• Steve has been a long-time WeHo activist for over 30 years and participated in the grassroots efforts to incorporate the new City of West Hollywood in1984

 

• In 1986 Steve actively opposed the conversion of several large residential buildings into hotels, that ultimately became Le Park, the Champion, Le Rive and the Montrose hotels, resulting in the loss of hundreds of residential units

 

• When the City Council voted to build a $50 million Civic Center in West Hollywood Park In 1987, which would have replaced open space with “roof top” gardens and eliminated our only pool, Steve collected hundreds of signatures to qualify a ballot measure to stop the Civic Center and became a spokesperson for the opposition to the project

 

• Steve’s first key vote on City Council was to defeat the City staff’s proposal for an Eastside “parking overlay zone”, which would have permitted businesses to demolish adjacent residential properties as long as they used the property for parking

 

• Steve was the crucial third vote to create the Eastside Redevelopment Agency which was a key turning point in the City’s Economic Development and which led to the creation of scores of affordable housing units

 

• Steve worked with residents to keep the Gateway project at La Brea at a reasonable scale and resisted pressures from developers to turn it into a “mega-project”

 

• Steve led the effort to take over Santa Monica Boulevard from Cal Trans, chaired the 40 member Santa Monica Re-Design Committee and worked with State officials to secure 90% of the funding for the re-design project which eliminated the need for thousands of West Hollywood property owners to carry expensive flood insurance

 

• As a Council Member Steve worked with residents to create Kings Road Park and made the revitalization of the West Hollywood Pool a priority so that it could be opened year round

 

• Steve worked with Council Member Sal Guariello to replace the aging and inadequate Fire Station on Hancock with a modern facility on Cynthia and San Vicente
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• Steve pushed to create the housing project on Detroit and Lexington as part of an effort to revitalize a blighted area of the City and worked to create the City’s first off-leash Dog Park on Delongpre

 

• Steve was not afraid to take on the Sheriff on issues of homophobia and deployment and blew the whistle on the Department’s unauthorized entrapment stings at the Pacific Design Center

 

• The Sheriff’s Department honored Steve for his pioneering efforts in creating the City’s Crystal Meth Education and Recovery Programs which were some of the first in the nation

 

• As a Council Member Steve drafted ethics reforms and the City’s zero tolerance for sexual harassment policy

 

• Steve fought to bring protections for tenants with pets, opposed efforts to allow commercial intrusions into residential zones and enacted the first anti-mansion-zation codes for West Hollywood West

 

• Steve’s served eight years on the Council’s Budget Sub-Committee which put the City on a two year budget cycle to enhance long-term planning and focused on such capital improvements as the new Fire Station and city parks

 

• As an advocate for “government transparency”, he insisted on making the budget process open and inclusive of the public

 

• Steve supported a successful ballot measure to make West Hollywood’s hotel tax the same rate as Beverly Hills and Santa Monica which has brought in millions of additional revenue to the city

 

• In the late 1990s Steve became one of the first elected officials in the nation to advocate for same gender marriage and in 2003 joined the Board of Marriage Equality California

 

• Even after leaving office, Steve stayed true to his commitment to maintain West Hollywood’s unique character by joining the effort to “Save Tara”, a cultural landmark on Laurel Avenue, and successfully rallied the community to defeat the City’s “Mixed-Use Overlay Zone” which would have allowed ten story developments on every major intersection along Santa Monica Blvd

 

• Steve was active in opposition to the City’s ill -conceived plans for Plummer Park and in 2013 he drafted the successful term limits initiative

 

* Partial list