A separate water main break occurred on July 28 near First Street and Detroit Avenue and the pipe was returned to service later that day. (photo by Edwin Folven)

West Hollywood has 14 certified candidates running for a seat on the City Council. The candidates are Councilwomen Chelsea Byers, Larry Block, Kyle Brazeal, Kody Christiansen, Jonathan Cottrell, Tom Demille, John Duran, Chukwudubem “Chiedu” Egbuniwe, Alden “Marlon” Gobel, Helen Krieger, Kevin L. Ligon, Stephen J. Post, Tatyana “Tanya” Tsikanovsky and Joel Zaldivar.

Beverly Press/Park Labrea News reached out to the seven qualified candidates not participating in the Sept. 15 Streets For All debate to give them an opportunity to share their platforms with the public. [See story page 3]

All candidates were asked the same questions and were also asked their stance on Flock cameras and the Fountain Avenue Streetscape Project, subjects that have dominated public comment at recent City Council meetings.

Kody Christiansen

As a West Hollywood resident for over 20 years, Kody Christiansen has seen the city’s shifts.

“The Sunset Strip was alive, and you know, people were going out at noon on a weekend and having drinks, [before the pandemic]” he said.

Christiansen’s priority, if elected, is to keep West Hollywood businesses alive and in West Hollywood. He proposed the WeHo Legacy Business Program. If a business has been in West Hollywood for 10 years or more, he said the city should offer support programs.

Christiansen’s goal is to put “the we back in WeHo.” If elected, he wants to implement several programs that will encourage citizens to participate in civil government. One program he plans to implement is the WeHo Civic Credit, which would give citizens up to $150 for attending city council meetings, filling out surveys or participating in the civic process. Those credits could then be used in businesses around West Hollywood.

On Flock, “we have to listen to our residents,” Christiansen said. Right now, he said, it is best to pause the program because there is still a lot to learn about the cameras and the company.

“I applaud the council majority for trying to come up with the best, strictest oversight for the program,” Christiansen said. “It is  probably best to pause the program.”

Tom Demille

Tom Demille has lived in West Hollywood for over 30 years. Now in his sixth run for City Council, Demille says his priority is to keep West Hollywood streets safe from crime and developers.

“We are going to make that a safer city,”  Demille said. “We are gonna do it until everyone feels safe coming out of their homes.”

He also wants to increase civic participation amongst residents, who he said are no longer showing up to City Council meetings.

On Flock, Demille said, “Get the Flock out.” If elected, he plans to find a way to get the cameras taken down. On the Fountain Avenue Streetscape project, he said it needs reevaluation.

John Duran

John Duran has been a West Hollywood resident for 36 years, and he previously served on the City Council from 2000-2020. His biggest concerns are public safety and land use in West Hollywood.

“I’m very concerned that in the last six years, the new council majority has put the city on the wrong track,” Duran said. “I think bad decisions were made about defunding the sheriff’s department, about defunding the chamber of commerce, about breaking the relationship between the small business community and city hall and about land use and development approvals that are running contrary to the wishes and desires of the residents.”

Duran supports the city’s current contract with Flock Safety. As a criminal defense attorney, he sees cameras as very effective in solving crimes, but also understands the privacy concerns expressed by citizens.

“The majority that passed the Flock cameras with amendments took those privacy concerns into consideration and made sure that data was not going to be shared with ICE agents,” Duran said. “The cameras would be carefully regulated and used only to solve the crimes that we need to get solved.”

Duran said the Fountain Avenue Streetscape Project needs to be scrapped entirely. 

“It makes no sense to me to add bike lanes to Fountain Avenue and take away one lane of traffic in each direction,” Duran said. “All that traffic has to go somewhere, and the somewhere it’ll go is into residential areas where you have more pedestrians, people walking dogs, children at play and seniors trying to navigate sidewalks.”

Chukwudubem “Chiedu” Egbuniwe

Chiedu Egbuniwe has volunteered for the city of West Hollywood in different capacities for about 20 years. His priorities for West Hollywood are housing affordability, sensible safety and support for small businesses.

“We have to have some development in order to have affordable housing, and since we are in this era of SB 79, we should use it,” Egbuniwe said. “We can employ a strategy that actually benefits the city and where the residents can create a vision with sensible safety.”

SB 79, also known as the Abundant and Affordable Homes Near Transit Act, took effect July 1. The law overrides local zoning rules to allow mid-rise housing construction, up to nine stories tall, near major public transportation stops.

The candidate opposes Flock Safety as a vendor but sees benefits to surveillance in increasing safety. Egbuniwe said West Hollywood should focus surveillance on the Rainbow District, where crime reports are higher.

“I am very much against the Flock cameras,” Egbuniwe said. “I would support a pause on our camera policy for now, while we look into a sensible way of monitoring.”

Egbuniwe said his favorite thing about West Hollywood is walking around the city, but when it comes to the Fountain Avenue Streetscape Project, he doesn’t believe the plan accomplishes anything, so he is against it in its current form. 

“If we’re concerned about being less dependent on cars, unfortunately, this plan does not do that,” Egbuniwe said. “It’s just moving cars to other streets.”

Alden “Marlon” Gobel

Marlon Gobel, the son of authors Timothy Leary and Joanna Harcourt-Smith, said he is running for City Council “because West Hollywood deserves leadership that understands how to manage complex operations while preserving our distinct, rebellious and authentic spirit.” If elected, Gobel said his main priorities are to keep West Hollywood affordable and safe, help gay businesses thrive and improve walkability.

Gobel is against Flock cameras in West Hollywood. He said that the people who voted in favor of the program on the City Council may not have understood the surveillance technology they were signing on for.

“Some of the members knew what a Flock camera was, knew some of the benefits, but didn’t really understand all the underlying levels of just how invasive those kinds of technologies can be.”

As for the Fountain Avenue Streetscape Project, Gobel said many other projects should take priority in West Hollywood to ensure safety for residents and commuters.

“We need to sync up these lights on Santa Monica so that they all work in unison, so that people aren’t standing in traffic for hours and hours,” Gobel said. “Fountain needs to go through a lot of work as far as making it a street that’s even accessible for cars. It’s a huge traffic mess for cars as it is now. Let alone adding space now for bicycles.”

Kevin Ligon

After retiring from civil service at the Veterans Health Administration’s Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Kevin Ligon decided he wants to give back to West Hollywood. As a resident for 16 years, Ligon has seen the rising cost of living and is campaigning on rent stabilization, maintaining walkable communities and keeping small businesses in West Hollywood.

“The community and the people I’ve met in West Hollywood are such a wonderful, diverse mixture,” Ligon said. “I want to be a calm voice in the midst of all of our world at the moment, and that’s hopefully what I can provide, and I guess a balanced approach to how we can communicate with each other.”

Ligon said that the Flock cameras should not be in West Hollywood.

“I’m not a fan of cameras. Period,” Ligon said. “I don’t think our sheriffs or police misuse them here locally, but I do feel there could be a temptation, and sometimes in the wrong hands, it can cause a lot of harm.”

The Fountain Avenue Streetscape project, Ligon said, will cause massive traffic build-ups in the city.

“I don’t think that the City Council explored all the possibilities,” Ligon said. “The whole concept really didn’t touch on whether, or how, the traffic flow is going to affect other parts of West Hollywood.”

Joel Zaldivar

Longtime resident and business owner Joel Zaldivar is committed to seeing small businesses thrive in West Hollywood. He plans to create the Commercial Rent Stabilization Division to address the growing prices of goods and services in West Hollywood.

“Small businesses are fundamental to a thriving community,” Zaldivar said. “Small business owners are being strong-armed into leases that force their hand into increasing prices to our residents.”

Although he said he is committed to public safety, after fleeing from Cuba, “because of government surveillance,” he does not support Flock cameras or their contract with the city.

“Thirty percent of our community here in West Hollywood are from Russian-speaking countries that suffered under communist dictatorship for so long,” Zaldivar said. “I think we have to make sure that whenever we look at safety, we have to look at it from [the perspective of] our residents, not just whether we’re going to be able to catch somebody’s camera reader.”

On the Fountain Avenue Streetscape Project, Zaldivar said bike lanes are great, but he doesn’t understand where all of the people who park on Fountain Avenue are supposed to park their cars.

“The city should have realized that they are impacting a significant portion of residents and acted as a developer,” Zaldivar said. “They should have realized that if their main goal is to beautify the city – this is what their priority is – maybe create street canopy, more protected bike lanes.”