In a ceremony that symbolized his pledge to bring more “fresh air and daylight” to City Hall, John D’Amico was installed as West Hollywood’s mayor yesterday in an open air ceremony at Plummer Park.
The West Hollywood City Council, which normally sits on a raised dais in the formal Council Chamber that is part of the West Hollywood Library Complex, instead sat in the open air on a platform. With Plummer Park’s Fiesta Hall as a backdrop, the council members faced several hundred residents and visitors seated on folding chairs underneath a tent.In between the occasional child spun by on a bicycle.
Those in attendance included U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff; D’Amico’s husband, Keith Rand; D’Amico’s mother and other family members and most of the city’s political establishment.
D’Amico is, as one speaker at the ceremony put it, the 13th mayor in the city’s 30-year history. The position of mayor rotates among council members each year. Given that current council members have served as long as 30 years (John Heilman) and there has been little turnover, all of the other incumbents have held the position multiple times. D’Amico was elected to the council for the first time in 2011.
In West Hollywood, the mayor has no real power given that WeHo is a “general law city” whose form of government is dictated by state law. But the mayor does occupy an important ceremonial position, giving him or her a platform to represent the city’s interests and point of view at major events. He also manages City Council meetings and signs certain city documents.
Councilmember Heilman was installed as mayor pro tempore, a position in which he will fill in if D’Amico is absent. D’Amico presented Abbe Land, the second-longest serving council member, with a plaque acknowledging her achievements in the role of mayor over the past year. Land will continue as a council member. D’Amico called out Land, the rest of the council, various civic activists and members of his family in his installation speech.
Photographer Jon Viscott was on the scene, capturing the ceremony and the crowd that attended it in the photos that follow:
I tried to organize a protest in front of the sheriff department demanding that there be changes made and that the deputies who murdered Winkler not put back on the street but ALL Council members ignored me, Larry Block ignored me and all three West Hollywood “news” internet outlets ignored me and now all three deputies are back on the job. I tried but there’s only so much one person can do.
Bla bla bla.
How about starting with our OWN POLICE dept. instead of this rogue gang of thugs called the LA County Sheriff (who have become a murdering abusive cancer on West Hollywood…sadly supported by money hungry politicians)
I dont get it. In his speech he thanks the residents. I have been here 26 years and I never had a say in who the mayor will be. they just keep passing the mayor hat around city council. it means absolutely nothing