Westside LA Councilmember Traci Park sworn in as protesters try to disrupt her

A handful of protesters who oppose restrictions on where the homeless can set up encampments tried to disrupt the Saturday, Dec. 10 swearing-in ceremony of new Los Angeles City Councilmember Traci Park at Loyola Marymount University, but were removed by police and no arrests or altercations occurred.

“Even in the darkest days of the race we never let the distractors get us down, and we’re not gonna let them today,” Park told the audience in Loyola’s Roski Dining Room, which included former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and newly elected L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto.

Park defeated Erin Darling, a fellow attorney, 52% to 48% in the Nov. 8 race for the Los Angeles City Council’s 11th District seat, replacing longtime councilman Mike Bonin who did not seek re-election.

Video of Park’s swearing in on Saturday, posted on Twitter by freelance journalist Jon Peltz, showed intermittent interruptions as protesters stood and spoke. Each protester was escorted out by Los Angeles police officers and other staffers while Park paused momentarily.

It was unclear what the demonstrators were saying because each one was drowned out by supporters chanting Park’s name.

Responding to the protesters, Park mentioned criticism she faced during the campaign. Later in the ceremony, Park led the crowd in a round of applause for “our police officers.”

Park focused her campaign on Westside residents’ growing worries over homelessness, vowing to make sure the city’s anti-camping ordinance be enforced in the 11th District — a distinct departure from Bonin’s opposition to the ordinance. Park portrayed Darling as holding Bonin’s views, and voters in District 11 appeared to agree with Park on Election Day, Nov. 8.

Bonin and those backing his views ran into a powerful opponent in Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District, who in May urged the city council to ban the homeless from setting up camp near schools citywide. Carvalho warned the council, “I’ve seen elementary schools with conditions that none of us as parents would find acceptable for children. Individuals with mental illness, some of them absolutely unclothed, shouting profanities in the listening ear of children.”

Carvalho, who was homeless at age 18 in Miami and slept under a bridge, urged the council to understand the trauma and “long-term, short-term repercussions (and) impact on the psychological, cognitive development of children.” He told council members, “This is coming from someone who understands the experience, has lived the experience, I understand the plight, I understand the fragility of the human condition. That’s why I feel I have a voice on it.”

L.A.’s homeless encampment ordinance, 41.18, updated in August, bans people from sitting, sleeping and storing property in public right of ways including near fire hydrants, driveways, loading docks, bike paths, disabled persons access areas, and within 500 feet of schools and daycare centers.

The new protections created around schools and daycares set off fierce disagreement from City Hall activists who repeatedly disrupted council meetings when the broadening of 41.18 to include schools was being considered. Bonin voted against the ordinance and its expansion to schools, arguing that the law “criminalizes” homelessness.

More recently, Councilmember Kevin de León got into a physical altercation with a community activist at a Christmas tree lighting event in Lincoln Heights, and was confronted by protesters earlier when de Leon appeared in the City Council chamber. It was de Leon’s first appearance in the chamber in nearly two months, after he was identified as one of three council members who was secretly taped in a backroom meeting in 2021 in which now-departed City Council President Nury Martinez and de Leon made racist remarks.

Protesters at Parks’ swearing in told the Mar Vista Voice website that they see Park’s policies as “racist” and plan to “be loudly opposing her policies in all public forums throughout her tenure as a councilmember.”