In my opinion the public and appointed officials are not acting with transparency and are losing the residents of West Hollywood and the public’s trust and credibility that is being called into question and tactics during this election cycle and refusing public access demonstrates that its self-serving motivations that do irreparable harm to us local residents.
It’s because of local individuals and business owners and stakeholders and West Hollywood neighborhood groups that should be independent and not coerced or compelled by undue political influence, as the same should be applied to media outlets that are making information available to public that others did not want divulged as political patronage and nepotism that people in the community were sensing was occurring anyway!
To the elected and appointed officials: Don’t think that we don’t see these actions and behaviors of you ramming social and political agendas and assume that we are absolutely oblivious or gullible to what is happening!
Also, elected officials are acting like a selection committee or selecting successors or swaying to vote for a slate of candidates months before we the public elect three of them into local office.
It is in my opinion that these actions are incredulous and some respects can be construed as civically biased and unethical just as some of your political and commissioner appointees have acted in their roles and deliberately wanted to divide this community and impose their radical views on us residents without any objection whatsoever or call out people in the community who politically and verbally objected to them and their social construct agendas locally!
Many of these operatives don’t live locally and even live out of the county or state altogether!
To online and paper publications: Thank you for your coverage and acknowledgment of campaigns and endorsements and relationships and conflicts of interests or uncovering information that others were choosing to withhold from public knowledge as well as other insightful comments by other community members and commenters!
I am glad to see similar views to the bad optics coming from the votes of current sitting councilmembers and the appointed officials they defend who have no ground to stand on in regards to their own agendas that did damage to the reputation of this city and public mistrust implying a corrupt or the very least a bad direction this city is going and dereliction of duty of members of the city council and the concerns of credibility and conflicts of interests and direct correlation of votes of their appointed commissioners trying to order directives and override public opinion and sentiment as irrelevant and city staff recommendations!
I will vote because it’s my civic duty but the decisions made by council is anything but civic duty but rather conspiring for social change without public input or debate and contentious issues voted on without public dissent. It is harder to be engaged in public dissent and discord than ever before in the city of West Hollywood in my opinion as a resident of Weho for 11 years and 18 years ago when initially priced out.
The City of West Hollywood and LA county refuses to admit to flaws in the municipal government tactics and endemic abject failures by officials ignoring residents grievances before Covid was even a pandemic.
Stop finding excuses to not wanting to admit fault of taking blame and placing it back on us residents. Take responsibility and accountability for your actions and what you did wrong as publicly elected officials!
Sincerely,
Jamie Francis
Thank You, you summed it up perfectly West as well as Eastside Girl and JF1. Thank you for understanding my points of contention. Apparently complaints about writing long sentences is a deflection! Not admitting real issues and real people are being impacted by outside political forces or influences coming to divide a city devise plans to take by force. The city council or people who prescribe and support this ideology don’t want to talk about issues when they think they have or want things their way! Also my essay or Op-Ed had substance—it wasn’t lacking it!
I get where you are coming from….WeHo has never been in this extreme situation before. I have lived here 20 years & this is the first time outsiders have come in to try to take over this city to unwind it, restructure it, & make it into an entire “woke” representation without residents input. It truly is alarming how quickly this happened, is happening, & God forbid more nutcases get elected transform to this city into something that we will not AT ALL recognize if the wrong people get in. How is that for a run-on in sentences?
Jamie does not appear to believe in the First Amendment for political candidates or did I get confused by his run-on sentences and fail to grok the point?
Writing style aside, he clearly takes issue with Public Officials who are also candidates abusing their positions to unduly influence elections and public perception. That’s protecting our free speech, not limiting theirs.
You mean the friends of Horvath?
Because pols endorsing candidates is within their right to do so.
People really like to focus on me for run on sentences. I sent a couple of submissions, some punctuation included. So please stop derailing the fact about the real issues of conflicts of interests and borderline corruption going on in this city! The last I checked noticing grammatical errors or run ons is an excuse to talk about real subject matters or a deflection which never works. I am tired of having people more concerned with punctuation than political distrust mistrust of civic elected officials. Get over yourself Joshua88
That’s true and befitting a quid pro quo, if not hypocritical statement! What about other officials and political candidates (elected and appointed) objecting to other peoples’ freedom of speech and first amendment rights but can say whatever they want to and disrupt meetings. You apparently like to call out people on their grammatical run ons over valid concerns and views opinions you don’t agree with though
Focusing on WeHo politics, I am unclear what your specific complaints are.
Joshua, you seem to be confused as well as many others that avoid focus on substance preferring to critique spelling, paragraphs and punctuation.
What confuses me is vast generalities and vagueness.
And you are confused.
Wasn’t a focus, but a sidebar,
Neighborhood groups have a responsibility to take a consensus of the neighborhood and to voice their opinions and concerns and support those candidates that hear them and will do everything they can to support their efforts (and not turn a deaf ear like the current counsel is doing).
Parts of this piece would make (some) sense if entire paragraphs weren’t one long run-on sentence.
Hey Matt—I sent or included punctuation and commas in my OP-ED piece, but I sent a couple of versions so I am grateful one was used and published anyway. Surprised that the run on sentences what was more important that you noticed and commented over the actual views and opinions that I had and stated on the record.
Please, readers, don’t take this “civic duty to vote” thing too literally. If you are not well-informed and have not followed issues and candidates and carefully considered their positions as well as the opposition, then please don’t vote! Just because a candidate’s name is familiar or they represent a group, be it gender, race, sexual preference, or some intersectionality, does not mean they would serve with all of our best interests in mind. They often have their own agenda and they will say whatever they think you want to hear and then royally screw us once they get in office.… Read more »
Succinctly stated. In agreement with Jamie Francis who always presents his arguments rationally and calmly at city meetings. PS Jamie, I’m in favor of paragraphs which makes subjects easy to digest along with bullet points. LOL!
Exactly. Don’t vote unless you’re an informed voter. You must educate yourself on where these candidates stand and what impact their stance will have on the city as a whole and on your individual life. Horvath, Shyne and Erickson have (in a very short period of time) turned West Hollywood into a hell hole. Not safe, businesses closing, not listening to the the residents… we need to vote intelligent, common sense candidates into office. We need a new majority. Vote Meister, Heilman and Duran and put real leaders who listen to the people back in power! Don’t vote in Unite… Read more »