Jeff Seymour

When I go to West Hollywood City Council meetings and someone says they’ve been here since 1995, I’m thinking, “Okay, that’s really great, but I remember West Hollywood as a kid in the 1950s.” I grew up on Harper Avenue, just right outside of West Hollywood, but most of my life was in West Hollywood. I went to Rosewood Avenue [Elementary] School. West Hollywood Park was where I played baseball and met for Cub Scouts. On Fridays, my grandmother would walk me to this kosher butcher on Santa Monica Boulevard on the eastside of West Hollywood, and she’d say, “Jeffy, pick a chicken.” Now, these were live chickens, so I thought I was getting a pet. We’d return to the butcher after lunch, and my pet was in a white paper bag—it was our dinner. I’d go with my dad, Dan Seymour, who acted in movies like Casablanca and To Have and Have Not, to this cigar store in West Hollywood where I watched these old guys rolling handmade cigars with Cuban tobacco. Importing Cuban goods was still legal then.
        The evolution of West Hollywood is interesting, and I’ve seen a lot of it. It went from a train stop in the beginning of the twentieth century to where people from the entertainment industry moved in the 1920s to be near the Hollywood Studios. By the 1960s, I was spending weekends at Whisky a Go Go, Gazzarri’s, and at the Troubadour, a favorite spot on Santa Monica Boulevard [all in West Hollywood]. By the 1970s, the Jewish and the gay communities had established themselves in West Hollywood. These communities, with a history of being persecuted, created a bond that would be essential to Cityhood. Where else do you find that in a 1.9 square mile area? You don’t. 
        In 1976, when Ed Edelman won a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, I became his senior deputy. I had known Ed as a kid and worked for him as a deputy when he served on the Los Angeles City Council. Ed’s supervisorial district included the unincorporated area of West Hollywood, and I was given oversight responsibilities for that part of the district. That included overseeing the Sheriff’s Department budget and planning projects in unincorporated West Hollywood. I felt really good about helping West Hollywood because it had been an important part of my life. 
        Over my years at the county, I met a number of people that eventually became active in the Cityhood movement. Bud and Margot Siegel, and Jeanne Dobrin, the irascible land use activist, were all involved with the county’s West Hollywood 
        Residents’ Advisory Committee. They supported Cityhood, and we became friends. The first time I met Jeanne, she came up to me and said, “You're a snake in the grass.” It was after Cityhood that my relationship with Jeanne became closer, when she reminded me that I fired a client during a West Hollywood Planning Commission meeting because I realized he was lying about his project. Through my county work, I also met leaders in the gay community who pushed for Cityhood, including Morris Kight. Morris saw the need for the gay community to come together to continue fighting for their rights, but he also saw West Hollywood becoming a city that was unique in its diversity, and that provided services and benefits to both the people who lived and worked there. 
        After the California property tax reform measure Proposition 13 passed in 1978, I saw tensions really start to rise between tenants and the Board of Supervisors. Instead of getting the benefits from the measure that landlords had promised, renters saw rent increases and evictions. Larry Gross from the Coalition for Economic Survival (CES) had already begun to organize renters to come down to the Board of Supervisors’ meetings to protest rent prices and lobby for a county rent control ordinance. Larry was a great organizer, and he would bring hundreds of people to the boardroom. Ed was solid on rent control, and by 1980, a temporary rent control ordinance had been implemented in the county. With that ordinance set to expire in 1985, the need for West Hollywood to have its own, permanent rent control ordinance was really the catalyst for moving forward to becoming a city. Ed believed the time had come for that, too.
        By 1982, I was ready to leave the county, and I had an opportunity to run for a seat in the California State Assembly. I decided not to, as I wanted to be there for my young daughter, and I knew how much time it would take to be an effective officeholder. So I met with my friend Sheldon Andelson, the politically influential lawyer, philanthropist, and property owner known for his leadership in the gay community. I told him I wanted a career change. He offered me a job at the newly formed Bank of Los Angeles, based in West Hollywood, which he founded. 
        At Bank of Los Angeles, I was doing loans and business development. After about a year, I knew I didn’t want to be a banker. The bank gave me a line of credit to start my own governmental relations/land use planning firm. I did a lot of work all around L.A. County, and over the years, especially in West Hollywood. Lou Adler, a co-owner of the Whisky a Go Go at the time, and Dennis Holt of Western International Media became my first clients. I secured permits to renovate their buildings on the Sunset Strip. After about a year, I met Donn Morey, and we merged our firms in 1984—the same year West Hollywood became a city. During the Cityhood campaign, I saw Coalitions were being forged, and there was a lot of pent-up frustration among residents because the county was not providing the kind of representation they wanted. They knew that representation would come with Cityhood. But the bottom line, I believe, was that Cityhood was led by tenants focused on rent control. The founders’ perception of what the City should be was to create a place where renters could live comfortably and affordably.
        Almost immediately after Cityhood, I started meeting with the newly elected West Hollywood City Council. I knew they wanted to move as aggressively as they could to adopt their own municipal code and zoning ordinances. I was most impressed by Councilmember John Heilman for his leadership abilities and intelligence. Councilmember Alan Viterbi was young, politically savvy, and focused on economic development. He knew what he knew and what he didn’t know. I loved Councilmember Helen Albert’s commitment to providing community services to this young city. Having Mark Winogrond as the City’s first planning director set a high standard moving forward for planning directors after him. 
        I appreciated that City staff were very professional, and I think the vast majority of them absolutely loved working at City Hall. In those first years of the City, I was still fairly new to the private sector, but I understood that developers who wanted to build projects in this new city had to start responding to community concerns—and their projects had to have a great design. I remember the City’s General Plan Advisory Committee helped create an environment that brought renters, homeowners, and business owners together, and moved the City to the next step. Those early years were also really tough times in West Hollywood due to the AIDS epidemic. A lot of the people I knew from the City, and especially from my days at the Bank of Los Angeles, were dying. 
        As the years went on, I watched how the City stayed in the black, even in economic downturns. There was an understanding by the City Councils over the years that the viability of this city depended on always having a financial surplus so they could continue providing the high level of social services that the community depended on. As the City’s need for more housing grew, I tried to represent developers who wanted to build mixed-use developments—projects that had commercial and residential in the same building. West Hollywood really was at the forefront of this kind of development in Southern California. The City was better than other cities at requiring and monitoring inclusionary housing—where developers had to set aside a specific percentage of units for low- and moderate-income tenants. 
        I don’t think West Hollywood was ever the village-like community that some people dream it was. It was always a lot more exciting than that. But the essence of what the City was in 1984 still exists. It is still exploring ways to ensure more affordable housing and to continue providing an exceptional level of service to the community. Where else do you find a city funding the kind of social services that you find here? The City Councils over the years have done a pretty damn good job. Sure, the pendulum does move one way and another—individual priorities and personalities on the City Council today are different from those of forty years ago. But everything that should have happened in West Hollywood, actually has happened. And the City is still evolving. Unlike other municipalities, I see West Hollywood’s future as positive.