The consultants in charge of envisioning West Hollywood’s next 20 years wrapped up a crucial stretch of public outreach for this highly consequential project with a Zoom call Monday night attended by about 35 people, including residents, as well as city commissioners, staffers and the consultants themselves.
Their mandate is to incorporate the will and thoughts of the everyday WeHoan into the guidelines they will ultimately hand over to the City Hall — a roadmap by which every department in the city will operate for the next two decades.
The slim crowds at Monday night’s Zoom meeting and the prior three events they’ve held this year don’t bode well for that goal. Neither do the silly activities (“Everyone say your name and favorite breakfast cereal”) and unfocused discussions hosted by the moderators in place of actual research and reconaissance.
City Hall is a notoriously insular place. Few in WeHo have a grasp of what goes on there, and fewer still have the access or the wherewithal to effect any measure of change in how the city is run.
The strategic plan sessions would seem like the perfect opportunity to bridge that divide. But my sense after attending several of these events is that the consulting firms aren’t looking for public input to guide the creation of a strategic plan — they’re looking for input to validate a plan that is already in motion.
The public should be asked straightforward, open-ended questions like What would make you feel safer on city streets at night? How would you like City Hall to inform you of important city news? Has the city ever treated you unfairly?
Instead we’re being asked to chime in on topics like “public safety solutions that produce more equitable outcomes,” leading questions that of course produce suggestions like “more mental health services” and “incarceration diversion teams” — ideas that might sound great in a parallel reality where WeHo hasn’t already seen the folly in tampering with law enforcement budgets.
Just two weeks ago, Vice Mayor Chelsea Lee Byers and Councilmember Sepi Shyne voted against obtaining new public safety technology because they thought too few citizens had engaged in the conversation or were aware of the ramifications.
By that logic, the WeHo40 Strategic Plan — whatever it ends up being, whenever it’s finished — should be rejected or delayed until widespread public input has been attained. Every resident in the city should have at minimum a very basic idea of what’s being planned before it gets rubber-stamped.
The bureaucracy that controls the West Hollywood of today is doing its damndest to control the West Hollywood of tomorrow, too. As WeHoans it’s our responsibility to wrest back that control by showing up to these dog-and-pony shows and calling out the bullshit that’s so clearly meant to placate us and distract us from the real process of determining this city’s destiny.
So it looks like the writer did in fact attend???
If he did, he doesn’t get it.
Unfortunately, It doesn’t sound like anyone (including the writer of this article), attended any of our in person public outreach events for the WEHO 40 strategic plan. Thank you Kevin for your comment below.
Our goal is to give the public the input it’s asking for.
We have held many in person events in 2024.
If you don’t show up – don’t complain!
I echo the sentiments of several people here that some residents are fed up with being ignored by the City Council. I have been a business and homeowner in West Hollywood for over 30 years. I have participated in both in-person and pandemic era zoom meetings about questionable development projects. Not once in those 30 years has the City Council or the Planning Commission made any meaningful adjustments to any developers’ plans based on residents’ legitimate concerns. Environmentally hazardous projects keep getting rubber stamped by the city. Our voices do not matter. A meager 35 residents turned out for the City’s… Read more »
Sadly, this pre-determined disconnectedness is endemic of how City Hall treats its customers/citizens. Since I moved here twenty years ago, the four-way-stop intersection of Cynthia and Larrabee has been a problem with people constantly ignoring the stop signs. The City first installed an ill-placed traffic circle (without any involvement or input from any residents) and, when that did nothing, they held a neighborhood Zoom meeting to, presumably, discuss ideas for a solution with us (I live on Larrabee just south of this intersection). Great idea! And some wonderful ideas were offered by residents at the time. Sadly, it became quite… Read more »
Shine and Bryers don’t care about our input. They want to kill the drone project which is another good tool in fighting crime. To appease these idiots, Captain Moulder suggested that they can turn the camera skyward until it arrives at the crime. Why would a camera overhead in public be an issue when everyone is filming everything on their phones anyway.
I wonder why they didn’t promote it at all the Neighborhood night outs events next week and then have this kind of meeting on Zoom after those neighborhood events? Real common sense…but no!
I have no idea what goes on at City Hall. All I know is that any time a West Hollywood renter has an issue with their landlord, be it a code violation, tenant harassment, or anything else, WeHo city hall is useless. They have a department that is supposed to advocate for renters but at some point they decided renters were not as important as landlords. If you rent an apartment in West Hollywood and have a problem with your apartment or landlord, don’t bother asking for help from city hall. They aren’t interested. I suppose they’re too busy meeting… Read more »
Next op-ed by Brandon:
“This is why everyone at City Hall is a piece of doo-doo and they hate you!”
How can this publication claim to be unbiased? It’s on the level of Breitbart at this point. Pathetic.
Freedom of press and freedom of speech also means freedom to be biased. It’s a private company, not a public entity. They can publish what they want to. If you’re not liking their opinion, then you don’t have to subscribe to it or read it or comment about it .Common sense Weho times may be also biased as it is to City Hall. Therefore, Weho ville may be biased to the residents and their opinion.
“They can publish what they want to”
Correct and I never implied otherwise. But it’s the masquerading as a news publication when this site’s full purpose was to get Larry Block elected to the city council after he lost the last 3 elections. This was the end goal and now he needs to be honest about his intentions. He’s running for public office.
What I am sure is that Brandon and wehoville would happily use your real name to print an op-ed. If you had an op-ed to submit, that would mean revealing yourself to an opinion that you substantiate with some form of facts or realism versus hiding behind and assumed identity. Again, common sense, reality statement of the obvious..
Thank you. These pages are open to all points of view. At least I tried.
If you knew the private emails Larry Block has sent my way, you wouldn’t be saying any of this.
ive pointed out clearly that this publication will be sold or transfered by the end of the year or it will close. Im not interested in this product or managing a comment board..
By the tone of the questions it is pretty clear, at least in regard to law enforcement, the direction is already set. Residents who feel victimized by crime are not particularly interested in “incarceration diversion” programs.
If this process was meant to be meaningful there would have been extensive outreach and a recruitment of neighborhood leaders and business owners, as people who are actual stakeholders. Staff and the consultants are not “stakeholders” but clearly have their own agendas; obviously certain City Council members want to imprint their “vision” on our community without taking in the “lived experience” of the residents.
While I am not a fan of “incarceration diversion” programs, their discussion was only a part of this meeting (but somehow the only talking point for many), and this was just one of multiple meetings. Citizens and businesses (the Chamber is well aware of these meetings) who wish to participate in the process and have their voices heard are provided with ample opportunities to attend these meetings.
Honey, your nose is so far up Erickson’s, Byer’s and Shyne’s a** it’s a wonder you can breathe.
“Certain” city council members? You’re normally great with words but it doesn’t take a thesaurus to be more specific: you mean Nazi Byers and Septic Shyne.
Neil, why not just use your real name?
Poor turn out by residents is due to the fact that they are totally disgusted at the way City Hall has ignored there pleas for the last few years. It’s a shame that our council’s extreme policies are destroying this city and the more residents give up and don’t participate, the faster our “leaders“ disastrous policies will further destroy this city.
We are “disgusted” by the disgusting antics of SEPTIC Shyne, but it’s the People’s fault for not recalling her years ago, so there is that. You get what you pay for, and somebody else paid for her. Although the syphilis comes for free.
Made the mistake of watching just a small tolerable amount of this 2 hour powerpoint presentation. “Incarceration diversion teams” was a real winner.
I’m sorry it was an inconvenience for you and that a meeting to build a 20-year plan can’t be completed in 30 minutes.
Don’t care if it’s 4 hours. But “incarceration diversion teams” is a non-starter and tone deaf. Checked out after hearing that nonsense.
You must not attend many meanings of any type. All meetings have topics and areas that are not appealing to some, but being part of the entire process is important.
Really? Gee, thanks “Kevin”.
Don’t blame the city or the consultants for the apathy of the citzens of West Hollywood. Your view on these meetings could not be more different than mine. They have been open to feedback, interactive and tried to build a sense of comfort by yes asking silly questions. What amazes me is how few people in this city participate at the start of a process, but then come out to complain on the results. It’s mind numbing.
Kevin I share your frustration. Sadly, there is a circular thought process at work here. So many of these processes have been manipulated and “guided” by leading questions and predetermined outcomes, the public often does not see the point. But if staff said they wanted to make a presentation to our Neighborhood Watch Group, we would probably have more than 30 people in attendance. Zoom meetings tend to quash dissenting voices, which is generally the point. But as we have seen with the Gardner bike lanes and the plan to reduce Fountain to one lane in each direction, consultants and… Read more »
SPOT ON, Steve.
Any politician who says she “doesn’t care “if taxpaying residence are inconvenience, should be immediately recalled and held in the disgrace that she deserves. And we all know who that is.
Politicians are always searching for new games to play. Activism is a sign of the death of a discipline. Why create an ideology and then set out to find a discipline that are weakly put together to try to back up your political ideology? Why create an ideology? Completely ignore facts, reality and common sense. People lacked critical thinking skills to offer solution or options to the ideology. This is the problem we have in the city
“Ideology” per se, as a way to have your views organized in a rational fashion, can be really helpful toward developing
a coherent thought process. But as you say, without subjecting your ideology to any type of critical thinking, you can cross the line into dogma and cult type group think.