The Citizens Agenda: It’s Time to Tell City Council Candidates What You Think the Issues Are

Eleven candidates will be competing in the Nov. 3 election for two  seats on the West Hollywood City Council. With that election 82 days away, it’s time for West Hollywood residents to raise the issues that they would like to see addressed by the candidates.

For the first time our municipal elections will coincide with the Presidential election as part of a realignment initiative that was passed a few years ago. The result will be thousands of new voters in our city election, drastically changing the dynamics. Nobody knows exactly who this will benefit — incumbents or challengers. But WEHOville’s mission remains the same — to provide our readers with as much information about the candidates as possible in the most accessible way.  

To facilitate that, WEHOville is launching its biannual Citizens Agenda series. Over the rest of this week we will be asking West Hollywood residents to submit their suggestions about issues the candidates should speak to.  We will take the issues raised most often and present them to the candidates next week, and then publish their answers in a series of stories the following week.

WEHOville also is putting on a Zoom forum at 7 p.m. on Sept. 16.  All candidates will be invited to participate. The forum will be moderated by Christopher Nikhil Bowen. Bowen will draw upon his decade of professional and personal experiences in the city including managing numerous political campaigns in West Hollywood, lobbying with the Afriat Consulting Group, and as a communications deputy for the Greater Los Angeles Realtors Association.

Currently Bowen serves as the Public Policy Organizer for the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing (SCANPH), is a West Hollywood Transportation Commissioner, and serves on the West Hollywood North Neighborhood Association (WHNNA) Board.

WEHOville also is inviting each candidate to submit up to two op-eds in the coming weeks in which the candidate elaborate on what he or she hopes to achieve if elected on Nov. 3.

More information about how to watch and submit questions for the Sept. 16 candidate forum will be posted as the date gets closer.

Here are examples of a few issues that residents might want candidates to speak to. But we want to hear from you what you think should be on the election agenda:

COVID-19: What Can the City Do

West Hollywood, like the rest of the world, is in the midst of an unprecedented crisis because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our city has done a lot to deal with issues stemming from the pandemic, like declaring a moratorium on residential and commercial evictions, requiring that people wear face coverings when in public, and crafting creative ways for some businesses to continue operations (special outdoor dining areas, for example). Are there any other issues related to this pandemic that you think the City Council should address? Other steps the city should be taking?

Public Safety and the Sheriff’s Department

The deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and instances of police brutality across the United States have sparked demands for police reform. Those demands include rethinking how cities allocate their money for law enforcement (i.e. should some of that money be used to provide mental health and addiction recovery services to help reduce criminal behavior?) West Hollywood spends roughly $20 million a year on services provided by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Should it reconsider how that money is spent? And if so, how would it do that?

Housing

West Hollywood was founded as its own city in 1984 in part to protect its residents from dramatic increases in apartment rents, increases that weren’t likely to be regulated by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. West Hollywood also a city that was an early adopter of a rent stabilization ordinance that limits increases in rent of apartments in buildings built before July 1, 1979.  Today it remains a city where the vast majority (80%) of residents are renters. But it also is a city where xx% of the population finds itself “rent-burdened” (meaning they spend 30% or more of their income on rent and thus may face challenges paying for food, clothing, transportation and medical care). And while the developers of buildings with 10 units or more are required to devote 20% of those to those of moderate to low incomes (or put money into a fund to build such housing), there currently are only six affordable units available to the 5,000 people on the city’s affordable housing wait list.

What, if anything, can West Hollywood do to address this issue? 

What is West Hollywood?

A city founded, as noted above, to preserve the rights of renters now is home a condo that is likely to go on the market for more than $100 million. Others recently on the market are going for anywhere from $2 million to $30 million.  There also are now six expensive private clubs open or soon opening in West Hollywood. And there are posh gyms, one where a single workout with the owner can cost you $1,000. The city’s 2013 Community Survey said that 39% of West Hollywood’s population identified as gay men.  According to the 2019 survey, that is now 33%.  

West Hollywood has evolved. What is good about that evolution? What is bad about it? What do you envision the city becoming over the next ten years?

Of course, there are many other issues candidates should address. We’d like to hear your thoughts, written in the form of a question you’d like to see WEHOville put to a candidate. Please frame that question so the candidate is required to give a “yes” or “no” answer — no “if’s,” “ands,” or “buts.”

Email your recommended questions to [email protected]. Please submit them by Sunday, Aug. 16, so that we can prepare them for submission to the candidates.