A meeting of the Tel Aviv city council fails to inspire.

A sparsely attended city council meeting. A dull public process bodes ill for any city.

The first thing you notice about a city council meeting in Tel Aviv is the theatrics. The exaggerated security arrangements, the grandstanding of council members, the roped-off area reserved for municipal workers (though few bother to attend.) There are speeches and votes, and sometimes (quite often actually) one of the councilors yells something out of turn. The mayor even gets a bit worked up from time to time.

But once you get past that, it dawns on you that not much is really going on here. Everyone seems to be merely going through the motions. Both in the audience and on the council, there’s a constant hum of chatter, as if no one is really paying attention. It’s hard to escape the impression that the real nuts and bolts of municipal politics, if they indeed exist in this city, are not happening here.

No real debate occurs in city council meetings. There is a coalition and an opposition, and a dialog of the deaf between them. The coalition, loyal to the mayor, always gets its motions passed. The opposition, ardent and vocal though it may be, is too weak to vote anything down.

Opposition motions are almost never passed, sometimes rejected, and often simply removed (by vote) from the council’s agenda or transfered to internal municipal committees (where their fate is unclear). Whenever someone from the opposition begins speaking, the mayor gets up and wanders out of the room.

Other times the council’s legal advisor, whose seat is raised slightly above those of the council members, patiently explains that the council has no “legal authority” to address certain issues. When this happens, it makes no difference what the motion was, because the discussion turns to questions of authority and jurisdiction. Watching a political body argue with itself about whether or not it has the authority to deal with an issue can only be described as pathetic.

No epic urban policy dilemmas are fleshed out in this forum. There are no probing, soul-searching policy discussions of, say, public transportation, affordable housing or budgetary issues. All of those motions are quickly transfered to the internal committees, where they can be discussed beyond the gaze of the public, and in a forum where the opposition is all but powerless to exert any influence.

In any case, it’s clear to all that the real decision-making is happening elsewhere.

Perhaps most inexcusable is the way the council treats its citizens. The people of Tel Aviv, whose interests the mayor and council members ostensibly are there to represent, are treated like a nuisance. Prohibited from sitting in the front rows, not allowed to take an active part in the meetings, kept in the dark regarding the context of many of the discussions, the concerned citizen could be forgiven for thinking that he is an unwanted guest in his city’s parliament.

Perhaps this is the reason why so few bother to come observe these meetings. This week, the number of people in the audience was barely greater than the number of politicians sitting on the council. Most of those who do bother to show up are hardcore political activists, urban bloggers and democracy watchdogs. But, if you ask them, even they will give you a cynical answer about what brings them there. “The whole thing’s a farce,” one of them told me.

It wasn’t always like this. Just over a year ago, in the wake of the last municipal elections, the city council meetings were bursting with energy. Young people came out to heckle for newly formed parties, and suddenly it seemed as if the specter of accountability would spur the city’s politicians into action. Local politics, for a moment, was not only interesting, but even cool.

For whatever reason, formal politics in Tel Aviv has lost its sparkle. The energy is gone, along with the promise of better urban policy. The powers that be are free to promote their agenda, without feeling like they owe anyone any answers. Perhaps for them, a dull civic sphere is an accomplishment. But for the people of the city, it bodes only ill.