In the past several years local residents have spent an enormous amount of their time attending city council meetings, design review meetings and planning commission meetings to give their firsthand input on upcoming projects and issues.
But was it all for naught? Was the writing already on the wall, so to speak? Were residents’ voices not really being heard or considered?
For a city that considers itself so unique, so exclusive, so different than other cities in America, the sad reality may be that West Hollywood is in some ways very much like every other city in the country. No matter how special its leaders and residents think themselves to be, we all wind up having the same identical problems dealing with the powers that be at City Hall.
The mayor and city council favor the developers and businesses who give them campaign money. City staff does things that the city manager, city attorney and council instruct them to do that overrides common sense and what the residents want. Then the City Hall staff, council members and mayor feign interest in hearing what the local residents want and then steer it back to what City Hall wants instead. Basically, rinse and repeat.
So how do we change this or make it better?
Well, perhaps only when the local TV news crews are around, and there is a very large turnout of residents at a city council meeting agenda item that sometimes it tilts back to the residents’ favor. But very rarely.
Even with recent council meetings where businesses were complaining about the impact of the minimum wage increase and the particulars that created an additional burden on businesses, that the issue was put off into the future.
It’s hard to believe in recent months, even senior citizens and disabled were shown the door by our council over the electric scooter issue. Who would have thought that our progressive West Hollywood would not look out for the disabled and senior citizens?
Then what about our City Hall staff members and experts that always take the city and council’s side on an agenda item and even an appeal?
There was a time that the city held all these meetings for residents to look at the future of mixed-use development. They kept showing us renderings of one- and two-story structures. Cut to years later where the actual projects were three to six stories as they city knew there would have been blow back from the residents.
So where is the real relief for the common Joe or Jane who want answers and solutions on what they consider to be an important crisis or issue?
There are media outlets one can reach out to, Op-Ed articles one can write, signed petitions one can pursue and some signs that one can make. But even then many residents feel like they are just spinning their wheels.
Then there is much of the rest of the city that has no idea what is actually happening in our town unless they happen to get impacted directly. It is only at that point that they make their outcry and get to see how difficult it is to make any impact or difference.
Jerome Cleary is a columnist for LAMonthly.org and lives in West Hollywood. He can be reached at jeromecleary@aol.com.
