XPost: la.general, alt.politics.media, rec.arts.tv.comedy.colbert-report   
   XPost: dc.politics   
   From: gavin.newsom.democrat.felcher@disney.com   
      
   https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/01/09/17/8321528-6573905-image-   
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   For years, Mayor John Duran has been a public avatar for West   
   Hollywood’s cheekily sexual culture.   
      
   From the City Council dais, he joked about wearing gold lamé   
   underwear and announced a public forum on anal cancer named   
   Booty Call to Action. But he was also accused by another   
   councilman of looking for sex on the dating app Grindr during   
   public meetings.   
      
   Even after the city paid $500,000 in 2016 to settle a sexual   
   harassment lawsuit brought by Duran’s former council deputy —   
   whom Duran hired after meeting on Grindr and having sex with him   
   — Duran was reelected.   
      
   For many, it seemed West Hollywood was the town that #MeToo   
   forgot.   
      
   But now, amid new allegations of sexual harassment against Duran   
   by members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, some West   
   Hollywood residents and politicians are saying enough is enough   
   and that times have changed. Three of the city’s five council   
   members have called on Duran to resign, saying he has become a   
   distraction.   
      
   Protesters are planning to converge on the City Council meeting   
   Tuesday to call for Duran’s ouster and seek action in another   
   scandal: the recent deaths of two gay black men in the West   
   Hollywood apartment of Ed Buck, a white, wealthy Democratic   
   donor and LGBTQ activist. For several years, Duran worked as an   
   attorney for Buck.   
      
   Last week, Robert Oliver resigned as vice chair of the city’s   
   Public Safety Commission in protest after other commissioners   
   declined to condemn Duran.   
      
   “It is time that the #MeToo movement comes to West Hollywood,”   
   he said.   
      
   Duran, 59, has refused to step down, describing himself as a   
   proudly sensual gay man who lived through a sexual revolution   
   colliding against a prudish #MeToo movement that’s too quick to   
   judge. Bawdiness is just part of who he’s always been, Duran   
   said, and he’s not going to change now.   
      
   “There’s a culture clash going on,” the mayor said. “If somebody   
   expresses himself or herself sexually, that doesn’t make it   
   harassment, per se.”   
      
   “People are thinking that anything sexual is harassment because   
   somebody feels it is unwelcome, but you have to open your mouth   
   and say, ‘No, I don’t want this.’ … Otherwise, how are any of us   
   able to navigate the sexual politics of 2019? I just think there   
   are bigger, more complex issues at play, that everyone needs to   
   take a timeout and slow down. It can’t be accusation equals   
   guilt.”   
      
   Three current or former members of the Gay Men’s Chorus have   
   accused Duran, the longtime board chairman, of crude sexual   
   comments and engaging in unwanted touching.   
      
   Chorus member Brian Phillip Nichoalds said Duran slipped his   
   hand inside Nichoalds’ waistband and made sexually charged   
   comments. Joey Firoben, a former member, said Duran made   
   inappropriate comments to him too.   
      
   Jason Tong, 23, who was both a singing member and part-time   
   employee of the chorus, said that, in October, Duran came up   
   behind him and put two fingers inside his waistband, near his   
   hips, in a changing room before a show in Glendale. Tong said he   
   turned around and made eye contact with Duran, who silently left   
   the room.   
      
   “I sort of went into a shocked state,” Tong said. “It all   
   happened very quickly, five seconds or so. … I went to the next   
   changing room over and told a couple of my friends what   
   happened. Only then did I realize I had been violated by   
   someone.”   
      
   Tong said he was upset Duran was trying to blame a generational   
   difference and that he “knows lots of older gay men who   
   definitely understand the idea of consent.”   
      
   “No matter how old you are,” he said, “it’s very easy to ask   
   first.”   
      
   Oliver, 29, said the accusations against Duran went beyond “gay   
   culture” and colorful language.   
      
   “It’s his generation that made it possible for me to be an out,   
   proud, liberated, married gay man today,” Oliver said. “But it’s   
   my generation’s responsibility to take the lessons that we have   
   learned collectively as a society and bring those to our LGBT   
   community and teach his generation.”   
      
   On Tuesday, City Council members Lindsey Horvath, Lauren Meister   
   and John D’Amico posted similar statements to their individual   
   Facebook pages calling for Duran to resign.   
      
   “Our City cannot focus on the work of the people when we have to   
   address new and numerous allegations of sexual misconduct,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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