West Hollywood considers economic action against Arizona

Add West Hollywood to the growing list of local governments considering action against Arizona after the state passed its controversial new legislation on illegal immigrants.

The left-leaning City Council will consider a resolution Monday night that would ban any official travel to Arizona and prompt a review of contracts with Arizona businesses. Arizona’s new legislation requires police to determine whether people they stop are in the country illegally.

Proponents of SB 1070, which has polled positively in Arizona and the nation, say the law is crucial to stemming violent drug trafficking from Mexico. Opponents have attacked the legislation, saying it will promote racial profiling and discourage illegal immigrants from cooperating in police investigations.

West Hollywood is the latest in a number of local and state municipalities that have blasted the controversial new legislation. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and members of the Los Angeles City Council have expressed support for similar boycott proposals.

San Francisco has already taken economic action against Arizona, and the leader of the California Senate, Darrell Steinberg, has proposed boycotting businesses from the Southwestern state.

“To be stopped and confronted because your skin is darker or your hair is darker, to have to prove you’re in fact an American is really insulting,” said West Hollywood Mayor Pro Tem John Duran.

West Hollywood’s City Council has a long history of wide-reaching liberal resolutions, most recently banning the sales of most cats and dogs at pet stores. If approved, the city clerk would review all dealings with Arizona, and alternative vendors would be considered.

Councilmember Lindsey Horvath, who introduced the resolution, said the city has had about a dozen contracts with Arizona businesses in the last five years, valued at approximately $20,000.

City officials would also halt official trips to the state, like one Duran said he and others took about three years ago for an environmental conference in Phoenix.

-- Robert Faturechi

Comments

[jay vasquez]

Starting today I will boycott Wet Hollywood!

[Yoga2010]

Politicians politicking themselves into irrelevance. Who really cares what the West Hollywood city council thinks outside of West Hollywood? Sadly, we rarely get the politicians we need and inevitably get the politicians we deserve.

[Egregie]

That's a rather typical knee-jerk reaction without all the facts. There are plenty of light skinned people streaming through the desert that used to cross into California, but now that it's Arizona, it about race and not foreign nationals making a mess of the state with human, drug, and other smuggling. The real issue is should people over 18 be compelled to carry identification? And, foreign nationals like those from countries we are at war with carrying proper documentation. Remember, that during WWI a German spy was caught in Nogales with secret ink soaked into a scarf trying to cross into the U.S. He was sentenced to death, could that happen today if the person was "dark" or should his skin color matter? West Hollywood should focus on fixing it's streets and its own businesses. Today, there are scores of serious felons caught around the state, how are you going to catch them when they don't have ID?

[elvis]

BOY, THAT WILL SHOW THEM.....

[Cigrsmk]

For those of you that would like to Boycott Az.

L.A. City Has Deep Ties To Ariz., Making Proposed Boycott Complicated
By Dennis Romero
April 28, 2010

L.A. Weekly-L.A. Daily
First off, let us apologize for taking perverse pleasure in watching as Los Angeles City Council members, to borrow a phrase from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, "stepped on a few rakes" in recent days. This week the city let a permanent electricity rate hike -- one the council trumpeted as temporary -- come to fruition. Now council members Janice Hahn and Ed Reyes want the city to cut off all business ties with Arizona over that state's passage of an immigration law that will require people to prove citizenship and allow police to stop people they think are in the United States illegally. It won't be easy.
Problem is, L.A. is almost inextricably tied to Arizona. For example:
-The Department of Water and Power (which must be chuckling right about now) gets some L.A.'s water supply from the Colorado River under a cooperative agreement with Arizona, which has rights to that H2O.
-Arizona-based U.S. Airways has a long-term lease for terminal space at LAX, which is run by the city.
-Los Angeles has partial ownership of the '70s-era, coal-powered Navajo Generating Station in Arizona, which gives the city a substantial amount of its electricity. (Ironically, Villaraigosa was spinning his mostly defeated DWP rate hikes as a way to ease the city off of coal power and onto things such as solar).
-The city also gets some of its energy via another Arizona plant it partially owns, the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, and relies transmission lines that cross from that state to California.
The resolution by Hahn and Reyes calls for the city to "refrain from conducting business with the state of Arizona including participating in any conventions or other business that requires city resources, unless SB 1070 [the immigration law in question] ... is repealed.''
Sometimes we wonder if the highest-paid municipal body in the country and its six-figure senior staffers read, like, city documents and stuff. At this point, we feel a little bad for Hahn (who's running for Lieutenant Governor) and Reyes. After all, we egged them on.

[me]

staying consistent with their loving feelings and compasionate heart. Got some marijuana too??

[me]

I am sure Arizona cares what california thinks....go figure...

[jenna]

well i personally, and most others are making it a POINT to travel to arizonathis year to spend our vacation dollars...$20,000 a year they spent???i dont think arizona is too worried...thats the money that they will save by not having to support one illegal immigrant for the year

[boochie]

The folks in WeHo are so completely removed from any reality. I'd like to see how they felt if masses of illegals actually moved into their exclusive boutique city? The city leaders of this pristine 'urban village' (I lived there for 10-years) are so-far left it's scary. Take away their high tax base and many wealthy residents and reality would slap them in the face!

[Jack]

Nothing like responding to discrimination with... discrimination.

Nothing like assuming that every last Arizona citizen with whom West Hollywood, Los Angeles, San Francisco, et al., do business is an intolerant racist.

Nothing like cities in the state of California, already in dire financial straits because the state's disastrous anti-business & irresponsible fiscal policies, spitefully severing more economic lifelines.

Good on ya, West Hollywood. Way to put your council's personal politics ahead of the people you supposedly represent.

[Brittanicus]

AMERICAN TAXPAYERS COME LAST

Homeland Security Czar Janet Napolitano lied to the American people about the border fence. It was never built to original specifications. She said the actual fence stretched 745 miles? It doesn't? large regions are still old barbed wire fencing. Other areas are restricted by vehicle barriers. In some cases none functioning cameras and movement sensors is the only enforcement. The Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations bill specifically eliminated the main funding mandate of the Secure Fence Act of 2006 as a two layer fence. Learn the facts about these lies at AMERICAN PATROL.

Washington has already appropriated over a trillion dollars to fight two isolated foreign wars and also assisting in building Israels wall. If Amnesty is passed the costs will dwarf the two wars we are now fighting. But the taxpayers of our nation get the budget cuts for our national security fence, and get--NOTHING, to protect us from the deadly insurgency of drug smugglers and millions of illegal aliens. No wonder Arizona had to enact a strict immigration police limitation. on law

What do most politicians and entertainers know about living in the real world today? Absolutely--NOTHING! Shotages of energy, crammed highways and ever growing pollution of the environment--and humans too. Here to do citizens-legal residents harm. PUT THE NATIONAL GUARD ON THE BORDER--NOW!

The Tea Party and thousands of anti-illegal immigrant organizations, will fight to stop any type or form of AMNESTY. Any kind of Amnesty will just bring in millions more people, waiting their turn for the next path to citizenship. Those here can bring in millions of close family members, which we as taxpayers will end up supporting. If Amnesty passes we will be obligated to give more government entitlements. Before President Obama signs the final document, the border will be swarmed by hundreds of thousands who will arrive by plane or ship. Finally the legal immigrants who have waited for years, will be upstaged by the illegal criminals here.

AMNESTY--It should be up to the people by popular vote or by referendum, because giving 20 to 30 million foreigners a rapid path to citizenship is an unjustifiable outrage. It will be a major catastrophe on the Federal, state, county and city public welfare benefits inflicted on our nation. We cannot afford it and it will divide the country, as other states like Arizona have been forced to enact their own immigration laws. The government we voted for refuses to protect the border or the majority for the American people, because of NAFTA and its diplomacy with the corrupt government next door. There should be no restraints on funding any of these measures when it comes to the American people's protection, for jobs, taxes, infrastructure, ecosystem, population growth and more. To learn more go to NumbersUSA website