Recovery from the Palisades Fire and homelessness are major issues in the June 2 primary race for District 11, which includes Venice, the Pacific Palisades and Westchester.
Robert Greene
is an independent journalist in Los Angeles. He is a 2026-27 John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation fellow.
The incumbent faces a primary challenge from his upstairs neighbor, as well as two others, in District 13, which includes Echo Park, Atwater Village and much of Hollywood.
Four candidates are trying to unseat the incumbent in L.A. City Council District 1, which includes the neighborhoods of Highland Park and Westlake, among others.
Los Angeles' 11th City Council District covers the area west of the 405 Freeway to the coast, surrounding the city of Santa Monica and unincorporated Marina del Rey and extending north into the Santa Monica Mountains.
The deadly 2025 Palisades Fire and its destruction of homes, schools and businesses in Pacific Palisades has become a defining fact of life in the district, along with tensions in Westchester over expansion of Los Angeles International Airport and in Venice and elsewhere over homeless encampments and the need for more housing.
The district also includes the communities of Brentwood, Mar Vista, Palms, Playa Vista, Sawtelle and West Los Angeles.
Voters will choose who will be their chief steward of city services in each of eight odd-numbered council districts (look up your district here) for the next four years and will determine the ideological makeup and effectiveness of the 15-member City Council.
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What’s at stake in the council races
Challenges include federal immigration enforcement, homelessness, the city’s readiness for the 2027 Super Bowl and the 2028 Summer Olympics and continuing city budget shortfalls.
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What does a City Council member do?
Council members have three distinct roles:
Each member curates their district by identifying local problems and opportunities and working with more than 40 city departments to steer needed services to residents and businesses. They may work to bring in non-city resources in the form of county, state, federal or philanthropic grants. They serve as intermediaries between their constituents and City Hall. Members play a vital role in shaping development in their districts.
As part of the full-time, 15-member council, they set citywide policy, adopt ordinances, commission studies and provide a counterweight and oversight to the mayor and city departments and bureaus. They adopt an annual city budget ($14 billion in 2025-26) based on a proposal provided by the mayor, divvying up money among the Los Angeles Police Department, homeless services, libraries, parks, sidewalk repair and tree-trimming, among other services. They approve or reject the mayor’s appointments to city commissions and to lead most city departments. They focus on areas such as policing and public safety by leading or serving as members of council committees.
Council members often work outside their formal roles through appointment to other governmental boards such as Metro and the Metropolitan Water District and by providing leadership in their communities through assisting charities, schools and civic institutions.
Monica Rodriguez is essentially assured another term representing City Council District 7 in the San Fernando Valley.
Fast facts about the City Council
Each City Council member represents about 260,000 Angelenos.
Annual salary is $244,727.
A term lasts four years. Members may serve a maximum of three terms.
City elections are non-partisan.
Voters may have a chance to enlarge the council from the current 15 members to 25 members under a charter reform proposal that supporters say will provide better representation. (As a point of comparison, several other major cities have far larger councils. New York has a 51-member City Council. Chicago has a 50-member council.) It’s up to the current council whether to put the question on the Nov. 3 ballot.
What it takes to win
Candidates who win more than 50% of the vote June 2 will be sworn into office in December. If no candidate wins more than 50%, a runoff between the top two vote-getters will be held Nov. 3. With only two candidates named on the ballot, this contest is likely to be decided in the primary.
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The candidates for City Council District 11
Traci Park, incumbent
Incumbent Traci Park was elected in 2022 after Mike Bonin declined to seek a second term. Park based her first campaign largely on undoing what she said was damage done to the district by Bonin and his progressive policies.
“We’ve had a drastic reduction in homelessness across the district,” she said. “It’s part of a comeback story that I’m trying to write for the entire Westside.”
Park pointed to conditions in Venice as her biggest first-term success, moving it from what was branded by some as the most dangerous beach in America to being a site for the 2028 Olympics and for a reboot of the iconic TV series Baywatch. (Though that production has not been without controversy.)
She said the lack of preparedness for the Palisades Fire was a problem decades in the making that threatens to be repeated across a city that has underinvested in fire safety and other infrastructure and services, including evacuation routes and public safety resources. Fixing the problem will be the focus of her second term, she said, and will require time and money.
Although she presents herself as a fiscal conservative, she said she supports a sales tax increase to update infrastructure.
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“Continued steady, determined leadership is going to be essential,” she said.
Attorney Faizah Malik grew up in Orange County. Going to law school in the midst of the foreclosure crisis focused her on community development and social justice. She practiced law in New York at several nonprofit organizations, including Single Stop USA, which links people to government benefits and resources. She then did legal research in the administration of New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio and became “hooked on city government.”
She came to Los Angeles in 2017 and worked for eight years at public interest law firm Public Counsel, leading a housing justice unit and defending eviction protections adopted during the pandemic. Her other projects included advocating for completion of the Venice Dell supportive and affordable housing project, which has been blocked amid opposition from council member Traci Park and other city officials.
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“This is why people lose faith in government,” Malik said of the failure to complete the project.
She argues that Park has removed visible signs of homelessness without providing permanent solutions to prevent people from moving back to the street in or outside the district. Malik advocates for changes to the zoning code to allow more housing
Malik is supported in her challenge to Park by the L.A. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Despite their starkly different politics, Malik and Park (who both live in Venice) each describe their campaigns as an effort to “bring back the Westside.”
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The incumbent faces a primary challenge from his upstairs neighbor, as well as two others, in District 13, which includes Echo Park, Atwater Village and much of Hollywood.
Four candidates are trying to unseat the incumbent in L.A. City Council District 1, which includes the neighborhoods of Highland Park and Westlake, among others.
