More than 1,700 voters cast ballots at the polls and by mail to elect the first-ever Westwood Neighborhood Council on June 26 in what a city clerk report said was the greatest turnout for a Los Angeles neighborhood election this year.
Publicity and interest surrounding a first-time election contributed to the high turnout, said faculty director-elect Lisa Chapman.
The Team Westwood slate swept the election by taking 16 of the 19 seats, according to the official results released on July 4. The Westwood Coalition won two seats and an independent candidate filled one seat.
Six of the council positions are filled by candidates with UCLA affiliations: student director Steven Somers, faculty director Chapman, educational community director and alumna Laura Winikow, at-large director and retired faculty member Jerry Brown and two rental residential group directors, students Brent Gaisford and Michael Stajura.
If the results go unchallenged, the first order of business will be to get organized, said Team Westwood slate candidate Scott Whittle, who was elected as one of the owner residential group directors.
A resident of Westwood for more than 20 years, Whittle said he was not originally in favor of the council and fought against its creation.
“The community surrounding the council district already had very strong homeowners’ association groups that work well together, and we didn’t see the need,” Whittle, a member of the Westwood Hills homeowners’ association, said. “But if we’re going to have one we better roll up our sleeves and manage it ““ we can’t just play ostrich and pretend it doesn’t exist.”
However, Gaisford, a second-year economics student who ran with the Westwood Coalition slate, expressed concern that the winning Team Westwood slate was created to continue to serve homeowner interests. Chapman, who ran with Team Westwood, refuted the concern, saying that Team Westwood was a group of “all different kinds of people.”
While the council represents both neighborhood and university stakeholders, Whittle said the “transitory” nature of the UCLA population has led to differences of opinion in the past.
“It’s an awkward situation sometimes with students because some of their concerns are more of immediacy rather than long term, they’ll only be here four, five years maybe,” he said.
But Chapman, a 26-year resident of Westwood and director of the UCLA Executive Health program, disagreed. She said students are contributors even in the short term ““ and that may end up being a long-term commitment.
“It’s important to have a community that nurtures all the constituents so people want to stay and make it better,” Chapman said.
She aims to make the council, composed of homeowners, renters, business owners and students, more cohesive, and said the “symbiotic” relationship between UCLA and the community used to be stronger, but has waned in years past.
Whittle said the homeowners’ associations have shared student concerns such as traffic and parking over the years, and lauded UCLA’s community relationship office. He also said he expects student concerns to crop up now that student representatives are on board.
Gaisford, who qualified for the rental residential group director seat by living in a fraternity house, said he hopes students will be proactive in the future. He added that a system through the office of the External Vice President within the Undergraduate Students Association Council might bolster student vocalism.
He linked traffic and public safety concerns to student interests, and said he would like to see a reinvigorated nightlife and business district.
Gaisford added that the timing of the election disenfranchised students, though Somers, a third-year communication studies student and Team Westwood candidate who won the student director seat, said he thought he galvanized a high number of students to vote for him through active campaigning.
The late June timing of the election was a now-or-never situation, said transition committee chair Jann Williams, since that was the only time the city clerk’s office could run it, or the election would have to wait two more years.
No exit polls were conducted, so the actual number of student voters cannot be confirmed.
Madeline Brozen, a graduate urban planning student who ran for the student seat with the Westwood Coalition, said the election results “spoke to the power of the slate,” but the structure of the council also created diversity.
The committee setup allows students not elected to the council to be involved with the decision-making process.
Even though she was not elected to the student director position, Brozen still plans to be involved through the committees, which will include land use, transportation and traffic.
“I really encourage students and other people with a vested interest in the community to come out to the meetings and stay involved,” Brozen said.
From students to homeowners to renters to business owners, members of the new council do share a common long-term goal: restoring the vitality enjoyed by Westwood in the 1980s remembered by longtime residents such as Chapman.
When she first moved to Westwood from her Midwestern roots in Nebraska, Chapman found “a magical little place.”
“The streets were partitioned off ““ you could only walk, it was so busy and packed,” Chapman said. “It’s changed with the times.”