Photo courtesy of Traci Park Campaign
By LILY TINOCO | Reporter
Venice resident Traci Park recently announced her candidacy for Los Angeles City Council District 11, which spans the Westside, including Pacific Palisades—kicking off her campaign Friday, July 2.
“Traci Park is running for CD 11 and to unseat incumbent Mike Bonin,” according to a press release. “She is kicking off a listening tour of Council District 11, which covers the neighborhoods of Brentwood, Del Rey, Ladera, Mar Vista, Pacific Palisades, Playa del Rey, Playa Vista, Venice, Westchester and other sections of West LA.”
Park shared that she grew up in Southern California, with her mother who served as a school union president for over 20 years and step-father who worked for a school district.
Upon graduating from Loyola Law School, Park has spent her career as an attorney handling public sector issues. She has experience in civil rights litigation and has worked with city officials to help craft policies.
“Our community is in a crisis, and it is a crisis of leadership,” she said in a statement. “Los Angeles is failing in its basic task to maintain a safe, livable city—let alone tackling tough problems like homelessness, our housing crisis, climate change and struggling small businesses.”
Park’s candidacy comes at the height of efforts to recall Councilmember Mike Bonin, who was first elected to represent CD 11 in 2013. Bonin was served with a notice of intent to recall on Tuesday, June 15.
“This latest attempt at a recall campaign is an extravagant waste of taxpayer money, a thinly disguised attempt to derail my efforts to provide real solutions to our homelessness crisis and the latest in a series of recall attempts to silence strong progressive voices,” Bonin previously wrote in a statement.
The launch of the recall effort, led by local residents, came on the heels of City Council voting 13-1 on Wednesday, May 26, to move forward with a feasibility study, proposed by Bonin, of temporarily housing people experiencing homelessness in single-occupancy tiny homes, safe camping or safe parking sites at locations across the Westside, including the county-operated Will Rogers State Beach parking lot in Pacific Palisades.
Since the motion was submitted, it has drawn opposition from residents and organizations in the area, including Pacific Palisades Community Council and Pacific Palisades Residents Association.
“The present city leadership has not just been ineffective in finding solutions to the problems we face, they have allowed things to continually worsen,” according to Park’s website. “If our community wants progress and change on these issues, if we want a city that delivers on the issues that matter, we have to have new leadership.
“[I] will collaborate with community leaders to create effective solutions for residents, businesses, and stakeholders in CD 11 … I intend to listen, lead and give the people of CD 11 the representation they deserve.”
Bonin will be running against Park in the June 2022 election for what would be his third and final term.
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