As has happened at almost every City Council meeting recently. Mayor Richard Bloom re-opened the public session of Tuesday’s City Council meeting by apologizing for the Council’s tardy return. Then he and other Council members examined the evening’s agenda for items that might be continued to a future meeting in order to end the session by midnight. The examination included lengthy conversations about several agenda items, so even as the Council members talked about shortening the meeting, they lengthened it.

When that was done, the Council heard the first item, an appeal of a Landmarks Commission designation. The staff recommended that the appeal be denied. The Council clearly agreed with staff, and was about to vote when Council member Pam O’Connor beau to talk.

Apparently she either hadn’t understood or had forgot the discussion of the need to move briskly through the agenda, as she launched into a tedious and extended dissertation on the landmarks designation process, and its flaws.She wasn’t making a case for her vote. She wasn’t even making a point. She was just…talking.

And another Council babble-on was underway,

Though there are all manner of rules governing how long members of the public can talk and what they can say or not say, there are no such rules for the Council embers, They can babble on endlessly, and they do.

They explain their votes – before and after they vote. They praise the staff fulsomely, and frequently. They nitpick and generalize. They lecture. They digress, waffle, fulminate and think out loud. They vamp. They show off, They snap at each other. They reminisce. They scold. They preach. But they do not listen.