LOS ANGELES — It's been nine months since Mike Bonin, a progressive stalwart representing the Westside of Los Angeles, beat back a recall attempt and then, just one week later, declared he would not seek a third term on the City Council.
But while his name is missing from the ballot, Bonin and his legacy remain front and center in the campaign to represent Council District 11.
Erin Darling has Bonin's endorsement and has vowed to continue some of Bonin's policies, while his rival in next month's election, Traci Park, has hammered Darling as a "Bonin clone" who will continue policies that she contends have exacerbated homelessness and rising crime.
Independent expenditure campaigns have poured more than $1 million into mail, videos and flyers that depict Bonin and Darling as liberal extremists, more wedded to their leftist ideology than to the good of their district, which stretches from Pacific Palisades to Los Angeles International Airport.
A mailer funded by the Los Angeles Police Protective League — which represents rank-and-file LAPD officers — depicts Bonin and Darling as "Twins," (wearing identical suits, like the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito characters in the movie) and chastises the duo for "rampant homelessness with no solutions [and] violent crime with fewer neighborhood police patrols."
Meanwhile, the two lawyers fighting for Bonin's seat have mounted withering attacks against the other's legal careers. Darling and Bonin hammer Park for once representing the city of Anaheim when it was sued by a Black city employee who accused his supervisor of using the N-word. Park and her supporters lash back that Darling has tried to mute victims in his work as a defense attorney representing a pedophile, a rapist and other criminals. In a furious debate before Brentwood voters Thursday night, each candidate accused the other of lying and "smears."
"Everything on the Westside today is worse than it was when Mike Bonin took office," said Park, 46, who entered the race last year, when Bonin still appeared ready to run for a third term. "If Erin Darling were to win this election, he would continue the same failed policies and approaches."
Darling counters that Park wants to talk about Bonin because she has no new solutions for homelessness and other problems facing the district.
He said a more meaningful endorsement in his showdown with Park is her backing from Nury Martinez and Gil Cedillo, two City Council members who were recorded in a raw and at times racist discussion of L.A. power politics. He called Park and the three tarnished council members "birds of a feather," saying that they, not Bonin, represented the troublesome status quo at L.A. City Hall.
Martinez's racist comments about Bonin and his young son, who is Black, led to a tearful speech by Bonin on the council floor. Martinez subsequently resigned; Cedillo has shown no intention of leaving until his term expires in December.
Both Park and Darling have denounced the comments. Park renounced the council members' endorsements and removed them from the list of supporters on her website. But that hasn't stopped Darling from saying Park would be part of the old guard at City Hall that was laid bare by the recording. Park retorts that Darling also "lobbied hard" for the City Council president's endorsement, a claim Darling called a "lie," saying he only met with Martinez, but did not seek her backing.
Darling said that he met Bonin only after diving into the race in January, but that he does not shrink from the council member's support.
"I'm proud to have Mike Bonin's endorsement," Darling said. "I think history will show he's an honorable person. But he's not in this race. So let's compare me and Traci Park."
The sharply diverging views of Bonin mirror those on the race as a whole. Park and her campaign consultant, Rick Taylor, contend that Bonin is viewed as a pariah by a large majority of voters on the Westside. (There has been no independent polling in the district, so a precise reading on Bonin's standing with voters remains unknown.)
Bonin's backers argue that he has a substantial base of support on the Westside, where he worked before his 2013 election as a top aide to Councilman Bill Rosendahl. Bonin noted that the candidates he supported in June, including Darling, did well.
The Bonin camp also points to the failure of the recall movement, which fell about 1,350 signatures short of forcing an election, as an indication that his opponents are not as strong as they contend.
Still, the venom for Bonin in some quarters of the Westside seems unmistakable. Opponents call new homeless encampments "Boninvilles" and accuse the 55-year-old council member of not listening to their complaints about the noise, trash, increased crime and fires they link to the unhoused.
Among the positions that have provoked the most furor: Bonin's vote against an anti-camping ordinance, which allows council members to designate certain areas, such as around parks and libraries, as no-camping zones.
Bonin has argued that it is inhumane and ineffective to block substantial areas to camping without the city first making more progress to find permanent homes for people living on the street. He also supported the city's move in 2020 to decrease funding for the LAPD.
The police and homelessness stances put Bonin within the left wing of the all-Democratic City Council, a bloc that could grow if Darling and other progressives win in November.
Darling quickly stood out during the primary as the only candidate who sided with Bonin in opposing the anti-camping law. Park supported the law and the recall of Bonin. She talked tough about cracking down on crime, winning strong support from police and firefighters, who have bankrolled a series of fierce anti-Darling videos.
"Erin Darling is the genuine progressive running for Council on the Westside," Bonin tweeted. "He's smart, honest, principled & forward thinking. He has substantive plans to end homelessness, increase public safety, fight climate change & increase mobility."
In May, Darling embraced the backing from a "brave voice," adding in a tweet that Bonin was "a champion for tenants, a staunch environmentalist & is resolute in tackling homelessness."
Since emerging as the top finisher in the June primary, nearly 6 percentage points ahead of Park, Darling has made no Twitter pronouncements about Bonin. The candidate's recent fliers mention endorsements from several state elected officials, but don't list Bonin.
Park and her campaign argue that Darling is running away from Bonin because he knows Bonin is unpopular. Darling said he remains proud of the Bonin connection, but has emphasized other endorsements because they are newer and less known to voters.
The Park campaign posted a video ad contrasting a clip of Darling saying he is "my own man and I'm going to run my own City Council office and he will not have a role" with a video snippet of Darling's co-campaign manager, Tim Phan, saying: "Mike Bonin has been supportive and we are in constant communication."
Darling said the irony of depicting him as deeply allied with the incumbent is that he had not met Bonin until this year. Previously, he said he had twice reached out to Bonin's council office, to express concern about a leaky pipe that was wasting water near his Venice home. "No one got back to me," Darling said.
If he wins the seat, he pledged that queries from the public would be returned within 48 hours. Asked about other areas where he differed with Bonin, Darling said he intended to move much more forcefully to create housing to move people indoors.
Park depicted Bonin and Darling as part of a broader cabal of leftists who "scream and yell profanities in City Council meetings," adding: "These people represent chaos and anarchy. That is who is endorsing Erin Darling."
Darling responds by pointing to the large donors to independent expenditure campaigns to help Park and attack him. Among the biggest contributors have been the police union and the operators of a Westside high-rise complex that has been pressed to install fire sprinklers after two life-threatening fires.
"She has her corporate landlords, the 'recall' crowd and the police union. So that is her base," Darling said. "And my base is grassroots orgs on the Westside."
