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Health & Fitness

West Hollywood Cannot Understand Civic Monuments

Who is to blame for the abundance of ambiguous and bizarre city-funded monuments in Weho?

It has become clear in recent weeks that the City of West Hollywood does not do civic monuments very well and our city leaders are to blame. 

First, our community was assaulted with an obnoxiously egocentric  on the corner of Holloway and Santa Monica Boulevard. The fountain intended to honor veterans and make us feel good about America and public service is overshadowed by over-glorifying a former city councilman, Sal Guarriello. 

Anyone outside of the Guarriello family or closely connected with city government would find the garish inscription of his name on the fountain distracting. It is a shockingly bold “atta boy” for city officials, which pretty much opens up the flood gates for more taxpayer funded self-congratulatory shrines. 

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Even the concept, “Sal Guarillo Veteran’s Memorial” is blurring what the true purpose of the beautifully constructed fountain. Is this a monument for Sal? Sal who? Is it for veterans? Why? Which ones? 

It is a wasted opportunity to deliver an important message to the community about our community. Second, if the extremely expensive tombstone for city workers was not baffling enough, the city was hit with another scandal involving public artwork. 

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West Hollywood Patch broke a story of a well-executed clandestine . Someone spent a considerable amount of money and planning to cover the inscription of an existing WWII monument for Russian veterans in order to make it more inclusive of all soldiers who fought in the European theater of war. 

When questioned about the rouge plaque our Mayor Pro-Tempore Jeffrey Prang seemed more interested in explaining whether or not the statue celebrated living or dead people.  However, a more glaring issue comes immediately to mind.

Why is an American city exclusively celebrating soldiers from another country? 

I’m not going to get into if that is a good thing or not, but Prang’s aloofness to the situation likely mirrors the entire councils detachment for competent and moving civic monuments. Maybe it is time we spend more time celebrating the ideals and less on particular individuals; however, ideals don’t vote in elections or donate to campaigns.

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