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Politics & Government

'We're Not Going to Take It Anymore,' Residents Tell Candidates

Members of the Weho Heights Neighborhood Association call for change at City Hall and express their frustrations with the current City Council at a meet and greet with council challengers.

Anger was in the air as a group of West Hollywood residents vented its frustrations about and the way the is running things.

The discord came as the West Hollywood Heights Neighborhood Association sponsored a meet and greet Tuesday night with four of the nine candidates running for City Council. There are three seats to vote for in our council election on March 8. At the meeting, the residents expressed deep resentment at the current City Council and the bureaucracy in City Hall. One resident even quoted the 1976 movie Network saying, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

“I’m running because of the frustration of getting the simplest things done,” candidate Scott Schmidt said, empathizing with the residents' anger.

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Mito Aviles agreed, saying that he was running to bring accountability back to City Hall. He noted that the “bureaucracy in City Hall is out of control.”

As residents continued to express their frustrations, Steve Martin said that City Hall had too many employees. “There’s an extra layer of management in West Hollywood City Hall that most cities don’t have. We have a flow chart in City Hall that is incomprehensible,” Martin said. “It’s an incoherent system that lacks accountability.”

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Martin added that City Hall could “lose 20 percent of its staff and no one would notice.” He said he would eliminate two full departments if he is elected.

Schmidt noted that the lowest paid employee in City Hall makes $56,000 a year, higher than the $40,000 average among all West Hollywood residents.

Challengers say because of these high salaries, City Hall employees don’t feel the need to move to other cities to get promotions and the corresponding increased pay; they stay put in West Hollywood.  Aviles noted that this lack of turnover of city employees results in the “lost ability for new blood to come into the city.”

Schmidt pointed out that the city uses two inflation rates—one for determining how much a landlord can raise rents in rent-controlled apartments and a second, higher one for determining cost of living raises for City Hall employees. He believes there should be only one rate.

On the City Council’s unresponsiveness to the concerns of renters, Martin noted that most council members were renters when they were first elected to the council, but now are “homeowners and have lost the ability to connect with those who don’t [own homes].”

On the question of term limits for City Council members, Lucas John said he would make that his No. 1 goal. John also wants to see clearer parking regulations and less aggressive parking enforcement. “People come to town for the first time and get a $60 parking ticket because they can’t decipher the parking signs,” John said. “How likely are they to come back a second time?” 

Martin noted that people are talking about Weho politics like never before, and “not in a positive way.” He credited John, Schmidt and Aviles with using social media to connect effectively with voters, especially younger ones.

Schmidt summed up the need for change on the City Council with this simple question, “Do you believe West Hollywood is better today than it was four years ago? If your answer is yes, then vote for the incumbents. If your answer is no, then vote to throw the bums out.”

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