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Never mind the battling couples,  the loons, the believers and the misfits, the Santa Monica City Council leaves all of them in the shade. For inadvertent  comedy, tragedy — almost unbearable, surprises, high drama and slapstick, it can’t be beat.

Though two Council members – Bob Holbrook and Bobby Shrivrer – were absent, the five members who were present carried on valiantly at the  most recent episode (March 9, 5:45 p.m. channel 16, Live; rebroadcasts.

Various times, channel 20).

Among the highlights was Mayor Pro Tem Pam O’Connor’s effort to scuttle educe  the latest  Landmarks Commission’s designation.

As regular viewers may recall,  O’Connor is a historic preservationist by trade, so she always has something to say about the  Commission’s decisions.

In this instance, the landmark was three pre-cut houses with a common

Garden on Ninth Street near California Avenue.

In the 1920s and ‘30s, these pre-cut  houses were mass-produced in factories, shipped to their sites and assembled. They were very popular  with working class families.  Historically and architecturally significant, they are very rare now.

The owners of the houses appealed the designation. They want to  demolish the houses and build condominiums.

O’Connor did her usual critique of

The Commission’s  designation, adding that only one house could be seen from the street – not true, and that all the other buildings on the block were two-story, multi-family structures, so the one-story houses are    out of place. – not true, and NOT TRUE.

Missing all the points, she proposed    lamdmarking only one of the houses. The other pro-development Council members – Richard Bloom abd Terry t O’Day – voted for the witless proposal, but it failed for lack of a fourth vote.

In another sterling “trying to please everyone in an election year” segment, the City Council, with advice from City staff, groped for the means to make peace between a noisy business and its residential neighbors. It’s  a familiar dilemma, and the Council has never managed to resolve it to anyone’s satisfaction.

The Parlour, a sports bar and restaurant at Wilshire and Fifteenth,

is so popular that there’s a waiting line at 1 p.m. According to residents,  It’s noisy. Departing  patrons are sometimes apparently drunk and noisy, sometimes just noisy, but  almost always verbally abusive when asked  to be quiet. Not all neighbors had complaints.  Some

patronized it. One was crazy about  its lamb chops.

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But the conflict between noisy bars and nearby residents has been around for years. The City could have solved it years ago by creating a special zone for noisy bars many blocks away from residential neighborhoods. It could also use the permit/preferential parking system far more effectively.

But instead of solving the problem, and ending the conflict, the City  once again fiddled with the seating capacity,, hourss and number of security guards.

And so… City Hall fiddles while residents burn, Stay tuned!