WeHo Rewind: Inside West Hollywood’s First City Council Meeting At Fiesta Hall

I got to thinking over the weekend about how we just celebrated West Hollywood’s 41st birthday on November 29, and it piqued my curiosity about what the very first West Hollywood City Council meeting might have been like. So I started digging around in the City’s archives and found the original minutes. And with another City Council Monday on the calendar, it seemed like the perfect time to share a little WeHo Rewind. If you’ve ever wondered what that first night was like, or just want to take a trip down memory lane, let’s go.

On a Thursday night in late November 1984, people started filing into Fiesta Hall at Plummer Park. By 7:49 p.m., they were no longer just residents of an in-between place or a “wannabe” city. They were the residents of the City of West Hollywood, and they were about to flip the script and rewrite the story of what a local government and its people can do and be.

Fiesta Hall may not have looked like much next to today’s fancy City Council digs. No dais with built-in mics, no cameras or an air-conditioned room. It was just an auditorium filled with a bunch of uncomfortable folding chairs. But November 29, 1984, held something bigger, the first meeting of the West Hollywood City Council.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Edmund Edelman called the meeting to order. He got everyone’s attention, then backed away from the mic. From that point on, the people at the front of the room were speaking for the “City of West Hollywood,” not “unincorporated county.”

Judge Rand Schrader offered the invocation. Then he did the part most people in the room were waiting for, the oath. One by one, he swore in five new councilmembers who had just come through a tough campaign about rent control, LGBTQ rights and whether this community should chart its own course. Frank Wittenberg led the Pledge of Allegiance. Written in the minutes, it sounds like any other government meeting. In that room, on that night, it felt different. West Hollywood finally had its own officials raising their hands.

The Council’s first major act was about who would hold the gavel. Steve Schulte nominated Valerie Terrigno to serve as mayor. John Heilman seconded. The vote was unanimous. With that, a brand-new city chose an out lesbian as its first mayor, something that said as much about the voters as it did about Terrigno. Moments later, Heilman was chosen as mayor pro tem, also without a fight.

Before they dove into laws and contracts, the Council opened the microphone to some of the people who pushed for this night. Ron Stone talked about the long history of the area, a strip of land between Hollywood and Beverly Hills that had lived in county limbo for years. Larry Gross from the Coalition for Economic Survival spoke about renters who were worried about losing their homes and looking to the new City for protection. From the business side, Kay McGraw talked about merchants who wanted a City Hall that knew their customers and streets.

The room heard from other government bodies and pols too. Representatives brought resolutions and congratulations from nearby cities and from Sacramento and Washington. Letters came in from a congressman, a mayor next door and Los Angeles city leaders. For people who were used to being governed from downtown, being greeted as a peer community mattered.

The Council also took time to thank the people who did the unglamorous work of incorporation. They presented plaques to LAFCO staffer Ruth Bonnell and to Ron Stone, acknowledging the hours of planning and meetings it took just to get to election day. Each councilmember thanked family, friends and volunteers. Then there was a short break so officials and neighbors could shake hands, hug and catch their breath.

When they returned, the Council appointed a City Clerk, a City Attorney and a City Manager. They voted to keep Los Angeles County ordinances in effect for the time being, so there would not be a gap in local law. They set the time and place for future Council meetings and decided how and where new ordinances would be posted. They approved a City seal. None of this made headlines, but without those votes, West Hollywood would have had a name and little else.

There was money and services to sort out. The Council approved agreements with the county for general services and for law enforcement. They agreed to let the California Highway Patrol handle traffic enforcement. They set up a fund tied to the state gas tax so there would be money for streets. They signed off on a sewer maintenance agreement so toilets would flush and pipes would be someone’s responsibility.

The City Manager reported on short-term financing. The new City needed cash to operate while revenue from taxes and fees caught up. There were two proposals on the table. The Council chose a package from the Bank of Los Angeles. One councilmember sat out the vote because of a possible conflict. It was a reminder that “cityhood” came with lawyers, bank documents and ethical standards and responsibilities.

Then the Council turned to the issues that had pushed people to say “yes” to cityhood in the first place.

With one ordinance, they put a temporary lid on rents and evictions. That move bought time while a permanent rent control law could be written. Another ordinance froze conversions of rental housing so apartments could not suddenly become condos. For a renter-heavy community, these were not abstract debates. They were about whether people would still be living in West Hollywood long enough to see what kind of City it would become.

The Council also voted in an employment protection that was rare for its time, a local law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. It meant a boss could not legally fire someone in West Hollywood just for being gay or lesbian. On the first night, the new City chose to write that into its code.

Other interim rules followed. A temporary zoning map. A pause on grading, building and subdivision permits so developers could not rush projects through while the City was still getting organized. A decision on Council pay so members were at least modestly compensated for the hours they were clearly about to spend at Plummer Park.

As the night wore on, they still had to think about how residents would hear about all of this. The Council told the City Manager to send a letter to every property owner and renter in town explaining what the new rent rules meant and giving them a phone number to call with questions. The City Attorney was asked to write a press release that laid out the new ordinances in plain language. It was an early sign that this Council did not want people to learn about new laws only through rumor and bar talk.

Residents then got their turn. Names in the minutes line up one after another, people who stepped up to the microphone because they finally had a local government to address. Some thanked the Council. Others had questions or worries. The list of names of the first public comments is: Mary Sweeney, David Hughes, Jeffrey Howard, Jean Shatof, Joan Walper, Ron Meyhew, Steve Vincent, Louise Monaco, Jan Taylor, Norman Charnoff, Ralph Boshay, Michael Mead, Al Hornig, Jean Dobren and Don Mackay.

Before adjourning, the mayor thanked the sign language interpreters and the many people who had helped pull off the night. At 10:12 p.m., the first meeting ended, with the next one set for the following Monday afternoon.

If you pull the OG minutes today, they definitely feel dated. But there is a clear and familiar pattern in what that first Council did in just a few hours: protect renters, LGBTQ residents, and slow big projects until the City could decide what it wanted its streets and skyline to look like.

Everything since sits on top of that first night in Fiesta Hall. The room has changed, the technology has changed, the faces have changed. The basic idea has not. West Hollywood would lead on the progressive fights of its time and flip the script on what it means to “think globally, act locally.”