A Tale of Two Newsletters: Traci Park, Hugo Soto-Martinez, and the Politics of a Budget Crisis4/26/2025  This week, two Los Angeles City Councilmembers sent newsletters to their constituents — and the contrast lays bare exactly where their priorities lie.
On one hand, CD11 Councilmember Traci Park sent out a breezy update packed with ribbon cuttings, photo opportunities, and self-congratulations. On the other, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez of District 13 issued a clear, urgent message: the city faces a serious budget crisis, and residents must act to protect essential services. The stakes are high. Mayor Karen Bass’s proposed city budget slashes critical services across the board. It calls for the layoff of 1,647 city workers, including hundreds from the Departments of Transportation, Street Services, Planning, and Civil Rights. It guts the teams that inspect housing, maintain streets, and enforce civil rights protections — services Angelenos rely on every day. Yet anyone reading Traci Park’s newsletter would barely know a crisis exists. Park tosses off a vague line about "significant fiscal challenges" before pivoting to celebrate hotel developments, groundbreaking ceremonies, and fire station tours. She offers no real explanation of the looming layoffs. She skips over the departments losing a third of their workforce. She says nothing about how renters, working families, and vulnerable communities will bear the brunt of these cuts. Park never calls on constituents to get involved, never invites public comment, and never acknowledges that residents have a role to play. Instead, she papers over the crisis with photo ops and PR spin. Hugo Soto-Martinez takes the opposite approach. His newsletter names the crisis directly and explains why it matters. He breaks down the departments facing the deepest cuts and spells out the human consequences behind the numbers. He outlines the budget timeline and urges constituents to get involved immediately — offering not just information, but a plan of action. This difference in approach shows far more than just a difference in communication style. It shows a fundamental divide in political priorities — and in who each councilmember chooses to fight for. Traci Park has consistently aligned herself with wealthy homeowners, corporate developers, and the law enforcement lobby — the sectors that lose little when the city slashes public services but gain plenty when police budgets balloon and luxury developments surge ahead. Faced with a budget that guts critical services, Park chooses to distract and deflect rather than fight for the people she represents. Meanwhile, Hugo Soto-Martinez draws on his background as a labor organizer to treat his constituents like partners, not spectators. He understands that public services are not luxuries — they are the foundation of a livable, equitable city. He doesn’t just inform residents; he mobilizes them to defend what matters. In moments of crisis, the true character of leaders is revealed. Some use their platforms to protect their political allies and preserve the status quo. Others use theirs to fight for the people they were elected to serve. Traci Park has made her choice. So has Hugo Soto-Martinez. The question now is whether Angelenos are paying attention.
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 In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, which gives cities broad authority to criminalize homelessness, Traci Park is pushing legislation that would reestablish the core elements of LAMC 85.02—a law the Ninth Circuit rejected in 2014 for being vague, discriminatory, and unconstitutionally cruel.
Her new proposal would ban vehicle dwelling within 500 feet of so-called “sensitive areas” like schools, parks, and daycares. But in effect, it would do what 85.02 did for over 30 years: punish unhoused people simply for surviving in their cars. And this time, the legal landscape has shifted in her favor. The Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision eliminated Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment for those who have no choice but to sleep outside, unleashing a wave of new anti-homeless enforcement measures across the country. Park is seizing that moment—and aiming to make Los Angeles a test case. To understand how dangerous this effort is, it’s worth revisiting how we got here. In 1983, Los Angeles enacted LAMC 85.02, which prohibited the use of vehicles as “living quarters” on public streets or city-owned lots. The ordinance was vague by design—it never defined what constituted living quarters, how long someone could stay in a car before violating the law, or what behavior was prohibited. LAPD and City Councilmembers weaponized it aggressively, especially in neighborhoods like Venice, where complaints from affluent homeowners drove enforcement priorities. By 2010, the City had created a dedicated “Venice Homelessness Task Force,” assigning 21 LAPD officers to monitor unhoused residents living in their vehicles. People were targeted for having a blanket, a portable stove, or other everyday items in their car. On first contact, LAPD would issue a warning. On the second, a citation. On the third, arrest. Community members helped compile lists of “problem vehicles,” and the city never followed through on its promises to provide safe parking alternatives. That reign of criminalization ended in 2014 when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Desertrain v. City of Los Angeles that LAMC 85.02 was unconstitutional. The court found it to be unacceptably vague and prone to arbitrary enforcement, noting it had been used disproportionately against unhoused residents. The ruling marked a significant victory for civil rights and housing justice advocates. But City Hall wasn’t done. Around the same time, officials began leaning on another law: LAMC 80.69.4, passed in 2006. This ordinance allowed for the creation of “oversized vehicle” (OVO) zones, where parking large vehicles like RVs would be prohibited between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. Initially, these zones required a City Council vote and LADOT signage. In 2010, then-Councilmember Bill Rosendahl amended the law to allow councilmembers to bypass the full Council process by submitting a petition and having LADOT verify that certain criteria were met. While it didn’t explicitly ban vehicle dwelling, 80.69.4 became a workaround for reestablishing 85.02’s effect. The City began designating block-by-block zones where RVs and other oversized vehicles were prohibited overnight. In practice, it enabled selective enforcement and displacement of unhoused vehicle dwellers without drawing the same legal scrutiny—at least temporarily. While not explicitly targeting vehicle dwellers, 80.69.4 functioned similarly to 85.02, enabling selective enforcement without the same legal challenges. The Los Angeles City Controller’s office has highlighted the extensive use and impact of 80.69.4. Their analysis reveals:
These findings underscore the ordinance’s role in penalizing unhoused individuals without providing viable alternatives. Throughout the 2010s, this ordinance was used inconsistently and often ineffectively. Many proposals to expand enforcement—especially in Venice—were blocked by the California Coastal Commission, which ruled that they would unfairly limit public access to coastal areas. Lawsuits followed. Safe parking programs were discussed but rarely implemented. Meanwhile, enforcement continued, especially in wealthier neighborhoods with strong homeowner associations. The COVID-19 pandemic brought a pause. Starting in March 2020, Los Angeles suspended most parking enforcement and towing operations, including those targeting vehicles used as dwellings. It was a tacit acknowledgment that these policies were cruel and counterproductive in the midst of a public health emergency. But the reprieve didn’t last. By late 2021 and early 2022, enforcement resumed—first through towing vehicles deemed “abandoned,” and later by targeting “oversized” vehicles under 80.69.4 once again. When Traci Park took office in 2022, she made clear that she intended to bring back aggressive enforcement in CD11. Over the next two years, she introduced motion after motion to create new oversized vehicle restriction zones, often with no formal LADOT review and little public transparency. Her office encouraged constituents to collect petitions—ignoring the fact that petitions alone are insufficient unless paired with a LADOT investigation and compliance with other requirements. In August 2024, Park succeeded in passing a motion authorizing the towing of vehicle dwellings under 80.69.4, prompting a legal warning from the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA). And in September, she violated the Brown Act by trying to push discussion of that same towing measure during a Transportation Committee meeting without proper notice. The City Attorney had to intervene repeatedly. Now, with the Grants Pass ruling in hand, Park is attempting to eliminate even the pretense of due process. Her latest proposal effectively revives LAMC 85.02 by establishing blanket bans on vehicle dwelling near broad swaths of public space. It would allow for enforcement without the piecemeal process of creating 80.69.4 zones—no need for LADOT review, no petitions, no council debate over individual blocks. Just a blanket policy criminalizing unhoused people wherever they are most visible. In her April 11, 2025 newsletter, Park boasted: “I joined my colleagues in introducing a motion that would restore former LAMC 85.02, which the City Council allowed to expire in 2020.” There is no ambiguity here. Traci Park has made her choice: She is reviving the very ordinance the courts struck down, using the Grants Pass decision as political cover. And unless the public pushes back, the city may once again become a place where being too poor to afford rent is reason enough to be ticketed, towed, or jailed.  In a recent profile by The Los Angeles Times, Councilmember Traci Park reaffirmed her support for expanding the city’s fire department, stating, “More resources lead to better outcomes.” At first glance, this sounds like a reasonable position, especially in a city increasingly vulnerable to climate-fueled wildfires. But Park’s record tells a very different story.
In 2023, Councilmember Park voted to cut $35.7 million from the Los Angeles Fire Department’s budget. The decision came just months before a destructive wildfire swept through Topanga, within the very district she represents. Firefighters warned at the time that the budget cuts would directly impact emergency response times, staffing, and readiness across the city. Yet Park chose to support the reductions anyway. Her recent claim that more resources improve outcomes appears disconnected from her actual votes. The reality is that Traci Park has consistently prioritized the expansion of policing and surveillance over critical public safety services such as fire prevention, emergency response, and mental health care. This is not an isolated instance of budgetary trade-offs. It reflects a broader governing philosophy in which public safety is narrowly defined through the lens of law enforcement. Park has repeatedly voted in favor of expanding the Los Angeles Police Department’s reach, including supporting massive increases in overtime and backing a $15 million real-time surveillance network for the Westside. At the same time, she has supported policies that do nothing to expand access to housing, social services, or non-carceral responses to crisis. Her record on public safety is especially concerning when viewed in the context of how she responded to one of the most disturbing police killings in recent memory. Just one month after Park took office, Keenan Anderson, a Black teacher and father, was tased to death by LAPD officers less than a mile from her home in Venice. Anderson’s death occurred during the first week of January 2023 and generated national outrage. Park waited a full week to issue a statement, which deflected blame from the police and instead emphasized Anderson’s mental health. When Black organizers approached her at City Hall to demand accountability, she refused to engage and called the police on them. This silence is consistent with Park’s longstanding alignment with law enforcement. Her 2022 campaign for City Council was heavily bankrolled by the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which spent over $1.5 million on her behalf. She was endorsed by eight law enforcement organizations and has reliably advanced their agenda at City Hall. From her motion encouraging teachers and social workers to become police officers, to her vocal support for controversial military-grade equipment such as LAPD’s robotic surveillance dog, Park has demonstrated a commitment to expanding police power at nearly every turn. Her career prior to elected office is equally revealing. As an attorney, Park specialized in defending municipalities against civil rights claims, including cases of police misconduct and racial harassment. She worked for law firms known for union-busting and for defending clients such as Raytheon and Joe Arpaio’s sheriff’s department. Since she took office, her former firm has seen its contracts with the City of Los Angeles grow from $100,000 to over $1.3 million, much of it allocated for defending police officers in misconduct cases. This raises serious questions about conflicts of interest and her continued financial alignment with the institutions she once represented in court. When Park says “more resources lead to better outcomes,” we must ask: for whom? Her consistent pattern of defunding services that protect and support residents, while pouring public money into policing and surveillance, reveals who she believes deserves investment and protection. In a district increasingly threatened by wildfires, housing insecurity, and a growing need for non-police emergency response, Park’s choices have left residents more vulnerable. Her rhetoric about public safety does not match her record. If she truly believed in allocating resources for better outcomes, she would not have voted to cut fire department funding or expand the carceral system under the guise of safety. Councilmember Park’s actions show us clearly where her priorities lie. Angelenos in Council District 11 deserve a representative who invests in care, not punishment. True public safety will never come from surveillance cameras, robot dogs, or increased police patrols. It will come from housing, mental health care, well-funded emergency services, and strong community infrastructure. Unfortunately, those are not the outcomes Traci Park has chosen to fight for.  For over two years, Councilmember Traci Park has represented Los Angeles’ Council District 11—a district made up of renters, working families, unhoused neighbors, and a growing coalition demanding real solutions to the housing and homelessness crisis. But if you tuned into her latest virtual “town hall” for Venice on April 3, you wouldn’t know any of that.
Instead, you’d think CD11 is home exclusively to wealthy homeowners, beachfront property, and a singular obsession with police-led cleanups of unhoused encampments. Once again, Park used her carefully controlled Zoom event—shielded from real-time criticism or dissent—to push her agenda of criminalization, surveillance, and displacement. She delivered a tightly scripted, LAPD-heavy webinar that doubled down on her now-familiar agenda: criminalizing the unhoused, ignoring renters, and refusing to address the needs of working-class and immigrant communities in Council District 11. Her refusal to hold in-person events continues to be a hallmark of her tenure—an obvious strategy to avoid being challenged by constituents who might disagree with her. Throughout the meeting, Park repeatedly emphasized her office’s work to clear encampments, impound RVs, and expand enforcement zones under LA’s controversial anti-homeless ordinance, LAMC 41.18. She framed these actions as “progress” and described them with pride, citing dozens of vehicle impoundments and encampment “resolutions.” What she didn’t mention is that these sweeps displace people without offering meaningful alternatives—and that her own office’s closure of the Venice Bridge Home in December has left fewer shelter beds available in the district. That didn’t stop her from announcing plans for more cleanups, more surveillance, and more criminalization. Missing entirely from her remarks was any mention of proven, evidence-based solutions to homelessness, like Housing First programs that prioritize stable housing without preconditions. Instead, Park leaned into the same failed status quo: more LAPD, more fences, and more fearmongering. The entire first half of the town hall sounded like a briefing from a police precinct, not a conversation about how to build a more inclusive and equitable city. During the town hall, Park also made a deeply misleading attempt to rewrite history regarding the Venice Dell affordable housing project, obscuring her own role in derailing one of LA’s most urgently needed housing developments. She told constituents that the project had “run into challenges” and pivoted to promoting an alternative site on a smaller, less suitable lot. What she didn’t say is that she herself has worked to obstruct the project at every stage—and that the latest delays are the direct result of bad-faith maneuvers by her office and the City Attorney, not any failure by the developers or community process. The Venice Dell project was approved twice by the City Council, in 2021 and 2022, after extensive public outreach, environmental review, and design revisions. It was carefully planned by Venice Community Housing and Hollywood Community Housing Corp. to turn a city-owned parking lot near the beach into 120 units of supportive and affordable housing. The project also included a redesigned public parking garage and protections for a popular boat launch—addressing every concern that had been raised. And yet, in spring 2023, the newly elected City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto—a longtime critic of the project—issued a stunning and unprecedented order to city departments to stop working with the developers, citing ongoing litigation that had already been resolved. This slow-walking of a fully entitled project wasn’t about legal caution—it was about politics. Instead of defending an approved plan that had already survived two lawsuits, Park seized the opportunity to undermine it. She publicly declared the project “dead,” backed the Transportation Commission’s last-minute claim that the site was “unsuitable,” and introduced a motion to explore housing on a smaller, oddly shaped alternative lot—knowing full well that restarting the process would delay housing for years, if not kill it entirely. At the town hall, Park glossed over this entire timeline, failing to mention that a judge had already ruled the Transportation Commission had no jurisdiction to block the project. The very same city attorney who argued that in court is now claiming the opposite—all part of a manufactured bureaucratic detour designed to bury a project she’s politically opposed to. This isn’t about due process, site feasibility, or neighborhood compatibility. It’s about sabotage. And Park’s performance at the town hall was an attempt to disguise obstructionism as pragmatism. The Venice Dell project represents everything Los Angeles says it wants: permanent supportive housing in a well-resourced neighborhood, built on surplus public land, with community partners and Council-approved backing. It’s exactly the kind of project that should be fast-tracked—not thrown into limbo by a councilmember doing the bidding of anti-housing activists and wealthy homeowners. When it comes to renters, Park continues to be one of the most out-of-step members of the City Council. Her town hall barely acknowledged the nearly 60% of CD11 residents who rent. There was no discussion of rent stabilization, no update on eviction prevention resources, and no outreach to working-class tenants. The only comment even remotely related to housing policy came from a homeowner asking how to expedite an eviction—and Park’s office was more than happy to oblige. That alone says everything about where her priorities lie. While other councilmembers are holding “Know Your Rights” clinics and actively supporting immigrant families threatened by deportation, Park didn’t mention immigration once. In a moment when many LA families are living in fear of ICE raids, her silence was deafening. Her consistent refusal to stand up for LA’s sanctuary policies, or even acknowledge the concerns of immigrant communities, reveals a deeper truth: Park has chosen to align herself with the right wing of Los Angeles politics. Her rhetoric may be polished, but her values are clear—and they’re not with the people who need the most support. This town hall was yet another reminder that Park governs for the few, not the many. She listens to wealthy homeowners, not renters. She funds police overtime, not social services. She focuses on optics and enforcement, not justice or housing. She’s not just absent from the fight for a more humane Los Angeles—she’s standing in the way. CD11 residents deserve a councilmember who shows up—for real. Someone who doesn’t hide behind a Zoom screen. Someone who centers the voices of renters, immigrants, and working-class families. Someone who believes that housing and dignity should come before handcuffs and displacement. It’s time for new leadership in CD11.  Dakota Smith's puff piece portraying Councilmember Traci Park as a compassionate leader guiding Pacific Palisades through wildfire recovery is more than misleading—it’s an insult to the thousands of renters, working families, and unhoused people she has actively harmed while in office. If you read the article in isolation, you’d think Park was a tireless public servant. But here’s the truth: Traci Park isn’t just ignoring the housing crisis—she’s accelerating it.
From supporting mass evictions to undermining tenant protections and blocking affordable housing, Park doesn’t represent the majority of her constituents. She represents the donors who bought her seat at City Hall. Park’s district is majority renters, yet she’s the most anti-tenant voice on the L.A. City Council. And it’s not hard to see why. Her 2022 campaign was bankrolled by over $1.2 million from corporate landlords, including Douglas Emmett—the same real estate giant responsible for one of the largest mass evictions in L.A. history at Barrington Plaza. Park took $566,000 from them and then stood by as over 500 low-income renters were evicted under dubious legal claims. The Barrington Plaza tenants lost their homes because their billionaire landlord refused to install basic fire safety features like sprinklers, even after deadly fires. Instead of forcing them to comply with safety regulations without evicting anyone—as former Councilmember Mike Bonin had demanded—Park did nothing. Her only action? Asking for a report. That’s what half a million in campaign cash gets you. And this isn’t an isolated failure. From February to December 2023, there were over 5,300 evictions in Park’s district alone, according to the L.A. City Controller. That’s not just a statistic—that’s thousands of people being pushed further toward homelessness in a city already overwhelmed by housing insecurity. After the devastating wildfires in January, Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martínez and Eunisses Hernandez introduced a motion to temporarily protect tenants impacted by the disaster. It was modest—just a pause on no-fault evictions and non-payment evictions for those who could prove they lost income due to the fires. Park didn’t support it. Instead, she offered an amendment to redirect Measure ULA funds—voter-approved revenue meant to fund long-term housing, tenant protections, and services—to cover emergency rental aid. Her amendment failed because, legally, ULA funds are designated for building housing and protecting tenants—not for carving out favors for her wealthy homeowner base. Meanwhile, Park and others claimed there wasn’t “enough data” to support eviction protections. But Soto-Martínez’s office found evictions had surged to 2,400 just weeks after the fires—nearly double the typical monthly rate. Those are “real people,” as Councilmember Ysabel Jurado put it, being shoved out of their homes while Park pushed process over compassion. Traci Park doesn't just fail to help unhoused residents—she actively helps create homelessness. She campaigned by stoking fear about shelters in Venice. She helped kill transitional housing projects like the Ramada Inn conversion. She led the charge to delay or block 100% affordable housing projects in her own district. Her answer to homelessness has been police, sweeps, and propaganda—not housing. She says she supports "common-sense" solutions, but when presented with permanent supportive housing—the only approach proven to end chronic homelessness—she calls it too expensive. When asked to name a single supportive housing project she supports, she couldn't. Instead, her entire political brand was built around opposing shelters in her own backyard while criminalizing people for being homeless. The L.A. Times says Park is “empathetic.” Maybe—to her donors. But to the majority of her constituents—renters, working people, unhoused residents—she’s been indifferent at best and hostile at worst. Click here to email Dakota Smith, asking that she consider including the perspectives of those harmed by Traci Park's policies in the wake of the fires. From Venice to MAGA: One of Councilmember Traci Park’s Biggest Supporters Joins Trump Administration4/3/2025  When Traci Park ran for Los Angeles City Council in 2022, she framed herself as a pragmatic voice ready to bring “common sense” to Council District 11. But a closer look at her political alliances reveals something much more aligned with far-right ideology—and increasingly tied to figures who have now joined the Trump administration.
At the center of this story is Soledad Ursúa, a Venice Neighborhood Councilmember, conservative media figure, and one of Traci Park’s most vocal and visible allies. Ursúa isn’t just a right-wing activist. She’s a regular on Fox News, a contributor to City Journal, and now a senior policy advisor for Donald Trump’s HUD. Yes—Park’s longtime political ally is now serving in the Trump administration. This isn’t guilt by association. It’s a roadmap of mutual endorsement, shared ideology, and coordinated messaging that traces a direct line from Park’s platform in Los Angeles to MAGA politics at the federal level. Soledad Ursúa was an early and enthusiastic supporter of Traci Park’s campaign to unseat progressive Councilmember Mike Bonin. Park stepped into the race in the wake of a failed right-wing-led recall effort against Bonin—a campaign that Ursúa helped spearhead. She later celebrated Park’s entry into the race as a turning point for Venice, calling Park’s campaign “a better political track” and lauding her for “actually caring about the community” when “nobody else would.” This wasn’t just rhetoric—it was an endorsement of a shared worldview: criminalize homelessness, dismantle progressive city policy, and restore “order” through increased policing and sweeps. Throughout 2022 and beyond, Ursúa continued to use her large social media platform to amplify Park’s candidacy and later her policy positions, especially when they aligned with conservative talking points. When Park said it was time to “get serious about public safety” and called Los Angeles a “failed social experiment,” Ursúa echoed it word for word. Even Nathan Hochman, the GOP’s 2022 candidate for California Attorney General, reposted the quote in praise. These weren’t isolated moments—they were signals to a base that thrives on fear, criminalization, and exclusion. Councilmember Park hasn’t just accepted Ursúa’s support—she’s governed in ways that reinforce their alignment. Take the sanctuary city vote in late 2024, when the City Council overwhelmingly approved a resolution making Los Angeles a sanctuary city. Traci Park and one other councilmember skipped the vote. Afterward, Park claimed she would have voted no, calling the measure “symbolic resistance” that could threaten federal funding. Ursúa immediately picked up Park’s quote, broadcasting her stance to conservative followers as validation for their shared skepticism of immigrant protections. This pattern has repeated across issues—especially around homelessness. At a 2023 Venice Neighborhood Council meeting, Soledad Ursúa asked Park if the local Bridge Housing facility was “hosting illegal migrants.” Park didn’t dismiss the framing—instead, she called it “interesting” and engaged with it as a legitimate concern. Park didn’t challenge the inflammatory language. She gave it oxygen. And while Traci Park hasn’t publicly endorsed Ursúa, she has repeatedly praised the “activists” who helped oust Bonin and “restore balance” in Venice—activists like Ursúa, who now sits in a Trump administration housing post helping shape federal policy from the right. Ursúa isn’t an outlier. She’s part of a larger network of Westside figures who backed Park’s rise, many of whom have also pushed for anti-tenant, anti-homeless, and anti-immigrant policies. That network includes former recall leaders, hardline public safety activists, and even former VNC members like Helen Fallon, who not only supported Park’s campaign but also chaired local committees alongside Ursúa. This isn't coincidence—it's coalition. A coalition built on nostalgia for a Venice that excluded unhoused people, pushed out renters, and turned public spaces into battlegrounds. And it’s a coalition that Traci Park has empowered, embraced, and carried with her into office. With Soledad Ursúa’s appointment to HUD, the connection between Park’s local policies and national MAGA priorities is no longer abstract. It’s official. A Park-aligned activist is now helping shape federal housing decisions under Donald Trump. That means the ideology guiding key decisions in CD11—on housing, policing, public space—is being reinforced by a growing MAGA influence. And Traci Park’s close working relationship with Ursúa signals at best a strategic alliance, and at worst a shared agenda. Either way, voters deserve to know: Is this the future Councilmember Park envisions for Los Angeles? Because what started as a local race to replace a progressive councilmember has now become something much more dangerous: a gateway for MAGA ideology to gain ground in L.A. politics—disguised in the language of “common sense,” but backed by federal power. |