This election year registered voters in the city of West Hollywood are seeing an exceptional amount of mail coming at them from incumbents and independent expenditure (IE) groups campaigning hard to keep John Duran and Jeff Prang in office – but more importantly, perhaps, to keep challenger Steve Martin from returning to the council.

The sheer amount of money made available to defeat Mr. Martin – in excess of $40,000 – shows how much a Steve Martin redux is feared by the establishment interests behind the efforts. Those establishment contributors include retailers and developers, as well as nightclub owners.

The primary movers and shakers behind Measure C, Steve Martin (who won two terms to council, has lost four and is making his seventh try), Lauren Meister, a two-time failed candidate for council and Scott Schmidt, who has run for council one time and failed. Photo courtesy Yes on Measure C Facebook page.

It also shows how the political establishment fears his signature issue - term limits - and its place on the ballot alongside his name, will impact the election. Many insiders suggest that Mr. Martin, who has lost four of the six elections for which he has stood by roughly 350 votes, could overcome that margin if term limits brings to the polls a sufficient number of anti-incumbent voters.

The Duran campaign says that its fears are reasonable, based on the fact that a new publication in town, apparently set up for the task of affecting the election’s outcome, has been giving Mr. Martin a free election platform from which to express his views while simultaneously supporting his brainchild term limits without challenging the group to explain their logic or examining the consequences of the measure.

At the same time, the web site has posted repeated assaults on John Duran asserting that he is culpable for possibly illegal donations made to his campaign and actively involved in organizing and colluding with the independent expenditure campaigns that have sprouted up to support him. Several other Facebook pages have been promoting those articles to the exclusion of others that disprove the claims while web sites have been set up to propagate the pro-Martin, anti-Duran, anti-incumbent and pro-term limits fervor.

John Duran has come under heavy fire from Mr. Martin's cohort, term limits advocates and a local news publication.

The supporters of Mr. Martin and term limits – the central characters match almost completely – assert that they must resort to such means to balance the vast sums of money arrayed against them, as Mr. Duran has raised more than $90,000 for himself and business interests with dealings in the city, Micky’s ($10,000) Regency Billboard ($26,000) and others have donated in excess of $50,000 to beat back the challenge posed by Mr. Martin.

The Friends of Steve Martin campaign fund has raised roughly $25,000, roughly the same amount the candidate has been able to raise in the last four failed tries at the seat he lost in 2003. The candidate’s adherents charge the Duran campaign of colluding with the independent expenditure campaigns, with Allegra Allison asserting in an op-ed on the challengers’ mouthpiece, that Mr. Duran, “Has also encouraged his developer backers to set up an “independent expenditure” campaign.”

One John Duran mailer accuses Mr. Martin of campaign violations unfairly. As Mr. Martin put it in an E mail to WeHo News, Just thought you might be interested in Duran's latest accusation against me: "Election Fraud: Steve mailed out absentee ballot applications addressed to his own home, contrary to the advice of the City Clerk, causing officials to warn members of the public during a City Council meeting.”

That assertion by the Duran campaign turned out to be a stretch. Corey Schafer told WeHo News that by law candidates collecting absentee ballots have to use a form that he provides and one of the things on the form says you have the right to return it to the elections official. He did reprint the form with all of the correct information on it, but what he did do was he added his home’s return address,” said the City Clerk, “which he has the right to do according to the city attorney. I just prefer that he have them mailed directly back to me.”

The FPPC violations of which Mr. Martin was found guilty and which forced him to give $28,000 to charity is another attack being made by the incumbent and the IEs repeatedly. While Mr. Martin admits committing the violations, he says he did so out of ignorance. His reply to the charges is to attack – he sad to WeHo News, “I just want to ask you; are you doing anything on John Duran soliciting independent expenditures in the race? You read your rival very f---ing day, and you tell me you’re not aware of what John Duran is doing with independent expenditures? That’s bull---t.”

Ruth Williams, in an op-ed this week, called Mr. Martin the candidate that changes his spots.

In a video he attempts to put the controversy behind him by not only attacking Mr. Duran for the IEs but also going after Jeff Prang for a 1999 incident in which he was involved that led to the city paying a $30,000 settlement and his going into rehab.

Other negative mail going out against Mr. Martin contends that, despite his claims to the contrary, he was not an integral part of the cityhood movement. Yet as both Larry Gross (Executive Director of the Coalition for Economic Survival [CES]) and city co-founder Ruth Williams recall things, “Mr. Martin aligned himself with opponents of West Hollywood Cityhood and only became a supporter when it was inevitable the city would be a reality. Having been denied membership in the West Hollywood Incorporation Committee, the official Cityhood organization, he helped develop an opposition group whose positions were more favorable to the business community and landlords, and advocated for a much weaker and ineffective rent control law.”

In response, Mr. Martin and his allies assert that, as Ms. Allison put it in her op-ed, those making the charges “can’t point to a single vote that Steve took as a Rent Stabilization Commissioner or as a City Council member that was against rent control… Steve is clearly very pro tenant. He was a rent stabilization commissioner for six years. As a council member, Steve enacted the first protections for tenants with pets and insured that tenants were not charged for their parking spaces.”

In 2009 Mr. Martin "created" a quote and used a non-profit's logo on his mailers that, according to the non-profit, "misled" voters into thinking the organization supported him.

Another piece of negative mail points out the fact that in 2009, Mr. Martin used CES’s logo and an unauthorized quote from Mr. Gross on a mailer to leave the impression that CES has endorsed his candidacy’s goals.

The quote, ostensibly from the LA Times, is actually a distillation and perversion of the actual article. Mr. Martin's mailer said that Mr. Gross told the Times, "Developers are laying the groundwork to accelerate gentrification that will directly result in the displacement of working people in West Hollywood."

That, however, is different from the actual text of the article, which follows:

"Gross said developers are hedging their bets until the economy begins to recover, because projects probably won't get built until construction loans are easier to obtain. But he added that actions now can have dire consequences later.

"'When no one is looking or thinks it's going on is when they are laying the groundwork to accelerate the gentrification of a community,' he said, 'and when the economic situation picks up, that will directly result in displacement of lower-income working people in that community."

"Gross said the City Council needs to act to stem the development that is threatening to overwhelm the city's east side, where Russian and other immigrants have found a home. Those residents, he said, 'give the diversity to that city that could all be threatened, could all be gone.'"

Mr. Martin has made a video to argue against the assertions made by the mailers. It can be seen below…