The City of West Hollywood has canceled its contract with the West Hollywood Chamber to serve as a Commuter Center, the Chamber announced Thursday.
In e-mail to members, the Chamber management team wrote: “The WeHo Chamber has greatly appreciated serving this community and its visitors as a Commuter Center for 26 years. So it is with immense sadness that we must inform you the City of West Hollywood has decided to cancel our contract as of Dec. 30, 2022, which means we will not have the ability to sell or load TAP Cards after the end of the month.”
At the City Council meeting on Sept. 20, Mayor Pro Tem Sepi Shyne and Councilmember John Erickson put forward an item to eliminate service agreements made between the City and Chamber of Commerce. These two agreements were for administrative fees related to operating as a Commuter Center for the community, as well as an outreach program to promote and market city services.
The $19,800 contract for commuter services specified that the Chamber’s front desk would be used as a “clearinghouse for information regarding local and regional transit options” for a minimum of 15 hours weekly.
The agreement for services related to Commuter Center Services is an annual contract in the amount of $19,800 that is provided to the Chamber using Proposition C “local return funds” from Metro for transit related activities. As a part of this work, the Chamber was required to maintain consignment vendor status with Metro for sales of weekly, monthly, senior, and disabled fare TAP cards. Due to office closures because of COVID-19, and public health guidance encouraging individuals to work from home, the Chamber’s office was been closed to the public and they had not been providing Commuter Center Services (nor were they being compensated by the city.) During this time the City has not been compensating the Chamber of Commerce for these services. Currently, City staff provides discounted TAP cards to seniors and people living with disabilities at City Hall.
“The Chamber does not believe staff’s assessment paints a fully accurate picture of our value towards the program’s success,” Chamber President and CEO Genevieve Morrill told WEHOville.
“Having acted as a Commuter Center since 1997, the traffic for Metro fluctuates from month to month and year to year. The recent assessment from City staff of why our contract is being retired is that the Chamber’s Commuter service wasn’t getting much traffic. While 2022 may have been a slow year, society is still slow to get back to public transit due to COVID and all its variants.
“It’s understandable that the number of customers using the service may be lower than usual, as well as there are certainly many who may no longer live or work in the area. A number of our customers are also international tourists and as we know, travel has been down because of COVID as well. No matter what the reason, we are disappointed that the City has decided to cut a service that is valued by the community and its visitors.”
Recently retired Councilmember John D’Amico took to Instagram to voice his pleasure at the development, saying it will save the city “tens of thousands of dollars.”
If you would like more information, call the City at 323-848-6400.
Seems like the Chamber offered a valuable service.
Sepi Shyne and John Erickson are completely without ethics. They have proven themselves to be stupid and vindictive over and over again.
You can buy monthly Metro passes for a 50% discount at Pavilions or any of the Metro kiosks
The bottom line, these two and their vengeful crap are keeping bus passes out of the hands of people that need them. The city is inconveniencing people and limiting distribution.
Maybe fewer people are using the WeHo service because there is an LA Metro location at 8800 SMB, just a few blocks away. Metro users can also reload their TAP cards at participating Walgreens, CVS, and 7-11 stores. There is a TAP app available for iOS and Android phones so maybe there aren’t a lot of locals left using that particular location.
There’s no public access to 8800 SMB. It’s an employee only facility.
Here’s a very long list of places to get or reload a TAP card.
https://www.taptogo.net/TAPLocator2?flagVisit=visited&mobileReady=&zip=90046
According to that map the closest vendors who do the same thing are the library of San Vicente, someplace at the Farmers Market, and the Rock and Roll Ralph’s on Sunset. Not exactly a short stroll from the Chamber office. But why worry about convenience for Metro users in a pi$$ing contest certain Council people wish to engage in?
Isn’t it likely that the folks who would have had to make a special trip to the CofC to reload their TAP cards now do it when they make their regular visits to CVS, Pavilions, Walgreens, etc? When you don’t drive, you try to consolidate your errands into as few places as possible. You can also load your TAP card online or on the app. Maybe 26 years ago the CofC was the only place in town to buy your bus pass but today WeHo citizens have more options. Have you noticed that banking locations are closing as more customers… Read more »
Pavilions too
Yes – there are several other places and options that someone with resources could easily get a TAP card loaded. But that’s not the sticking point. Easy & prolific access to TAP services, while benefiting everyone, is most important for those whom access to myriad services in every other aspect of their lives is already reduced. It’s also really presumptuous that everyone has the access and/or means to get this done online. People go to the Chamber for this service for all sorts of reasons – one of them is a friendly face who will help visitors navigate how to… Read more »
Should you ever find yourself
the victim of other people’s
bitterness, smallness or insecurities
remember, things could be worse.
You could be them.
Really??? Tens of thousands of City dollars are being saved by cutting this contract? City dollars, you say? I’m curious because the staff report lays it out very clearly that it’s county dollars (Proposition C) awarded to the City of WeHo by Metro for transit related activities. It’s not like that money can be used to fund other city programs – so you’re not really saving the city anything – but what you ARE doing is costing this community and its visitors an important and valuable resource – access to a resource predominantly used by folks already on the margins.… Read more »
Well and accurately said. The City of WeHo has changed with the cravenly corrupt politicians who have held sway.
Four Score and… – get with the times. It’s 2023!!!
They are certainly a crass, unattractive bunch.. Hopefully Scrooge will deliver Lumps of Coal in their Christmas stockings.
Metro bus passes? I thought the Metro was planning to give everybody a free ride soon and not charge a fare at all, which is a ridiculous plan, by the way, but I thought that was what they were going for. So, why would anybody buy a Metro pass?
D’Amico’s assertion on his social media is a blatant lie. He should check his facts before performing yet one more disservice to this community. That money is a grant from Metro and can be used only for the purpose they are now cancelling; the city is not saving one thin dime, not one. Shyne and Erickson are merely engaged in petulant politics. Their thin skins and fragile egos are dangerous for the good of West Hollywood’s future. They keep acting like a sophomoric band of student council flunkies, rather than engaging seriously in the nuts and bolts of sound municipal… Read more »
And the Mean Girls just keep on going. The two Outcasts sitting at a lunch table alone scheming revenge on those that that dare cross them. We have two more years of this high school b/s to look forward to from Erickson and Shyne.
Perhaps Supervisor Horvath can find some money in the County’s discretionary fund to help finance this gap. After all, this is only hurting people who take public transportation.
#vindictive
Shortly after the 2021 vote to raise the minimum wage, Sepi Shyne and John Erickson made a motion to cancel this contract with the Chamber. It seemed like a rather obvious attempt at retaliation for the Chamber’s vehement opposition to the minimum wage increase. At the time John D’Amico voted against the proposal to terminate contract so it seems odd he would be celebrating the termination of the contract now. What has changed? It is unfortunate that after years of providing services successfully, the contract is being terminated for what appears to be politically motivated reasons.