This petition calls for the Los Angeles City Council and the City of Los Angeles to take appropriate action for the purpose of permanent removal of Donald Trump’s illegally-installed name from the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Blvd. 

Seventeen years ago, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, prior to the approval of the Los Angeles City Council, the Board of Public Works, or the Cultural Affairs Commission (as required under L.A.M.C. Sections 28.04(b) and (d); L.A.M.C. Section 62.105(a); CF78-3949; and Sec. 22.109 of Los Angeles Administrative Code) circumvented City of L.A. law and official policy, and awarded then Miss Universe Pageant “producer,” Donald Trump, a star on the coveted Hollywood Walk of Fame. He may have, but likely someone else, paid around $20,000 for the self-imposed fees attached to the star at the time. 

Since then, but not excluding his prior offenses, twice-impeached insurrectionist Donald J. Trump has fostered and promoted innumerable racist, homophobic, xenophobic, sexist, antisemitic, and autocratic sentiments and actions too plentiful to list here in totality. 

He attempted a coup against the United States in 2021, which ultimately led to the deaths of five Americans and wounded over 140 law enforcement officers. The Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. military defined the reality of January 6, 2021 as "violence, sedition, and insurrection." Nine federal judges have accounted for Trump’s central role in the insurrection. 

The following accounts for a brief representation of his personal, and prior administration's history:

• Donald Trump’s organization defrauded a cancer charity (as part of the selection process prerequisites for a Walk of Fame star the committee specifies “a history of charitable contributions”): https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/nyregion/trump-charities-new-york.amp.html
• The Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy change on migrant detention, separated hundreds of children from their parents: https://www.splcenter.org/news/2019/09/24/family-separation-under-trump-administration-timeline
• Trump’s administration fought against Title VII protections for the LGBTQ community, their right to adoption, rolled back healthcare protections for transgender Americans, and ordered transgender servicemembers ousted from serving our nation in the military: https://www.hrc.org/resources/trump-pence-administration-timeline
• Donald Trump pardoned war criminals: https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/trumps-war-pardons-are-sabotaging-the-military-justice-system/
• Donald Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims to the American people while in office, including lying about the severity of COVID-19, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans: https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/SSCCInterimReportDec2021V1.pdf
• Donald Trump called for the death of his political opponents on the basis of conspiracy theory. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/14/us-congressman-jim-jordan-echoes-trump-clinton-aides-executed
• Donald Trump proposed shooting George Floyd protesters following historical demonstrations against police brutality. 
• Donald Trump praised Putin's illegal war against Ukraine, a sovereign nation, as "genius" and "savvy," three years after he was impeached for abuse of presidential power in attempts to extort President Zelensky: https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/03/politics/trump-putin-russia-ukraine-graham/index.html  
• Donald Trump's chronicled adoration of dictatorial regimes spans from quoting Mussolini during his first presidential campaign, to congratulating Kim Jong-un in June, 2023.
• Donald Trump has been credibly accused of committing dozens of criminal offenses while in office, and was under investigation for likely violations of the Espionage Act, after nuclear secrets of a foreign country were seized at his Mar a Lago home.
• The Trump Organization was found guilty on all counts of criminal tax fraud on Dec 7, 2022. 
• On December 19, 2022, the January 6th Committee officially referred criminal charges for Donald J. Trump, to the U.S. Department of Justice, including incitement of insurrection—18 U.S. Code § 2383. 
• Donald Trump called for the termination of the U.S. Constitution.
• On March 6, 2023, days after a song recording of Donald Trump and January 6 prisoners was released, Trump demanded that members of the January 6th Committee be arrested, and for the prisoners to be released. 
• Preceding a possible indictment, Donald Trump threatened Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, predicting and plainly encouraging "death and destruction," should he be arrested. 
• On March 25, 2023, Donald Trump hosted a rally in Waco Texas, where he played images of the Capitol insurrection alongside the recorded song featuring the “J6 Prison Choir,” while asking his supporters to place their hands over their hearts. 
• A jury found Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse. 
• CNN hosted a town hall with Donald Trump on May 10, 2023 where he gaslit the nation, regurgitating an autocratic rerun of the same lies that led to the 2021 insurrection. 
• Donald Trump called in to an event at Trump National Doral on May 12, 2023, which hosted a menagerie of Q Anon conspiracy theorists and several guests with a history of expressing anti-semitic remarks. During the call, Trump promised to reappoint Michael Flynn if re-elected to the presidency. Michael Flynn was pardoned by Donald Trump in 2020 for, in part, "any and all possible offenses" related to the Mueller investigation. Michael Flynn later called for a military coup against the United States.
• The U.S. Department of Justice indicted Donald J. Trump on 37 counts, with 31 counts under the Espionage Act. You can read the full indictment here.
• On August 1, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Donald J. Trump with four criminal counts in his conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. 
• After two years of investigation, on August 14, 2023, grand jurors from Atlanta, GA. charged Donald Trump with 13 criminal counts related to coordinated attempts in overturning the lawful results of Georgia's election, including violations of Georgia's RICO Statute.
• On September 6, 2023, a lawsuit was filed invoking Sec. 3 of the 14th Amendment; asserting that Donald Trump is barred from holding future office and must be removed from Colorado's primary ballot. 
• On September 22, 2023 Donald Trump threatened General Mark Milley, his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with death.
• On Nov. 5, 2023, Denver District Court Judge Wallace ruled that Donald Trump engaged in incitement of insurrection against the United States. 
• Donald Trump said on multiple occasions that he would serve as a dictator if elected to a second term. 
• Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to pardon January 6th criminals if he assumes power in 2024. 
• In February of 2024, Donald Trump said that if elected, he'd "encourage" Vladimir Putin to do "whatever the hell he wants" to NATO countries if they don't meet Trump's financial expectations. 
• On March 29, 2024, Donald Trump posted violent images of President Joe Biden kidnapped. He then went on to post images of Judge Merchan's daughter, who is not involved with the case Trump is listed as a defendant in. 
• On May 30, 2024, a jury of Donald Trump's peers convicted him of 34 felony charges, the first felony conviction for any former U.S. president. 

It should be noted that this isn't the first time Angelenos petitioned the City of Los Angeles for the star's removal. The City of West Hollywood passed a unanimous resolution in 2018 asking the Los Angeles City Council and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to do just that; but then Mayor Garcetti and the Council refused to take it on. Now seven years later, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez serves as the elected representative for the district that includes the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and it's his turn to make a decision. Some of his colleagues have already publicly declared they would vote to remove Trump's name if a motion was introduced by Councilmember Soto-Martinez, but not all city officials, including Mayor Karen Bass, have provided an official statement on the issue. 

We contest that there is zero public benefit in honoring Donald Trump's name on a city-owned sidewalk. The City of Los Angeles rightfully does not choose to dignify autocrats from abroad with commemorative distinctions; we surely wouldn't stand for the memorialization of Putin or Lukashenko or Gadaffi or Mussolini on our city's streets; so why would it be the position of any city in California to do so for a wannabe autocrat at home? The L.A. City Council adopted an unprecedented resolution on January 12, 2021, calling for the removal of then President Trump via the 25th Amendment, yet when the same Council is able to act under its own jurisdiction now, to deliver basic symbolic justice on its own block, it has so far resigned itself from the responsibility.

Hiding behind cries of “historical immunity” (there is none) rather than standing up for what Los Angeles fundamentally represents, is unacceptable. We profess that a seventeen-year-old, illegal plaque endorsing the most hateful and divisive man in America (if not the world), is not protecting history, but promoting ever-present fascism. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce's and former Councilmember O'Farrell's claims that a star "cannot be removed" are proven lies. Government ultimately has the final word in selecting the public views it wishes to express on public property, and nothing in the Walk of Fame's local historic-cultural monument parameters or its listing on the CA. register, prevents L.A.'s elected officials from exercising their authority over thirty-six inches of it. 

But don’t take my word for it. Not only did the Cultural Heritage Commission of Los Angeles move to decertify the primary historic designation of the pink terrazzo stars years ago, but removing one star's name for the placement of another, or a blank star, does nothing to change the significance of the overall monument. If that was the case, every additional star installed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame would receive challenges under a local ordinance barring "substantial alteration" to historical cultural monuments prior to additional review and permitting. They do not; and L.A. City Planning has directly responded to this issue by saying "Changing lettering on one or a handful of over 2,700 would not constitute a substantial alteration to the monument." 

A supervisor from CA.'s Office of Historic Preservation, when asked about the potential removal of Donald Trump’s name from the Walk of Fame, said it would be insignificant to any claim of historical designation, if any existed for the singular star, and that “Local government holds all land use authority over property under its jurisdiction, despite historical designation.” The Hollywood Walk of Fame is not a state landmark, it is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is not a national landmark. 

Seeing as the bipartisan January 6th Committee has concluded its role, let’s assume our civic responsibility here in Los Angeles, by taking simple legislative action to remove the name honoring the man who made that committee necessary in the first place.

We, the citizens and residents of Los Angeles and the United States, call for the illegal plaque's immediate departure. 

Some who publicly support the removal of the star: L.A. Councilmember Nithya Raman, L.A. Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, L.A. Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Councilmember Curren Price, former Councilmember Kevin De Leon, former L.A. Councilmember Mike Bonin, former L.A. Councilmember and City Attorney Mike Feuer, Mayor Sepi Shyne of West Hollywood, Congresswoman Laura Friedman, CA. Senator Anthony Portantino, Silverlake Neighborhood Councilmember Maebe A. Girl., Joshua Bocanegra, Stonewall Dems President Emeritus Alex Mohajer, and former West Hollywood Mayor and Councilmember John D'Amico.