The race for two seats on the West Hollywood City Council is likely to be exceptionally crowded, with 14 people already having formally expressed their interest in running.
Those people have to collect the signatures of at least 20 registered WeHo voters to actually be put on the ballot. The registration process ends on Dec. 9.
The latest to have “pulled papers” from the City Clerk’s office include incumbent John Duran and Steve Martin. Martin, like Duran, is a lawyer. He served on the WeHo City Council from 1994 to 2003, losing in his re-election bid to Abbe Land. Larry Block, another well-known activist, also has begun the registration process.
Less well-known are Scott Cook, Carla Romo and Francesca Jacobs. Cook is a real estate agent currently working with Architecture 8, a firm in Beverly Hills. Jacobs identifies herself as creative director and owner of Organic Media Inc. WEHOville has been unable to find information about Romo as yet.
By comparison there were 12 final candidates in the March 2015 race. Candidates Heidi Shink and Cole Ettman pulled out of that race to run for former City Councilmember Jeffrey Prang’s seat in a special June election.
Political observers are giving an edge to Duran, who has been aggressively seeking donors for months. A statement filed with the city clerk shows that between Jan. 1 and June 30 of this year, Duran raised $115,556.
Others who requested registration papers earlier are incumbent John Heilman; Amanda Goodwin, a movie writer and director; Amir Noorani, a local filmmaker; Ashley Reed Stillwell, who is a producer and writer at her own company, Full Beat Productions, and Dan Bruhl, whose Facebook profile identifies him as a freelance producer.
Also requesting registration papers were Michael Cautillo, division sales manager for Bloomingdale’s in Century City, and Joel Quaresimo, who offers tech consulting services.
Francesca Jacobs and Larry Block, both community leaders, one local and one in larger capacity, have chosen to not run, in lieu of various shared reasons. Friends of Francesca are knowing of her deciding to stand behind local City Official Mentors. She is Licensed Teacher and coaching/workshops provided for USTA/Ironman and for corporations in NYC with professional team. Since 1988, Community leader in funding via co producer of LB City festivals (up to 100k) expanding funding into educational programs. She has led youth programs, developing partnerships/sponsor relationships and grants for under served, non profits and founded a HI Non Profit… Read more »
A low voter turnout gives incumbents an advantage. Nobody will compete with them. And the reason for low turnout – more when 50 percent of city voters are not members of LBGTQ community and they are not organized, they don’t have own candidate(s), who will fight for them. So, we will have same Council Members Duran and Heilman.
Who are these people?!