Thomas hits snags on way to nomination

The West Hollywood City Council nomination period is now open. All persons wishing to seek a seat on the City Council are required to ‘pull papers’ from the City Clerks office. The nomination period ends on August 12th, and if either Lindsey Horvath or John D’Amico do not file papers to run for re-election, the nomination period will extend 5 days to August 17th.

One candidate Marquita Thomas hit a bump on the road to pulling papers. Thomas who ran unsuccessful campaign in 2019 was the first to declare her intention to seek a seat for the 2022 election. But, as the nomination period opened last week Thomas hit a delay, but she was finally able to pull the papers.

WEHOville publisher Larry Block met with the City Clerk last friday, July 29th. Block pulled a nomination booklet to review but did not pull the nomination papers that are required to become a candidate. In that meeting Block received a list of candidates from the City Clerk Melissa Crowder that did not include Thomas on the list. Late Friday evening Block emailed to Crowder inquiring about Thomas and it was confirmed that Marquita Thomas did pull the nomination papers on Wednesday but the list had yet to be updated.

 Thomas told WEHOville: “So I pulled my nomination papers last Wednesday. But prior to that, I had an appointment to pull my papers and it was canceled because Melissa said that she checked with the registrar and I was listed as a Los Angeles voter, and not a West Hollywood voter, which is very strange because I’ve never moved in 27 years. I’ve never had any other address. I voted in every West Hollywood election. So I had to go to Norwalk. Re-register to vote. And no one had any real reason of why I was reclassified in Los Angeles rather than West Hollywood. And I was ultimately told that it must have been a clerical error.

The thing is, West Hollywood voter registration went down in 2022 about 8.2 percent and the concern for me at least, is that there could have been a reclassification of voters. And that this could potentially impact 2022 or so, West Hollywood voters, and that could have a massive impact on our election, but no one seems to have any input on how this gets addressed. I was ultimately told that voters would have to check on their own as to whether or not they were in West Hollywood or Los Angeles, which seems a little strange to me. It seems like there should be internal controls to prevent things like this from happening.

Thomas who serves on the West Hollywood Planning Commission is required to hold residence in West Hollywood.