EDGE Los Angeles

Tuesday night’s regular City Council meeting will deal with commonplace municipal issues such as parking structures, parks, election reform and Advisory Board appointments.

Also on the agenda sits a potentially world-changing item, a report on and discussion of West Hollywood’s LA Gay Pride Parade and Festival’s future.

Brought to the table by first-year council member John D’Amico at the last regular meeting of 2011, he raised constituents’ and visitors’ concerns about Pride’s lack of relevance to them.

"I think there is a serious disconnect for a lot of people on that event," about which he has heard much criticism since his March election.

He said he heard from people who called the event "lame" and unbecoming the film capital of the world, "especially with so many creative people living in it."

His call to ask fundamental questions about the 41 year-old festival offers the public an opportunity to weigh in on a parade and festival that brings hundreds of thousands of people to West Hollywood over a weekend.

It was 12 years ago that Rodney Scott, president of the Board of Directors of Christopher Street West, rose to the challenge of setting aright an imploding organization after the 2000 festival.

At that time, Frontiers Magazine published a story of a president of the CSW board, John Cappadono, who had forced most of the volunteer organization to leave in disgust and allowed fundraising to wither, endangering the very future of the event.

Rodney Scott led a community cadre of volunteers to take up the burden of setting the organization’s finances in order and has, along with the large team of volunteers, put the festival onto solid footing.

Reminded of that, he said, "it’s been a really humbling journey. Our community is so rich in its diverse and we’re really committed to always making Pride an experience that offers something for everyone.

"CSW is always looking at how to make that prideful experience for everybody."

But is trying to satisfy everyone satisfying the West Hollywood stakeholders?

From his perspective, Mr. Scott sees the festival growing in substance and inclusion.

He trumpets the addition of Friday’s Purple Party for women in 2011, mitigating the effects in recent years of the construction occurring at West Hollywood Park, the festival’s site, and gaining Grand Marshalls of international reputation to represent Pride.

Others are less sanguine - especially those who have seen the entire history of CSW play out - and call for a radical paradigm shift.

Don Kilhefner is one of those names that requires little introduction to West Hollywood Gay Pride stakeholders, for he, along with Morris Kight, founded the LA Gay Liberation Front, the LA Gay & Lesbian Center and Van Ness House, and along with Harry Hay the Radical Faeries.

He was intimately involved with the Pride Marches of 1970 - 1973 and the festival at its beginnings.

Upon hearing Mr. D’Amico’s call, he said, "After 42 years, there’s a need for fundamental re-envisioning and reimagining of Christopher Street West to make it more relevant to the age in which we live."

He expressed hope that the status quo would give way to a re-thinking about the purpose of Pride by CSW "that would create something even more exciting."

He recalled that evolution and Pride are no strangers - the first three Pride experiences were political marches, he said, "then they became parades, and then a festival was added, but now I think a parade has outlived its usefulness."

Calling the current paradigm a "chamber of commerce mentality," he suggested the focus move to "how we tend to the spiritual well-being of our community."

Rather than duplicating festivals year after year with different acts, he suggested making the festivals more participatory.

"Devote Saturday afternoon to a broader and larger sense of gay culture, say invite writers, poets, performance artists, musicians, comics, the best we have."

He would suggest a Sunday morning devoted to political and community-building including an ecumenical service and a political protest march with a rally.

Rodney Scott acknowledged that he spends all of his time trying to improve the experience as it exists - that singular Gay Pride experience called "immersion" where people who live outside WeHo and may not know many gay people can suddenly stand amidst tens of thousands of gay people.

He told the story of a middle-aged woman from Riverside who, upon attending Pride, said, "Now I get why I should have come out years ago - I get it now."

Said Mr. Scott, "That’s why we do Pride, so that people can experience West Hollywood as a beacon for gays."
He said the board looked forward to hearing the ideas put forth by the community and working with Mr. D’Amico to improve the festival.

"What he’s asking is what the council has always asked of us, to make Pride the best we can make it," he said.