The City of West Hollywood has been awarded the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation’s 2021 Most Business-Friendly City Award. Awards were conferred at the 26^th annual Eddy Awards evening ceremony on Wednesday, November 10, 2021 at SoFi Stadium. The City of West Hollywood was a finalist among five cities with a population under 60,000 people; the four other cities named as finalists were the cities of: Culver City, El Segundo, Rosemead, and Vernon.

“It’s an honor for the City of West Hollywood to be selected as the recipient of this year’s Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation award for Most Business-Friendly City,” said City of West Hollywood Mayor Lauren Meister. “It’s especially significant right now because of everything we’ve been through as a community in adjusting to the difficult realities of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our city and our businesses have responded, throughout the pandemic, by working together to rise to the challenges of balancing shifting health-and-safety guidelines with creative solutions that support our community, our local economy, and one another.”

The Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation’s Eddy Awards annual dinner gala and awards ceremony celebrates exceptional public and private leadership in economic development in Los Angeles County. The Most Business-Friendly City Award recognizes demonstrated outstanding contributions to economic development in the region in business, education, and government throughout LA County.

This year’s awards stand out as they recognize cities that prioritized creating the most supportive environment for business recovery, reinvention, growth, and hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 Most Business-Friendly City Award honors the community’s extraordinary resilience and collaborative efforts, in celebration of economic reinvention by creating more equity and inclusion throughout LA County.

In March 2020, the City of West Hollywood approved a declaration of local emergency in response to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic and it began implementing a series of immediate programmatic responses to address community needs and to provide regular updates to the community. Early in the pandemic, the City approved residential and commercial eviction moratoria to protect renters and tenants and the City regularly extended these moratoria and then aligned with state and county policies.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the City of West Hollywood has taken extensive action to support businesses and workers. This includes weekly business-specific meetings, regular business outreach, enhanced technical assistance, and deferment and reduction of certain fees, as well as:

• A Small Business Grant and Microenterprise Program, which allocated general funds to assist eligible and qualified small businesses with small grants to meet operating expenses and retain or hire staff;

• A COVID-19 Free Webinar Series with informational presentations to assist community members in accessing information about a range of topics including health and safety information for businesses; mediation for commercial tenants and landlords; employer and employee resources; job assistance programs, and more; and

• A temporary outdoor expansion program, called OUT Zones, to provide businesses in West Hollywood with outdoor commercial space in the public right-of-way to meet protocols set forth by the LA County Department of Public Health and State of California, which prohibited many indoor operations. More than 60 restaurants, shops, and personal care establishments expanded operations outdoors through OUT Zones.

The Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC) was founded in 1981 as a nonprofit public-benefit organization to harness the power of the private sector in collaboration with LA County, to guide economic development, and to create more widely shared prosperity. The LAEDC drives action in support of a reimagined Los Angeles regional economy that is growing, equitable, sustainable, and resilient, and that provides a healthy and high standard of living for all. For more information, please visit www.laedc.org.

For more information, please contact Janet Jimenez, City of West Hollywood Assistant to the City Manager, at (323) 848-6376 or at jjimenez@weho.org. For people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, please call TTY (323) 848-6496.

The City of West Hollywood remains in a declared local emergency in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. West Hollywood City Hall is open for in-person transactions by appointment. Visitors to City Hall and City facilities are required to adhere to vaccine verification requirements. Click here for details. To make an appointment, visit www.weho.org/appointments. City Hall services remain accessible by phone at (323) 848-6400 and via the City’s website at www.weho.org. City of West Hollywood coronavirus information is available at www.weho.org/coronavirus.

For up-to-date news and events, follow the City of West Hollywood on social media @WeHoCity, sign up for news updates at www.weho.org/email  and visit the City’s calendar of meetings and events at www.weho.org/calendar.

For reporters and members of the media seeking additional information about the City of West Hollywood, please contact the City of West Hollywood’s Public Information Officer, Sheri A. Lunn, at (323) 848-6391 or slunn@weho.org.