You did it! WEHOville’s “Who Owns WeHo” Kickstarter campaign is a success.
In this case, “you” are the residents of West Hollywood who want to stop outside money from deciding what happens in our city (along with a few who live elsewhere but have a passion for WeHo).
You contributed a total of $5,585 to help fund WEHOville’s research into the complicated world of City Council campaign finance. There isn’t room to list all of you. But it’s worth noting that you include candidates in the March 2015 City Council race such as Mayor John D’Amico, Larry Block, Cole Ettman, Mike Gerle, Lindsey Horvath and Lauren Meister.
What will WEHOville do with the money you have contributed? We will use it to pay researchers to find out who the donors are, by which we mean whether they work for city vendors or are someone seeking Council approval of projects or their close relatives.
We’ll also use the money to have the hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports transcribed into a searchable database that allows us to group contributions by candidate, company and interest group (e.g. city vendor, real estate developer, billboard company).
That’s how we were able to calculate and report that during the 2013 election incumbent Council members John Duran and Jeffrey Prang got more than two-thirds of their campaign funding from people or businesses such as real estate developers and city vendors and billboard companies who don’t live in or have a business in West Hollywood.
That’s how we have been able to calculate how much the developers of the controversial project on 8899 Beverly Blvd. have contributed to Council members, who they are asking to set aside existing planning and zoning regulations so that they can nearly double the size of building there.
West Hollywood City Council members refuse to abstain from voting on matters brought before them by major contributors to their campaigns, which seriously taints our city’s progressive image. So the best we can do is shine a bright light on where the money is coming from and who it is going to. That way we can vote in the March 2015 election to ensure that West Hollywood is owned by the residents and business owners of West Hollywood, not outside interests who just want to make a buck off of us.
I cannot imagine why John Heilman is running again, to make sure Plummer Park gets razed? I’m embarrassed for him. He’s so outgrown this start up politician’s position after more than 3 decades. He comes off as an 8th grader in kindergarten. Or the Mitch McConnell of small town politicians.
I think this is terrific! The smell of corruption and of our city officials being bought off has never been more prominent!
I don’t often agree with Flores St but when I do, it is colossal! Stay alert, my friends!
You may not agree with the project, but I don’t think anything done for $5,000 can be considered a colossal waste of money. That’s a colossal exaggeration.
This is a colossal waste of money.
It is time the LA Times of NY Times picked this up. To see that in the “creative city” there is the big smell of corruption. As for “creative” – just look at the WEHO city council to see their only creativity is selling out to every developer.
We need folks similar to Kevin McKeown on the Santa Monica City Council, dedicated, effective public servant that has not and will not take dollar one from the obvious cast of miscreants. A brilliant article in Santa Monica Daily Press 10/22/14 gives information about his service. The series of interviews with other candidates is illuminating. By contrast, up for re-election is Pam O’Connor, (10/21/14 SMDP) freely funded by developers and lobbyists who entitles herself among other talents, a “Historic Preservation Planner”. Several years ago Ms. O’Connor availed herself of consulting fees from a WEHO developer and proceeded to denigrate the… Read more »
Of course they do not support this effort, Rudolph, they want a dumb electorate because they are probably (most likely ARE) in the pockets of developers and billboard companies. Unfortunately, most of the electorate will remain uneducated because they won’t read Hank’s findings once the research is done.
Congrats and thanks to all who contributed!
Interesting that 4 out of 5 council members do not support this effort by our local press to have a more educated electorate.
“Who Owns WeHo” is not a “success” to me until I have the campaign finance information here in my hand to view myself.
Campaign Finance should be public knowledge already…no?
Congratulations! Good show! Now give us the dirt!
Great Job