On Jan. 9, Mayor Lili Bosse held the first Live with Lili of the new year, taking questions and hearing comments from community members, as well as sharing updates from the previous meeting. Following up on a suggestion from a resident about creating programming in the city focused on race, Bosse highlighted the Human Relations Commission’s “Critical Conversations” series. On Feb. 9 at 7 p.m. in the Municipal Gallery at City Hall, the commission will host a women’s panel, “which is the state of women’s rights in modern day society,” said Commission Chair Noelle Freeman. “Right now, we have about six very diverse, interesting panelists, and we’re going to have a great moderator.”
The series is part of the commission’s diversity, equity, and inclusion effort. In August, the Critical Conversation Series debuted with guest speaker Donzaleigh Abernathy, actress, author, and civil rights activist whose father, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, was an instrumental leader in the civil rights movement.
Bosse shared details about the next Mayor’s Mental Wellness Series on Jan. 29 from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m., which is presented in partnership with the city’s Teen Advisory Committee, a group of civic-minded middle and high school students who plan community outreach and special events throughout the year. “We asked our teen advisory, who is number one on their wish list as to who they would like,” Bosse said. “We’ve had Dr. Edith Eger, we’ve had Dr. Deepak Chopra, so we asked the teens who they wanted, and number one on their list was the founders of the Madhappy group. And so lucky for us, they said yes.”
2017 by Noah Raf, Joshua Sitt, Peiman Raf and Mason Spector, Madhappy is a fashion and lifestyle brand that spotlights mental health issues. At 1 p.m., the hosts of the MadHappy podcast, Peiman Raf and Spector, will have a conversation about mental health with Mayor Bosse. The event will also include mental health and wellness booths from the Beverly Hills Library, Teen Advisory Committee, teen camp and recreation programs, Norman Aid, Bulldog Aid and more.
Chair of the Next Beverly Hills Committee, Tiffany Davis, asked if there are any requirements regarding the maintenance and upkeep of building exteriors in the city. “Some of them have awnings that I think are extremely dirty, faded, that sort of look where you can tell it needs to be refreshed,” Davis said. “There are buildings that I think just could use a really good power wash, if not maybe a repaint, but these are in prominent areas and they’re high traffic areas for tourism. They’re highly photographed areas as well.” City staff will return with an update and a summary of code enforcement regulations at the next meeting.
Another resident asked about the city’s robocall system and BHPD alerts, and how the city decides what is and is not reported out to residents. The police department is discretionary when it comes to sending out such calls, Bosse said. “BHPD also decides when it’s important to send out a BHPD alert,” Mayor Bosse said. “So, there are certain triggers, whether it’s a road closure or heavy police presence in a certain area, or people are noticing helicopters or something like that. But if every single time something happened in our city, there was a robocall or a BHPD alert, I think people would feel bombarded.”
The next Live with Lili will be held on Feb. 13 at 7 p.m.
