Historic Preservation Commission, Shockingly, Requires Historic Preservation Experience

⚠️ Warning: Satire

This piece has been certified funny by several award-winning journalists. If you are a stodgy coot, please avert your eyes and go yell at a cloud. Your opinions are safe with you. Keep them there.

Our History Is History

As West Hollywood’s City Council worked toward their first at-large commission appointments of the night on May 19, a few members received some unexpected, unsettling news.

Councilmember Lauren Meister dutifully reminded her colleagues of a bitter truth:

“Just to note, the Historic Preservation Commission tries to get at least two professionals — people who have backgrounds in or experience in historic preservation.”

Her words, though calmly spoken, hit like an icepick — shattering the placcid room.

But how can that be? Two!? Out of seven!? What wild, inexplicable rules will they invent next? You must have a forklift operator’s license to operate a forklift? The world has gone mad: yes is no, down is up, red is fluffy!

Just when all seemed lost, City Clerk Melissa Crowder offered words of hope:

“We just need one professional on the commission to maintain our certification with the state. It’s not required for all seven members to have a background in historic preservation — just at least one. We’ve preferred to have two, but at minimum, one needs to have that background.”

Councilmember John Erickson pushed back against such outrageous demands:

“But there’s nothing stopping us from doing that, because that’s a certification. I read your email from the staff. You’re saying something completely opposite.”

For a moment, it seemed like the classic “nuh-uh” retort might win the day.

Crowder clarified again:

“The requirement is: one member must have some experience in order to keep our historic preservation certification with the State of California. All seven members do not need to have expertise.”

“And we could give that training to any of the commissioners,” Erickson countered.

“I think it’s their professional background that is the issue,” said Councilmember John Heilman.

The age-old philosophical conundrum: What constitutes expertise? Will the commissioner need a PhD? A two-year associate’s degree? A C+ or better in eighth grade social studies? Or just the discernment to say, “That looks dusty — bet it’s been there for a little while”?

Enter Jennifer Alkire, Assistant Director of Community Development. Finally, someone to settle the matter and confirm with certainty… how confused we still are.

“It’s a Certified Local Government Program with the state’s Office of Historic Preservation,” she began. “And there is a whole set of requirements the city needs to maintain. Part of that is having members of the Historic Preservation Commission who are qualified professionals. I don’t have the exact specifications of what that qualification entails, but it is more… professional — as opposed to ongoing training, which we try to provide to all of our members.”

What a turn of events! Sure, there technically are requirements. But maybe… we don’t even need the answer? Somehow, we already have certification, despite not knowing why or how. Maybe the state’s preservation watchdog rides a penny-farthing bicycle to each inspection, only observing a few cities per year. Or maybe the odds are in our favor, and statistically, one out of every seven people just happens to be a historic preservation specialist.

Either way — if you’re Wile E. Coyote: never. look. down.

With the nomination process edging toward the ravine, Mayor Chelsea Byers delicately placed the issue on a shelf:

“And the applicants, as they’ve applied, don’t have to denote whether or not they meet those qualifications. So we wouldn’t know that, looking at this application. There may currently be members with those qualifications, but maybe we need more information before we can move forward with this appointment tonight — possibly?”

So there you have it. If only it were mandatory for applicants to disclose their qualifications… we still wouldn’t know if they qualify, because we don’t know exactly what criteria those qualifications must fulfill. A mystery wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in darkness, encased by an enigma, subsumed by smoke, dipped in dry ice, and then shrunk to the size of a grain of sand.

We may never know who the next Historic Preservation Commissioner will be. But when the history books remember this day… it won’t be very well preserved, because the person doing it watched a 13-minute YouTube video on paper oxidation as their entire training, and there are no surviving primary accounts.

Councilmember John Erickson offered this final, scholarly assessment:

“It doesn’t take that long to learn history. It’s only a couple hundred years.” (citation needed)