Erin Darling to Run For District 11 City Council

By MAGNOLIA LAFLEUR | Reporter

Criminal defense and civil rights attorney Erin Darling entered the race for Los Angeles City Council District 11 on Friday, February 4.

Although a Venice native, Darling said he grew up playing sports in Pacific Palisades.

“I had friends who lived in the Palisades and spent a lot of time here as a teenager, and Will Rogers Park is one of my favorite places to go with my son,” he said to the Palisadian-Post. “And I’ve always appreciated the natural beauty and amazing hikes and strong sense of community here.”

Running a “grassroots” campaign, Darling said he has been meeting community members door-to-door and at farmers markets, stressing the importance of connecting with the community to know what their most pressing needs are.

“We live in the wealthiest district in the city and have tremendously talented people here, so we should be able to solve our problems and be a model for the rest of the city,” Darling told the Post. “That means harnessing the power of local government to address present-day quality of life concerns and the threat posed by climate change. We can house the unhoused, maintain public parks for all to enjoy, protect open spaces and expand fire-prevention measures.”

Joining the race late, Darling said he felt the need to jump in after being disappointed by the field of options, and that West LA is at a turning point in a battle “for the soul of the West.”

“I was inspired to run for city council when it became clear that my Westside values weren’t being represented by any of the existing candidates,” Darling said. “Are we just going to tap into a discourse of negativity or are we going to come up with solutions to our problems? We have a lot of talent and resources here, a bunch of individuals and community groups coalesced around me as a candidate and gave me the confidence to come forward. It’s only been five to six weeks and it’s been really exciting.

“After two years of the pandemic and everyone being so isolated, this has been a really great way to connect with people in the community, and that’s given me a lot of hope.”

Darling, who served on the Venice Neighborhood Council from 2014 to 2017, is stepping into the ring with a desire to serve the community—starting with homelessness, which he said can be resolved without “criminalization.”

“The homelessness crisis is a housing crisis. The pandemic has ripped apart social safety-nets, so if someone loses their housing, they’re on the streets and their life oftentimes unravels,” he said. “There has been an increase of evictions and as rent increases and wages are stagnant, there’s a housing crunch and it means more people on the streets.”

Having worked with low-income tenants fighting evictions, Darling said he has seen first-hand the causes that affect homelessness. Darling suggests a “rapid mental health team,” as modeled in Denver, as a solution.

“We need to have trained clinicians with a trauma-informed approach to deal with someone in crisis,” Darling said. “Because right now if you call 911, it means a police officer comes and they don’t want to be doing this, they are not trained in this. It makes sense to have someone with a master’s degree in social work dealing with someone in crisis versus someone with academy training and a gun.”

Another topic of interest to Darling is fire safety in the Palisades. He said fire prevention begins with “biodiversity,” not overbuilding or building in areas that are high-risk for fires.

“I’m also running on environmental issues and think it’s important that CD 11 has been very blessed with the Santa Monica mountains, the coastline … and we need to take care of this, we need to be stewards,” he said.

Aiming to uplift the community through his ideas and plans, Darling shared his hope to restore and revitalize a community that he has been a part of his whole life.

“It’s about neighbors talking to neighbors,” Darling said. “I think we have enough talent and resources here to solve our problems.”

To learn more about Darling and his campaign, visit erindarling11.com.