When Traci Park ran for Los Angeles City Council, she promised to help restore integrity to a city government shaken by years of scandal. But campaign records show that two of her maximum-level donors, Skyler and Jack Modrzejewski, are the children of one of Los Angeles’ most influential and controversial lobbyists, Chris Modrzejewski.
Chris Modrzejewski has spent more than two decades navigating the corridors of City Hall. He has represented some of Los Angeles’ most powerful developers and corporations, from AEG and its downtown entertainment complex to private real estate firms seeking approvals for multimillion-dollar projects. He is also linked to several of the city’s most notorious political scandals, including the federal corruption probe that brought down former Councilmember José Huizar.
The Huizar case revealed how deeply pay-to-play politics had taken root in City Hall. Prosecutors accused Huizar and his aides of accepting bribes from developers in exchange for project approvals, a scheme that implicated lobbyists, consultants, and labor groups. Among them was Creed LA, a labor coalition led by Chris’s brother, Jeff Modrzejewski, which had filed and then abruptly withdrawn an appeal that threatened to delay a downtown tower project after the developer allegedly paid Huizar a $500,000 bribe.
During the trial of developer Dae Yong “David” Lee, defense attorneys signaled that they planned to call both Jeff and Chris Modrzejewski to testify about what happened. But Chris refused, telling the court he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. His decision not to testify underscored how close his world of lobbying and influence sat to the center of the corruption case, even if he was never charged.
That moment also drew attention to a family network that has long blurred the boundaries between lobbying, campaign fundraising, and personal connections at City Hall. For years, Chris Modrzejewski and his wife Denise moved through Los Angeles politics as a tandem operation. He lobbied officials on behalf of clients, while she raised campaign funds for the same elected leaders. When the city banned lobbyists from contributing to local candidates in 2006, Chris stopped writing checks himself. Almost immediately, Denise began donating instead. Within months she had given thousands to city candidates, continuing the family’s political presence without violating the letter of the new law.
Over time, the giving expanded to include siblings and, most recently, their children. Skyler and Jack Modrzejewski each donated the maximum amount to Traci Park’s 2022 council campaign. Skyler, who works in development for Shangri-La Industries, was one of many donors with ties to companies seeking or holding city contracts.
Shangri-La is now at the center of a federal criminal investigation. In October 2025, prosecutors charged the company’s former chief financial officer, Cody Holmes, with mail fraud for falsifying bank records to secure $25.9 million in Homekey grant money meant for homeless housing in Thousand Oaks. Investigators say Holmes transferred millions of those public dollars into his own accounts and used them for luxury spending.
City records show that Chris Modrzejewski appeared in meetings at City Hall alongside Shangri-La’s CEO, Andy Meyers, years before the indictment. Meyers himself donated the maximum to Park’s 2022 campaign. Together, the Shangri-La executives and the Modrzejewski family form a small but revealing pattern in Park’s contributor list. Each donation stands alone, but collectively they suggest a network of insiders whose influence stretches across City Hall, the state’s housing programs, and the very projects now under federal scrutiny.
This kind of giving is common in Los Angeles politics, where wealthy families and lobbying networks often coordinate to multiply their political impact. Campaign finance limits cap individual donations, but they do not restrict family members from contributing separately. The result is that one household can deliver several maximum contributions to the same candidate. For lobbyists like Chris Modrzejewski, whose professional access depends on maintaining relationships with elected officials, this strategy allows influence to continue under a different set of names.
The Modrzejewski family’s reach extends well beyond Park. Public records show they have contributed to nearly every major local official over the past two decades, including mayors, councilmembers, supervisors, and even the county sheriff. Many of those same officials later became entangled in ethics violations or criminal cases.
Traci Park has not addressed the donations from the Modrzejewski family or from Shangri-La’s executives. Her campaign, like many others in Los Angeles, benefited from clusters of family donations that, while technically legal, create the perception of pay-to-play politics.
At a time when the city is still reeling from corruption trials and a crisis of public trust, the overlap between Park’s donors, a federally indicted developer, and a lobbyist who once pleaded the Fifth in a corruption case is raising eyebrows among ethics watchdogs and longtime City Hall observers.
