STEVE MARTIN: Sepi Shyne’s Fall from Grace

Sepi Shyne received 7,378 votes, nearly 24% of the ballots cast, the highest number of votes ever received by any candidate in a West Hollywood election. In the November, 2020 election, Sepi Shyne bested 36-year veteran John Heilman, who came in third with 18% of the vote as well incumbent as well as John Duran, who had 3,071 votes, a mere ten percent of the ballots cast.

Sepi Shyne’s landslide victory had raised hopes that the City’s legacy of progressive leadership could be renewed and revitalized. People optimistically hoped for a new era of forward-looking policies under more youthful leadership.

So, what happened? How did Sepi Shyne go from being West Hollywood’s most popular candidate to becoming West Hollywood’s most divisive Mayor? How did she manage to alienate so many people?

Shyne had benefited from “incumbent fatigue”. West Hollywood voters had watched with rising frustration as the City’s reputation for progressive leadership was tarnished by a constant stream of LA Times headlines about the latest sexual harassment charges being bandied about City Hall. The half million dollar pay out to Council Deputy Ian Owens was a festering sore on the local body politic. The complacent old guard seemed to have lost its’ moral compass. The voters wanted change.

In some ways Shyne had a relatively easy task; avoid controversy and bring the divided community together.

Unfortunately, Shyne didn’t see it that way.

Although her campaign was long on progressive platitudes and short on specifics, Shyne believed that her election was a mandate to impose her own brand of social justice politics and culture of grievance on West Hollywood.

Shyne’s initial focus on cultural/political issues was not really a surprise. New Council members often focus on these sorts of issues until they master the nuance of municipal finances, land use policies and infrastructure.

After all, there is a steep learning curve. But Shyne’s lack of involvement in the real issues of government prior to her election seemed to continue after she assumed office.

Within two years Shyne managed to alienate large segments of the electorate, including many people who had voted for her. Clearly the public had hoped for better.

For me the warning signal came during the Council debate over replacing the rainbow cross walks with progress flag cross walks. Personally, I couldn’t care less. I was fine with the rainbow cross walks, but I understood that the progress flag was meaningful to a younger generation of activists. Until Shyne jumped into the debate.

The rainbow flag is the flag of “white gay male privilege” declared Shyne. Suddenly Shyne was equating the rainbow flag with systemic racism. It was as if the banner that a generation had marched under, indeed many died under, a symbol of international hope, was being equated with the “Stars and Bars” of the Confederate battle flag.

My first impulse was to say to myself, “what a privileged, self-serving snot”. She wasn’t there for the battles; she was the beneficiary of the very people she was now denigrating. Her generation faced few, if any of the obstacles young people of my generation confronted when we came out, not to mention AIDS. She could have just said she supported the progress flag because it was a new incarnation of our movement; instead she chose to bash the people who brought the movement to where it is today.

Ultimately I moved on, thinking this was just an unfortunate incident. As it turned out, it was not. This was just an early insight into Shyne’s politics of grievance and victimhood.

Shyne needs to be a victim. She believes that is an important part of her credibility as a leader. The public is burdened with unending tales of her victimhood. She is a person of color, she was a victim of a “homophobic” incident, she suffered as an immigrant.

Of course most of this narrative is largely delusional. Shyne’s parents, a petroleum engineer father and child psychologist mother, fled Iran seeking freedom and opportunity here in the United States. While my immigrant ancestors braved the dangers of the Sonoran desert, the Chinese Exclusion Act and laws preventing Filipinos from owing land in California, Shyne’s parents had the luxury of flying to this country while bringing a respectable amount of their wealth with them. They were able to seamlessly incorporate themselves into the community. They prospered and their children became professionals; Sepi herself is an attorney.

While Shyne comes from a background of privilege, she wants to compare herself to the oppressed underclass of immigrants who had real struggles to get here and struggle each day to survive. While many successful immigrant families point to their status with a sense of pride, Shyne embraces her immigrant status as a point of grievance and oppression.

While some deride Shyne’s claim of being a person of color, I personally think if your ancestors were not from Europe, you qualify. Traditionally that is how white people in this country have always seen it. While being Iranian qualifies as POC, I am not aware that Iranians as an ethnic group are facing discrimination, at least not here in Southern California. If living well is the best revenge, then our local Iranian-Persian community is doing it with gusto.

Shyne indignantly decried the reference to “Persian weddings” during a Planning Commission discussion as “racist”, the reference was to opulence, which is not exactly derogatory. But if your personal radar is always attuned to finding grievance, then you will inevitably find it. That incident reminded me of that Seinfeld episode where Uncle Leo complained about the antisemitic fry cook: “you don’t just over-cook a hamburger…”. Shyne’s accusation of racism was equally contrived. But the community lost a dedicated Planning Commissioner as a result.

Shyne is quick to find racism, particularly when she can use it to her advantage. When Public Safety Commissioner Nika Soon-Shiong, heiress to the fortunate behind the LA Times, convinced the Commission to make substantial cuts to the Sheriff’s funding, Shyne joined her then colleague, Lindsey Horvath, in describing all opponents of the “de-funding” movement as racists. I actually went to a City Council meeting and asked them if because I opposed the defunding, did they consider me a racist? Neither Shyne nor Horvath every replied, publicly or privately.

Then there is the bullying. First Keely Fields, whose recognition for her work distributing drug test strips in local bars and nightclubs drew Shyne ire to the extent that she refused, very publicly, to re-appoint Fields to the Women’s Advisory Board. What was really bizarre was how Shyne turned the whole thing around so that she was a victim; she told Fields she wouldn’t talk to her about the controversy because she, Shyne, “needed time to heal”.

When Keith Kaplan, former president of the West Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, expressed outrage that Fields appeared to be the victim of political retaliation, Shyne called the Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce, at home no less, demanding Kaplan be removed from the Chamber Board for his act of lese majeste. The arrogance of that demand is just astounding but so is Shyne’s bullying attempts to squelch freedom of speech.

But that was not Shyne’s only self-inflicted wound.

During her elaborate installation as Mayor, her praise singers declared Shyne was divinely sent to purge West Hollywood of the racism, transphobia and misogyny that she believes is endemic among her constituents. But she also let her guard down, resulting in a very unflattering interview with LA Magazine. She told a skeptical reporter that she had an ability to channel positive psychic energy so she could cast a spell over the phone that could cure your cat. She added that her rates for these services were quite reasonable. After regaling the reporter with tales of “lived experience” oppression, the reporter was able to compare notes with Shyne’s mother, who seemed quite surprised by some of her daughter’s claims of victimhood.

Finally, there was the half-baked decision to run of Congress. While I get it, it just seems to me that having a real resume of accomplishments might be helpful. Unless Unite Here is inclined to jump into her race in a big way, and at this point the Union does not seem so inclined, I just don’t see any viable path to Capitol Hill for the Mayor. Her bid for Congress just seems to be an embarrassment.

But there is hope. Recently Shyne did vote to restore funding to the Sheriff. That proves she is capable of suspending her dogmatic beliefs to accommodate reality, at least on occasion.

At the last Council meeting, the Mayor seemed miserable. There did not seem to be any joy in having the job. Maybe it is time to take stock and recalibrate her agenda for the next eighteen months. While Shyne seems to have spent a lifetime inventing a persona, it is never too late for any politician to re-invent themselves.

We can only hope some self-reflection is in the Mayor’s immediate future.