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<\/a>Mayor John Duran, at a 2013 news conference in West Hollywood, reacts to a Supreme Court decision favorable to gay marriage. (Irfan Khan \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n
Gay mayor accused of sexual harassment as #MeToo reckoning comes to West Hollywood<\/h1>\n
By HAILEY BRANSON-POTTS<\/p>\n
For years, Mayor John Duran has been a public avatar for West Hollywood\u2019s cheekily sexual culture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
From the City Council dais, he joked about wearing gold lam\u00e9 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Even after the city paid $500,000 in 2016 to settle\u00a0a sexual harassment lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0brought by Duran\u2019s former council deputy \u2014 whom Duran hired after meeting on Grindr and having sex with him \u2014 Duran was reelected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For many, it seemed West Hollywood was the town that #MeToo forgot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But now, amid\u00a0new allegations of sexual harassment<\/a>\u00a0against Duran by members of the Gay Men\u2019s Chorus of Los Angeles, some West Hollywood residents and politicians are saying enough is enough and that times have changed. Three of the city\u2019s five council members have\u00a0called on Duran to resign<\/a>, saying he has become a distraction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Protesters are planning to converge on the City Council meeting Tuesday to call for Duran\u2019s ouster and seek action in another scandal:\u00a0the recent deaths<\/a>\u00a0of 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Last week, Robert Oliver resigned as vice chair of the city\u2019s Public Safety Commission in protest after other commissioners declined to condemn Duran.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt is time that the #MeToo movement comes to West Hollywood,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 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\u2019s too quick to judge. Bawdiness is just part of who he\u2019s always been, Duran said, and he\u2019s not going to change now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a culture clash going on,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cIf somebody expresses himself or herself sexually, that doesn\u2019t make it harassment, per se.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cPeople are thinking that anything sexual is harassment because somebody feels it is unwelcome, but you have to open your mouth and say, \u2018No, I don\u2019t want this.\u2019 \u2026 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\u2019t be accusation equals guilt.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Three current or former members of the Gay Men\u2019s Chorus have accused Duran, the longtime board chairman, of crude sexual comments and engaging in unwanted touching.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Chorus member Brian Phillip Nichoalds said Duran slipped his hand inside Nichoalds\u2019 waistband and made sexually charged comments. Joey Firoben, a former member, said Duran made inappropriate comments to him too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI sort of went into a shocked state,\u201d Tong said. \u201cIt all happened very quickly, five seconds or so. \u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Tong said he was upset Duran was trying to blame a generational difference and that he \u201cknows lots of older gay men who definitely understand the idea of consent.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cNo matter how old you are,\u201d he said, \u201cit\u2019s very easy to ask first.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Oliver, 29, said the accusations against Duran went beyond \u201cgay culture\u201d and colorful language.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt\u2019s his generation that made it possible for me to be an out, proud, liberated, married gay man today,\u201d Oliver said. \u201cBut it\u2019s my generation\u2019s responsibility to take the lessons that we have learned collectively as a society and bring those to our LGBT community and teach his generation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On Tuesday, City Council members Lindsey Horvath, Lauren Meister and John D\u2019Amico posted similar statements to their individual Facebook pages calling for Duran to resign.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOur City cannot focus on the work of the people when we have to address new and numerous allegations of sexual misconduct, including whether our Mayor used his title to solicit sexual favors,\u201d Horvath\u00a0wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n City Atty. Mike Jenkins said state law did not allow the council of a general-law city to remove one of its members.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Duran told The Times that he thought his colleagues violated the state\u2019s open-meeting law, the Ralph M. Brown Act, by coordinating the statements, which were all posted within four minutes of each other. Jenkins said in an email that \u201cthe statements reflect the individual views of each council member and are not the result of a coordinated effort.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Councilman John Heilman is the only member who has not publicly addressed the allegations.<\/p>\n Former West Hollywood Public Safety Commissioner Robert Oliver resigned in protest of fellow commissioners’ silence about accusations against Mayor John Duran. (Kent Nishimura \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p><\/div>\n Duran has been on the council since 2001 and has served four terms as mayor, a largely ceremonial title that rotates annually.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/a>