AUTHOR’S NOTE: I don’t work for Traci Park. I voted for her in 2021. I’ll vote for her again. This is about living inVenice and Los Angeles. She’s our current protagonist.
I lived through Russell, Galanter, Miscikowski, Rosendahl (miss you, Bill), Bonin I, Bonin 2. Is anyone better suited for 2025 CD11 than Park?
No.
Venice was pretty fucking dark by the end of Bonin 2. Smart, ambitious Traci Park was festering in it too. So when she announced as an angry moderate outsider, Bonin’s desperate Venitian hostages flocked to the first voice not named Ryavec ranting on Fox News.
Turns out she’s the shit. Fox News worthy even: https://www.foxla.com/news/cleanup-begins-at-massive-homeless-rv-encampment-in-playa-del-rey
How do you oppose that?
“How dare you criminalize people using the last ecological treasure in Los Angeles as their drug-infested wildlife-slaughtering shithole? HOUSING FIRST!”
Yeah. That was CD11 before Traci.
This is October, 2, 2025 on the roof of the Erwin (2:58):
It’s STILL life in several city council districts run by Bonin’s Democratic Socialists of America colleagues. Tim Campbell’s CityWatch Audit! column breaks it down cleanly:
(https://www.citywatchla.com/voices/31541-losq-angeles-fractured-city-fractured-city-council)
The city’s anti-camping ordinance is generally enforced in Park’s district, but it is actively opposed by (District 4 City Councilwoman Nithya)Raman.
[It] also explains why shelters in DSA-aligned member districts are usually surrounded by large tent encampments.
The DSA members’ close relationship with homelessness advocacy groups also explains why shelters like the one in Griffith Park (Raman’s district) are so poorly managed; she has done virtually nothing to hold operators accountable for their operations.
It also explains why millions of dollars have been spent on making physical improvements to MacArthur Park (Eunisses Hernandez’s CD1) while almost nothing has been done to address long-term problems like drug dealing and sex trafficking, which Hernandez views as abstract consequences of economic inequality instead of crimes that affect real people.
That’s Los Angeles. When you’re one of the 15 overlords ruling your politically-carved fiefdoms, you have a lot of juice. (Cool interactive map here: https://geohub.lacity.org/datasets/lahub::la-city-council-districts-adopted-2021/explore?location=34.062916%2C-118.426191%2C12.42)
How your council representative uses their juice inside their district is 100% their call. Consequently, no one is more politically powerful in CD 11 than Traci Park.
That works for me.
Traci’s the shit.