The 2025 Pacific Palisades fires have left devastation in their wake, turning one of Los Angeles’ wealthiest enclaves into a smoldering landscape of loss. But while most leaders would respond to such a crisis with solutions that prioritize rebuilding and resilience, Councilmember Traci Park has instead seized the opportunity to double down on her authoritarian, police-first agenda—one that prioritizes control over community, exclusion over aid, and fear over solutions.
A Manufactured Crisis, A Shock Doctrine Playbook Park’s response is a textbook case of the shock doctrine—exploiting a disaster to push extreme policies that otherwise would never fly. Instead of focusing on rebuilding infrastructure and funding fire prevention efforts, she has used the crisis to justify police checkpoints that will keep the public out of the Palisades while ensuring access for only a select few. Her justification? A vague and fear-mongering claim about crime, squatters, and looters—despite there being no evidence of widespread criminal activity following the fire. As she stated in a recent Instagram post, “Like many of you, I have serious concerns about a general public reopening of the Pacific Palisades… Many of us have concerns about potential crime, squatters, burglars, looters, just to name a few.” The real goal? To further privatize public space and tighten control over one of LA’s most exclusive neighborhoods, making it even harder for regular Angelenos to access. Park is taking a public disaster and using it as an opportunity to entrench extreme right-wing policies that favor police control while locking out the broader community. Police Over Everything—Even the Fire Department Park’s police obsession isn’t new. She is completely beholden to the LAPD, which funneled over $1 million into her City Council campaign. And it shows. Even before the fire, she relentlessly pushed to increase the police budget, despite the fact that the LAPD already consumes over half of the city’s entire budget. But at what cost? To fund her police-heavy agenda, Park has repeatedly backed cuts to essential city services--including the fire department. That decision had deadly consequences. Underfunded and understaffed, the LAFD was unable to respond as effectively as it could have, and the Palisades fire spiraled out of control. Park’s defunding of fire services helped create this disaster, and now she is using that same disaster to justify giving even more power and resources to the police. Endangering Immigrant Workers While Opposing Sanctuary Protections Park’s priorities become even more hypocritical when you consider who she is willing to allow into the burned-out Palisades: workers. As she said herself, “I have serious concerns about a general public reopening of the Pacific Palisades, from the toxic environment to landslides and debris flow to the need to keep our roadways clear for the multitude of utility and other workers already on the ground and the hundreds more who will arrive in the days ahead.” Translation? If you’re a regular resident or visitor, stay out. But if you’re a laborer needed for cleanup—then you can come in and do the dangerous, dirty work. But here’s the catch: many of those workers will be immigrants, including undocumented workers, and Park has actively opposed LA’s sanctuary city protections. By forcing these workers to go through police checkpoints, she is putting them in direct danger of harassment, detention, and deportation. It’s a cruel and reckless decision that further exposes her anti-immigrant stance—she wants their labor, but not their humanity. A Future for the Few, or a Future for All? Traci Park’s response to the Pacific Palisades fire is a damning indictment of her leadership. Instead of investing in fire prevention, she defunded critical services. Instead of supporting recovery efforts, she is using the crisis to impose police checkpoints and restricted access policies that further privatize public spaces. And instead of protecting the workers who will rebuild the area, she is forcing vulnerable immigrant laborers into the arms of the LAPD. The Pacific Palisades fire should have been a moment to rethink priorities—to invest in public safety that goes beyond policing, to ensure climate resilience, and to build a city that protects all of its residents, not just the wealthy few. Instead, Traci Park is using the devastation to push LA even further toward an authoritarian, privatized, police-controlled future. Angelenos deserve better. We need leaders who will fight for everyone—not just those who can afford to buy access, safety, and control over public space.
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