West Hollywood’s City Council voted 4-0 Monday night to adopt a $170.6 million general fund budget for fiscal year 2027. Vice Mayor Danny Hang was out, attending a family funeral. The budget approval is technically for the first year of a two-year spending plan. The council will need to come back and vote on the second year, FY 2028.
Mayor John Heilman, Councilmember Lauren Meister, Councilmember John Erickson, and Councilmember Chelsea Byers all voted in favor.
City Manager Jackie Rocco, Interim Finance and Technology Services Director Onyx Jones, and Budget Officer Melissa Lindley presented it to the council Monday night. You can catch the presentation, deliberations and vote below. Credit to Staff who worked on the budget for months and managed to keep everyone on track through a long night.
General fund revenues are projected at $170.6 million. Expenditures are projected at $170.6 million. The surplus is $45,540.
The City will draw down $13.2 million in fund balance for several purposes. That includes a $2 million exchange of general fund reserves for Los Angeles County Proposition A transit funds, a measure voters approved in 1980 to fund public transit countywide, along with social services contracts, capital project transfers, and coverage of projected deficits in the parking improvement and parking permit funds.
The vote came with some perspective during public comments. Former Mayor Steve Martin, who served on the budget subcommittee with Heilman for eight or nine years, noted what a different world WeHo was moving in. “I remember when our budget was $70,000, and we thought that was a lot of money,” Martin said.
Council added $883,000, cut $1.05 million to cover it
The council did not vote on the budget as it was proposed. Before the final vote, they worked through a series of amendments, and back-of-the-envelope estimates that added a net $883,000 in spending. Two offsets covered the gap: a $1 million cut to the Sunset Strip Music Festival contingency and a $50,000 reduction to special council program funds.
WeHo Loves Locals goes from $100,000 to $180,000. Rainbow District marketing goes from $100,000 to $225,000. Eastside marketing gets $100,000. It had nothing in the proposed budget. The Russian Language Library grant increases by $10,000, to $12,500 annually. The Mishka Festival gets $28,000 more, bringing it to $130,000. The Classical Music Night is now its own line item at $10,000.
A hot-button issue around town and in chambers was the cannabis tax rebate. The council debated keeping both the tax rebate and marketing dollars. The proposed budget had $100,000 for cannabis marketing. The council budgeted an additional $150,000 for marketing and reserved $390,000 representing the cost of a potential 2% tax rebate extension, which expired June 30. No final decision was made on how those funds will be deployed. The budget subcommittee will come back with a recommendation on whether the money goes toward the rebate, marketing, or some combination of both.
Sunset Strip Music Festival contingency reduced
The council clawed back $1 million in contingency funding added to the Sunset Strip Music Festival budget. That money was originally set aside in case it was needed to secure a big name for the show. The event is scheduled for October 16. JJLA is producing it. The total budget is $4,690,000, including $2.8 million for production services and $890,000 for public safety and traffic control.
Erickson said he supported the budget but continued to share his concern about timing. “I really would like to eat my words,” Erickson said. “I want someone, I want the mayor, and the vice mayor, and everyone come and say, ‘See, John, we told you.’ He said the festival needed to start marketing now and called on Sunset Strip businesses to invest alongside the City.
Cannabis industry debate
The cannabis discussion was the longest of the evening. The proposed budget had cut cannabis marketing from $250,000 to $100,000 and did not include renewal of the 2% tax rebate. Cannabis tax revenues have fallen from a peak of $1.93 million in fiscal year 2022 to $1.09 million in fiscal year 2025, according to staff.
Jay Handal, a partner and co-founder of The Woods WeHo, spoke during public comment before council began deliberating. He said a third of West Hollywood’s cannabis stores are either in receivership, closed, or never opened. “Taking away this 2% will probably take another 2 or 3 into closing, quite frankly,” Handal said.
Meister suggested a middle path. “Why don’t we look at taking that rebate of 2% and splitting it between the marketing and going back to the businesses or something?” she said.
Erickson had his doubts about how long the City could (or should) continue to subsidize the industry, and not also consider doing the same for other local businesses. “I do think that I can, in good faith, continue to invest in something that I just don’t see the payoff coming,” he said, “especially if the businesses themselves don’t even want to invest in it.” He did not oppose the funding, saying the subcommittee process was the right place to work it out.
Byers had a different take. She said the next two years — with West Hollywood positioned to draw international attention from major global events — was not the time to pull back. “I’m supportive of investing in full,” Byers said, “with the idea that this would, of course, sunset, and we need to make sure that they’re prepared for that eventuality.”
The Artist Tree, one of the City’s licensed cannabis retailers and lounges, sent in a written public comment before the meeting urging the council to prioritize the 2% rebate above marketing expenditures. “Allowing the 2% tax rebate to expire or downscaling it to fund a marketing campaign puts the cart before the horse,” wrote Mitch Kahan of The Artist Tree.
The council wound up setting aside funds covering both options and directed the subcommittee to return with a recommendation on how the money is structured.
Green Business Program funded for one year
Rocco told the council during the public comment portion of the meeting that the City had identified funding for the green business program in the amount of $232,510 for fiscal year 2027. The announcement came as multiple speakers and several written public comments urged the council not to cut the program.
The program, administered by Sustainable Works, has enrolled 45 West Hollywood businesses since its April 2024 launch and certified 25 of them. Participating businesses have collectively reduced more than 1.58 million pounds of carbon emissions, conserved 576,702 gallons of water, saved 117,355 kilowatt-hours of electricity, and diverted more than 1.1 million pounds of waste from landfills, according to program data submitted to the council.
Byers said she wanted to ensure the program was funded for both years of the two-year budget and flagged the second-year cost of $238,550 as something the council would need to address at midyear.
Event consolidations, travel limits discussed
Meister raised the council’s travel to conferences and events, noting that more than 45 such events are on the pre-approved reimbursement list. She suggested limiting out-of-state travel to one or two council members per event, with a report back to the full council. She also proposed limiting co-sponsored events and reducing the number of events overall.
Staff recommended discontinuing or consolidating several annual events, including the WeHo Roller Skating Party, the Human Rights Speaker Series, and the Legislative Action Day for appointed officials. The co-sponsorship of World Dog Day at West Hollywood Park will pause for two fiscal years. Several other events will be merged, including the Youth Halloween Carnival and the Howl-O-Ween Pet Costume Contest.
The council also discussed combining the seven separate awards programs run by boards and commissions into a single event, a recommendation Heilman said the budget subcommittee would continue to develop.
Signature events, public safety budgets approved
The adopted budget includes several large signature event and public safety appropriations.
WeHo Pride is budgeted at $7,667,300 for fiscal year 2027, up from $7,599,300 in fiscal year 2026. Halloween Carnaval comes in at $1,993,193, up from $1,876,850 the prior year. The winter ice rink at West Hollywood Park is budgeted at $711,000. Heilman noted during deliberations that a private party has approached the City about proposing a holiday activation that would include an ice rink at no cost to the City, which could change the picture for future years.
The Community Safety Department budget is $39.9 million for fiscal year 2027. The Sheriff’s Department requested a $878,501 cost-of-living adjustment. Staff did not recommend funding it. That item was not restored by the council Monday night.
Juneteenth programming received an increase from $10,000 to $18,000 as part of the adopted budget.
All of the above were included in the budget resolution approved by the council 4-0.
The full budget is available at weho.org/budget.
I hope that nobody trips over the broken sidewalks, or gets hit on the sidewalk by a scooter, E bike, or delivery robot on their way to all the social events that our city council so cavalierly has approved funds for!
I’m glad to see the prom committee hard at work debating all the fluff in the budget.
West Hollywood never seems short of money for studies, conferences, travel, pilot programs, branding exercises, and every fashionable cause that comes along. Meanwhile, residents are still waiting for serious attention to basic quality-of-life issues, public safety, infrastructure, and sidewalk accessibility.
Local government isn’t supposed to be a lifestyle brand or an activism incubator. Before approving another budget packed with discretionary spending, the Council should explain how these expenditures improve life for the people who actually live here.
Lauren Meister’s suggestion that the City only needs one or two representatives at out of State conferences went over like a lead ballon, as did her suggestion about seriously looking at the participation in the array of events and celebrations sponsored by the City.
Hear, hear. I totally agree. On a related note: I’m worried about the November election. It’s a crowded field, and the moderate candidates could split the vote, opening the door for Buyers, Krieger, and Post. Kyle Brazeal, what’s your plan for building name recognition? Attending council meetings is good, but only a few people see that. Where are the garden parties, park meetups, and coffee hangs? Let’s go, Kyle! November is almost here.
This is laughable. “Expenditures are projected at $170.6 million.” Yet our streets are unsafe, filthy and businesses are closing or about to close left and right. Clearly the city is winning – NOT!