Councilmembers clash over elective procedure ordinance
The City Council criticized Councilmember John Mirisch Monday for his “inappropriate” comments on the resumption of elective procedures in Beverly Hills, despite being outvoted on the issue last week.
The City Council voted 4-1 to allow elective procedures in Beverly Hills to resume last Tuesday, in response to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement that allowed the same. Mirisch was the sole dissenting vote.
Elective procedures that can resume include angioplasties, tumor removals, heart valve replacements and more. Cosmetic surgeries are not included as elective procedures, according to Mayor Les Friedman.
Throughout last Tuesday’s meeting, Mirisch argued allowing elective procedures to resume would include cosmetic surgeries such as “boob and butt jobs.” He said allowing those procedures would be inappropriate and unsafe amid a pandemic.
Mirisch also published a column April 29 on his personal blog that was titled “Back to Botox Day in BH.”
“The decision to have permitted elective purely cosmetic surgery in the middle of a pandemic which is worsening in LA County and in which our infection rate is among the ‘worst of the worst’ was both bad policy and irresponsible of the Council,” Mirisch wrote.
Friedman said Mirisch’s behavior was inappropriate and should not have occurred. He claimed Mirisch had contacted news outlets after last Tuesday’s meeting to spread inaccurate information to the public.
“The concern I have is that one of us proactively contacted news outlets with erroneous narratives that Beverly Hills is now open for aesthetic breast augmentation and implants to other parts of the body,” Friedman said. “He used inflammatory and crass descriptions of those body parts in order to entice the media to run the story.”
Friedman said he spent the majority of last week answering calls from the media asking if it was true cosmetic surgeries were resuming in the city.
Councilmember Julian Gold said he had never seen a performance from someone in the minority vote that came close to what the council saw last week.
“You have the right to say what you want to say, but you don’t have a right to intentionally misrepresent this council publicly and in the media,” Gold said.
Gold said councilmembers repeatedly said they were not open to allowing cosmetic surgeries to resume during last Tuesday’s meeting. He said Mirisch’s misrepresentations were destructive to the image of the city and the council.
“I would be remiss if I did not tell you [Mirisch] how many residents called me and were angry at your misogynistic representation of cosmetic surgery,” Gold said. “How [hurt] and [offended] they were by your words and they felt your attitude had no place in Beverly Hills – shades of Harvey Weinstein.”
Councilmember Lili Bosse shared Friedman and Gold’s sentiments. She said she felt it was disgraceful Mirisch characterized cosmetic surgeries as “boob jobs” and “butt lifts.”
“As the only woman on the City Council, my phone was blowing up with texts saying ‘How can you allow for a councilmember to be talking about boob jobs and butt lifts?,’” Bosse said. “So I said that then and I say that now – We all said very clearly that what we voted for was to allow for procedures that were put off.”
Mirisch disputed the comments made in Monday’s meeting. He said the resumption of necessary surgeries like angioplasties could have been allowed under the original March 16 ordinance, which gave discretion to doctors.
“There was absolutely no reasonable or rational reasons to allow all elective procedures without any kind of distinction to move forward and that was my concern,” Mirisch said. “In fact, that’s why I used language that some people may consider to be salty or whatever – because it is outrageous.”
Mirisch said he would have voted in favor of the ordinance's update if it had clarified what kind of surgeries weren't permitted. He also claimed he did not reach out to media outlets, but rather they had reached out to him.
