City Council on Monday called out staff for again failing to highlight the loss of parking spots faced by residents in outreach efforts for a meeting specifically meant to address those concerns.
West Hollywood is holding an open house today to discuss the Willoughby, Vista/Gardner, and Kings Street Design Concept Plan after news of the upcoming project rankled residents in the area. This meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at 6 p.m. in Rooms 1 and 2 of the Plummer Park Community Center, located at 7377 Santa Monica Boulevard.
It was revealed that the initial notifications sent out to the community were not clear about this primary concern, which is the potential loss of parking. The notifications were described as too broad, failing to specify that parking impacts would be a significant topic of discussion.
“The whole reason we were doing it was because people hadn’t been notified that they were going to lose parking,” asked Councilmember John Heilman. “Why didn’t the notification make that very clear to people?”
“It should have been included in the notification,” City Manager David Wilson said. “The notification was very broad because it was open for all discussion of all the impacts. But the parking is the primary impact that the community has expressed concern about. It should have been included, and it’s been added now to the calendar.”
“But the calendar is not mailed out to everyone. The whole point of the mail notice was to inform people about this meeting, and I can understand people in the community being upset, feeling like once again the city is trying to hide or obscure the impact that they’re most concerned about,” Heilman said.
Mayor John M. Erickson agreed.
“I, as the only person who lives over there, didn’t even get a mailer, so I think, and I live within the vicinity, so that troubles me,” Erickson said. “I personally think the meeting should be postponed and at whatever cost, not to do another mailing or direct targeted outreach like we indicated. … I think we were very crystal clear.”
“We’ll still have the meeting tomorrow because many in the public have been notified, so we want to make sure that staff is there for that meeting, but we’ll look at having another meeting and sending out additional notification for that meeting,” Wilson said.
NepoDEI Hollywood, strikes again
what are you even talking about?
David Wilson lacks transparency is dishonest, indifferent, and inconsiderate to our needs. How about we get a City Manager that cares about us residents and our needs. He’s useless and many things have been brought to light under his supposed ‘leadership.’ D
DEAR WEHO https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/svg/1f4ec.svg Whistleblower’s claims were just the tip of the iceberg – WEHOonline.com
Staff gets paid very well. Time for evaluations…and maybe some demotions….seems like they mess up way too often. Perhaps the City Manager needs to be replaced. It’s not rocket science.
Let’s take the Mayor at his word; let’s have a real meeting out the issues of taking away what is really over 50 parking spaces on Gardner. Let’s have staff and Council members come out to Gardner and walk the area with residents. While we are at it, let’s have a community meeting about resident’s concerns about the plans to reduce Fountain to one lane in each direction in order to build “protected” bike lanes. Both of these projects are the product of a flawed process that disenfranchised the people who live here.
CITY HALL!!! What a joke. Overpaid buearcrats. Fire the City Manager!
Here we go again, another cat and mouse game with the in a lot of cases very childish and unprofessional city staff. This happens with a lot of issues that come through the doors of City Hall. Let’s not even get started on what happens with development. With development I feel that the majority of the staff and at times some CC members work for the developers and not the full interest and safety of its tax paying residents. Who is the boss here (that’s rhetorical)? Whoever it is does not have the cities interest here, only the special interest.
Absolutely, the City Manager must resign after everything that has been uncovered. The kickbacks are a slap in the face to us taxpayers.
DEAR WEHO https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/svg/1f4ec.svg Whistleblower’s claims were just the tip of the iceberg – WEHOonline.com
DEAR WEHO https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/svg/1f4ec.svg I work in City Hall. Change is needed. – WEHOonline.com
LAUREN MEISTER: Community Development Director search leaves out ‘community’ – WEHOonline.com
Whistleblower: City Hall let TomTom and PUMP operate without licenses – WEHOonline.com
Community Development Director: I don’t know the lobbyist who helped hire me – WEHOonline.com
David Wilson, with the enabling Lauren Langer, is a buck-stops-somewhere-else bureaucrat. I will give him kudos from here to the moon on his municipal finance savvy, but he fails Leadership 101.
The residents of Gardner and the adjoining streets asked staff for a meeting and what we are getting is merely a presentation of the plans for a bike path from Kings Road Park to Fountain via Willoby and Gardner. Staff needs to provide the community with real imput on the parking removal issues, not only for the Gardner bike lanes but also for the plans to remove parking and reduce lanes of traffic on Fountain. This is NOT about a meaningful public process.
that’s exactly right! I hope that there will be an opportunity for a question and answer period… and I hope that the residents will get up and ask the right questions! Because we know that the city is going to try to soft pedal everything, give them a huge snow job, and bribe them into acquiescing with free food! So arrogant! So sneaky! So disingenuous!
Anything that the city council does to reduce parking should be met with extreme and mass protest. Those idiots need to be finding ways to increase parking dramatically, not reduce it. Their incompetence needs to be met with a long overdue series of recall efforts and special elections to replace them with people who can actually do the job for the people, not the mean girls cabal of incompetent arrogant Morons.
I want to thank Cathy Blaivis and George Nickle for getting up in public comment to bring up the fact that the city’s oh-so-slick mailer to the public made no mention of parking being taken away! When council member Heilman heard that, he was furious, and he questioned David Wilson, who did not react well to being questioned! His excuse was that the subject information was “broad.” It was pure BS! He got caught trying to pull the wool over the public’s eyes! If you get a chance, go to You Tube weho tv, and watch the exchange between Heilman… Read more »