech and was buzzed off by Garcetti, who recommended that Wiseman and other speakers avail themselves of the service of council ambassadors and the Chief Legislative Analyst's Office if they had additional questions.

``There's a problem with the city government running amok with the First Amendment!'' thundered Zuma Dogg, a Venice boardwalk activist whose outbursts helped inspire the rules the council unanimously approved Tuesday.

Dogg then employed those constitutional rights to rage against the council, ending with a plug for his campaign to join it as a member of the currently non-established ``homeless council district.''

``Zuma Dogg for City Council!'' he barked out, his black beanie shaking as he threw his arms in the air. ``End the corruption!''

Garcetti, one of the few members watching, nodded politely.

``Thank you, Mr. Dogg,'' he said.

While Garcetti tried to maintain eye contact with most speakers, his colleagues did not. Nor did they bother to recognize their fellow council members when they took the microphone, continuing their side conversations and whatever else was on their minds -- aside from the business at hand.

Councilman Jose Huizar, who represents East Los Angeles, missed his scheduled opportunity to speak, pausing from his cell-phone conversation to ask to give his address later.

Bill Rosendahl, the rookie Westside councilman, disregarded the new prohibition against loud speech as he pointedly told the council what a great job it's doing.

``I was with the cardinal the other night,'' he said, gesturing emphatically. ``And he told me, `Bill, you guys are the best City Council ever!'''

Garcetti, who is charged with enforcing the rules of decorum in his capacity as president, later acknowledged that the members don't always look up or pause to acknowledge speakers.

They're multitasking, he explained, trying to do as much work as possible while in session.

That's why they need the rules, he said, to keep the sessions professional and swift without getting bogged down by gadflies and blowhards.

The trick is to allow constitutionally protected speech while still conforming to good etiquette.

``Emily Post wouldn't even invite these people over,'' he said in an interview. ``We bring them into our house every day.''

Dogg, whose cohorts plan to test the limits of the council's new decorum rules with the proper, respectful use of obscenities and racial slurs, said he'd keep coming.

``It'll be so easy for me to comply with the rules; they'll wish I was still singing Journey and the Bee Gees,'' said the activist, known at City Hall for his particularly soulful renditions of ``Don't Stop Believin'.''

``I'll replace all the silly stuff with serious issues.''

brent.hopkins(at)dailynews.com

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