Concerned about homelessness in WeHo? Billboards on the Sunset Boulevard? The transformation of Santa Monica Boulevard (and its Boystown nightlife district) and of the Sunset Strip? The status of the meningitis outbreak? You should have attended this morning’s three hour meeting of the West Hollywood City Council.
What meeting? You didn’t know about it? Doesn’t the council meet this coming Monday?
Actually, you can be forgiven for not showing up for a meeting that at least two council members have said was supposed to be private until the city attorney told them that under state law it had to be open to the public. (Now everyone on the council claims it always was meant to be open to the public).
But clearly not very open. It wasn’t televised, council meetings always are. Its agenda was posted on the city’s website in a different place than where one finds the usual council agenda. And it was posted on Wednesday, March 13, just meeting the 72-hour advance-posting requirement of state law. (Agendas for regular council meetings are posted on Wednesdays, well ahead of the Monday night meetings). Only seven members of the public were there — including John D’Amico’s former deputy, Michelle Rex — and there were 17 city employees, who had to give up their day off.
The council members’ lengthy discussion of their priorities for the coming year and of City Hall’s initiatives included a number of creative ideas by council members (John Duran’s suggestion for a regional approach to homelessness, for example). And city employees shared a lot about the progress of important projects they are working on. All stuff that only the seven of you in the city council chambers now know about.
The lack of transparency likely was a result of council members not wanting to go public in their discussion of amendments to their code of conduct, the first subject on the agenda. Those amendments were prompted by Ian Owens’ lawsuit against the city and Councilmember John Duran, alleging sexual harassment, and behind-the -scenes spats over whether Councilmember Lindsey Horvath inappropriately used the title of mayor in national TV interviews.
But obscurity is not what city government is supposed to be about. On Monday, as the council members begin their own lengthy comment period with bragging about the meetings they’ve attended the previous week and “adjournments” in honor of celebrities, perhaps they each should take a moment to apologize for today’s meeting and promise to be more transparent in the future. What John D’Amico, in his re-election in 2015, described as WeHo 2.0 clearly needs to be rebooted by Mayor Lauren Meister.
Shame. On. You.
Now, don’t do that again, or we’ll have to punish you.
Not the first time this has happened either: in ’05 there was a 9am Sunday morning meeting to discuss proposed up-zoning of all of SM Bl to 4 or 10 stories. Most attendees found out about it only at the last minute and we’re almost universally outraged. But it happened anyway…
Another excellent example of “democracy at work” by the wonderfully progressive City of West Hollywood.
I must congratulate (not) Councilmember Duran’s listening skills, as his proposal for housing is already being addressed regionally in LA County – everywhere except Weho, that is.
I am not sure what the case is here, but if the agenda was not posted at the latest 72 hours prior to the commencement of the meeting, then the Council, and in turn, the city will be in violation of the Ralph M. Brown Act. – Just a bit of info
This city is a BAD JOKE !
7 PEOPLE ?
#WehoWomen2017 Time to let the women take the majority and see if things ‘straighten’ up.
If they want private meetings go into the private sector.
John Heilman seems to be the only one who proposes “adjournments” in honor of celebrities because he obviously considers himself one, a legend in his own mind. He does it to try & elevate the image of his own import. Heilman I think is also always the one who proposes empty rhetorical “solutions” to the city’s most prominent problems & concerns, such as overdevelopment, traffic congestion, homelessness on our streets, etc, to create the false pretense that he is working on such “solutions” when he obviously is not, even after 32 years on the Council. It’s not at all about… Read more »