If you’ve been following WEHOonline since last Monday, you know West Hollywood Councilmember Chelsea Byers has been at the center of a conflict-of-interest debate over her outside job at Welcoming Neighbors Network. That question is now headed to the Fair Political Practices Commission.
Before she was on the council and before she was employed by Welcoming Neighbors Network, Byers helped build one of the organizations at the center of the debate — Abundant Housing LA, the same organization that co-sponsored SB 79, lobbied the West Hollywood City Council directly on SB 79 implementation as recently as June and belongs to the national network that now signs her paycheck. That founding board membership appears on her own campaign website biography and on her Victory Fund candidate profile, both of which describe her as “a founding board member of Abundant Housing LA.”
Her relationship with the organization goes back to October 2017 — five years before her election to the West Hollywood City Council — when Abundant Housing LA announced on its website that Byers had joined its steering committee as Director of Organizing.
She helped build the organization. It co-sponsored SB 79 and has advocated for the housing, parking, and zoning policies that have come before the council Byers sits on. And she now works for the national network it belongs to.
The Camner Connection
Leonora Camner ran Abundant Housing LA from 2019 until December 2023. Abundant Housing LA’s 501(c)(4) arm engages in political activity and endorses pro-housing candidates for office. West Hollywood campaign finance records reviewed by WEHOonline show Camner personally gave $250 to Byers’ 2022 council campaign on May 5, 2022, ahead of the November election that put Byers on the council.
In late 2023 Byers attended the Abundant Housing LA PAC Inaugural Awards alongside Camner and other housing advocates at an event sponsored by Lighthouse Public Affairs. The event celebrated Camner’s departure as executive director of the advocacy organization. “Very special h/t to Leonora Camner as she leaves her post as the executive director at Abundant Housing LA,” wrote Seamus Garrity, Managing Director of Mercury Public Affairs, in a LinkedIn post about the evening that also tagged Byers as an attendee — see photo above.
The relationship illustrates how deeply Byers’ personal and professional history is intertwined with Abundant Housing LA — an organization that has directly lobbied her council and whose policy agenda is also advanced before West Hollywood’s Planning Commission, where Byers’ own appointee, Commissioner Andrew Solomon, sits.
Taken individually, none of these connections is unusual in politics or in life, nor is it meant to imply anything inappropriate. Taken together, some say they form a pattern worth examining.
A Question Worth Asking
At the June 15 council meeting, Scott Epstein, Director of Policy and Research at Abundant Housing LA, appeared in person during public comment urging full SB 79 implementation and the elimination of parking minimums citywide. “Your council showed remarkable courage in supporting SB 79,” Epstein said. For the record, the vote was not unanimous, it passed 3-2. “Now it’s time to move forward on that commitment by implementing the law.” He also warned the council that full implementation would “put you at less legal jeopardy”, a reference to potential lawsuits if the city didn’t comply with state law.
Chelsea Byers sat at the dais — the same councilmember who helped build the organization whose representative had just finished lobbying the council. The same organization whose board she sat on when she ran for council in 2022. The same organization that endorsed her campaign while she sat on its board. The same organization whose former executive director donated to that campaign.
The FPPC is already evaluating one conflict question involving her outside employment. Whether her decade-long personal and organizational history with Abundant Housing LA — a founding role, a board seat, two campaign endorsements (‘22 and ‘26), and an ongoing relationship with an organization that now belongs to the network that employs her — belongs in that conversation is a question only the commission can answer. Many residents, however, say they don’t need the commission to tell them what they already know.
WEHOonline will continue following this story.
Related Coverage
Chelsea Byers’ Conflict of Interest Questions Surface Hours Before Key Housing Vote
West Hollywood Council Tables Housing Vote Amid Byers Conflict Question
Chelsea Byers Altered Her LinkedIn After the Conflict Vote
The Billionaires Behind the Network That Pays Chelsea Byers
State Orders Jesse Zwick To Recuse From Housing and Zoning Votes
Cute. But now she looks and acts like Leon Trotsky.
WOW she looked completely different before weho council, lol. MUCH better in 2017 – less trying to the next hillary. However, clearly now shes just using the city as a stepping stone…….
Progressive or corrupt? It’s becoming more and more obvious. I don’t feel safe with Ms Byers on council.
Despite this organization aligning with her publicly-stated views, she is nevertheless getting a paycheck from an organization that wants her to vote a certain way on housing matters. So her votes will always be suspect. People cannot help but wonder, when she votes a certain way, when she refuses to engage in meaningful discussions with constituents about compromises or alternatives, was she merely pursuing her beliefs or did her paycheck help motivate her? Whether it has actually influenced her decisions or not, that cloud of uncertainty and speculation undermines the integrity of the entire Council and is why conflict of… Read more »
I did not realize Byers had formal connections with Abundant LA when I voted for her. So many people campaign on a vaguely progressive agenda of doing something about the housing crisis and end up an empty shirt when it comes to policy. Finally having someone will to stand up for their principles (as opposed to a parade of lawyers and law adjacent people who somehow don’t have to reveal their clients under the same disclosure rules?) publicly is a welcome change and I look forward to voting for her again
Not sure you got the whole story. Byers “abundant housing” is just a cover. She’s anti affordable housing. Backed by developers and billionaires,. all she wants is 7 story buildings of luxury apartments with no parking. Is that what you want on Westmount Drive??
You’re going to have to find a better straw man than that (we have a Builder’s Remedy project on the boards on Westbourne already clocking at seven stories. It’s fine). It’s been eight years, and the workforce housing project Wetherly still hasn’t broken ground, and it’s as platonically perfect as a housing project can get for ostensible liberals in WeHo. Y’all just don’t want to give people a place to live. If the city aggressively courted slightly lower rise (3-5 story) projects across all zoning regions, we wouldn’t have been backed into things like SB-79 at the state level. Our… Read more »
I’m still concerned with Chelsea Byers’ anti-Jewish activities, which have been swept under the rug due to investigations of her ongoing unethical behavior in other areas.
If The FPPC comes back with her refraining from any voting regarding SB79 housing elements. I would ask the city to have her appointed members on commissions questioned or also asked to recuse themselves from housing elements. This inquiry needs to go deeper than just her actions but any elected official acting on behalf of these organizations
Chelsea Byers has been placed in West Hollywood by lobbyists like Welcoming Neighbors and Abundant Housing as a trojan horse of corruption to destroy the City to benefit billionaires and developers. BYERS LIERS RESIGN!
She has to go. Vote. Her. Out.
I don’t trust elections. Far too many voters don’t have a clue what they’re voting for and are trusting name recognition and existing position. Byers needs to be forced to resign by whatever means is available within the system.
Chelsea Byers’ corruption plot thickens in broad daylight. She said at a recent Council meeting that her goal is to replace residential neighborhoods in West Hollywood with 7-story apartment buildings, with no parking spaces, on every street. Backed by billionaires, Byers and all the lobbyists from “Abundant Housing” keep using the focus group-tested word “abundant”. What they don’t disclose is that their “abundant “ housing consists of luxury apartment buildings with no parking. That’s why they funded SB79. The fact that Byers stood at SCAG’s July 2nd meeting supporting SB79, when everyone was rejecting it leaves no doubt… Read more »
Abundant LA is a fraud organization. Chelsea Byers is also a phony. She lied right to our faces at a community meeting. The billionaires financing these organizations would never allow 7 story buildings built next to or anywhere near their own homes. How many affordable housing units have been built in WeHo or LA over the past 2 years? As a matter of fact, if SB79 is fully implemented we are going to lose a ton of affordable rent controlled housing because those buildings will be the first ones torn down and it will take years to replace them. This… Read more »
The issue is no longer simply whether Councilmember Byers has a technical legal conflict. The issue is whether a reasonable member of the public can have confidence that decisions affecting housing policy are being made free from divided loyalties. The FPPC will answer the legal question. The public is entitled to ask the ethical one.