Is City Hall Schizophrenic, or Is It Just Us?

Our destiny was set in motion by the fate of our location - outside LA city limits and the reach of LAPD. Our little town was a little wilder, a place to escape a more conventional and restrained “norm.”

A diverse population gravitated to the inexpensive housing, quaint charm and a live-and-let-live attitude fostered by lax governance. Rich and poor, famous and ordinary, young and old, straight and gay, native and immigrant, artists, musicians. The common bond was a desire to live freely alongside others who wanted the same.

A cohesive community bloomed out of that diversity, leading residents to create the City of West Hollywood to protect their established way of life from outside interference. The founding principles were rent control, restricted development, tolerance and diversity.

No wonder we’re confused and angry

Can we protect rent control by zoning for taller buildings and giving extra bonuses to financially motivate developers to tear down our apartments and evict our residents?

Can we keep our quaint urban village if we destroy the very buildings and parks and neighborhoods that give us our character?

Can we serve our 95 percent adult population by conforming to family-majority communities instead of finding our own unique path to serving all?

Can we celebrate and market our city as a fashion destination and then dictate what designers can design and retailers can sell?

Can we be the heart of rock ‘n roll or the LGBT mecca or the refuge for Russians from the former Soviet Union if the city is banishing those high smoking-rate populations from our society?

Can we preserve our legacy if staff steers policy through a secretive process and council members advance policy based upon personal agendas?

We can’t keep ignoring these basic conflicts. And City Hall has to stop pretending the conflicts only exist in the minds of crazy out-of-touch residents and businesses.

What’s at risk

West Hollywood is flush with money when other cities are not for one reason and one reason only.

West Hollywood benefits financially because our freewheeling, diverse history created a totally unique enclave where people are drawn to spend their time and money. All our allure and revenue flow from our restaurants, bars, clubs, hotels, shops and fashion, design and entertainment industries in one way or another.

If we want to continue our quality of life with tree-lined streets, walkable, rent controlled neighborhoods, parks and social services for our neighbors who need them, which it seems we do, the revenue generated from our businesses provides that. Having those businesses to patronize is also a primary motivation for wanting to live here.

If not one extra story was added to one new building on one residential street, we could not only survive, but thrive on the city revenues derived from the businesses that have created our iconic image. We don’t need to be more crowded to be prosperous.

Our choices

Do we still want to be historic West Hollywood? If we want to keep our neighborhoods quaint, let’s preserve them.

If we’re going to be tolerant, let’s not pick and choose what and whom we’ll tolerate. If we’re going to uphold choice, it must be choice for everyone. If we like our diverse neighbors, let’s renew our common bonds. If we like our businesses, let’s support them.

And, let’s focus our attention on how the dollars generated from our businesses are allocated to maintain and improve our unique “urban village.”

On the other hand, if we no longer want to be West Hollywood, we must have that conversation. If we no longer want the kinds of businesses that attracted our population and created Weho’s world renowned image - or appreciate the quaint character of our streets, then that is the fundamental debate we should be having.

But we need to have it openly and honestly. What new kinds of businesses would maintain our revenue and serve our community? What types of development and architectural style would make our neighborhoods more inviting? What would better serve the diversity of our population? What different priorities should we have?

Therein lies the schizophrenia

We’re not having that debate. Instead, City Hall espouses love and support for our City while actively legislating us in the opposite direction. They can’t “support” West Hollywood by changing everything that defines it.

Unfortunately, City Hall doesn’t seem to get that. They are enacting more and more ordinances that constrain our businesses and ostracize our population on the basis of a social agenda that is incongruent with our heritage. And the development style and density they are pursuing is changing the very charm that has made our city distinctive and desirable.

Perhaps it’s partly a predictable challenge for a city like ours led by Democrats in an increasingly nannyish and elite Democratic party. I say that as a socially liberal Democrat. “Liberal” appears to have taken on two distinct meanings.

For me, it’s part libertarian - tolerance and acceptance of whatever choices people make about how they live and what they do. It’s also consistent with change from the bottom up, diversity, conservation and preservation. That works pretty well with our city’s historic values.

However, liberal also seems to have morphed into “progressive,” which can be a bit more… schizophrenic. If progress is passing laws to forbid people’s habits, behavior and choice to conform to some “better” societal standard, it conflicts with our philosophy of tolerance.

If it is destroying the old to create something new, that isn’t progress for a city that embraces its identity. Those principles are completely at odds with West Hollywood.

This schizophrenia, in my judgment, is the cause of so much of the dissension and division we have been witnessing in our community. City Hall is often taking us down a “progressive” path that is neither what we expect nor want in our city.

The solution

We have to make up our minds collectively about what we want and demand that City Hall follows suit. One thing is for sure, continuing down this schizophrenic path, we citizens stand to lose a great deal that we care about.

Our diverse population came together to create this city, we have lived in harmony all these years, and if we want to preserve our city, we need to join forces and do it together, so let’s have the conversation.

Let’s lay out facts and feelings, and let’s continue talking with each other until we come to a broad consensus of what we want West Hollywood to be. If we can do that, City Hall won’t be able to ignore us as minor annoyances, individuals with grievances or uninformed late comers. They’ll have to face a united, informed “community.”

Join the conversation

What do you think? What are your suggestions? Let’s have a respectful open dialogue among ourselves. No rants, no personal attacks against one another. Let’s channel the spirit that brought our diverse population together, and just have a debate about what kind of “community” we want to be and how to implement our collective vision.

FYI to City Hall: I suggest you listen in on the conversation.