A leftist Los Angeles lawmaker posted a social media clip claiming she refuses ‘billionaire checks’ despite having accepted funding from multiple super wealthy donors.
Eunisses Hernandez is fighting to retain her seat on the LA City Council after being blamed for her inaction as the park in the heart of her district continues to turn into a disaster area.
She ended her year with a request for a small dollar donations, decrying how ‘corporate PACs and special interests are lining up to pour millions into this race’ because of her hyper-woke policies.
‘Your contribution goes straight to organizing: powering voter outreach, multilingual materials, neighborhood canvassing, digital tools, and the grassroots infrastructure it takes to beat corporate money. No backroom deals. No billionaire checks,’ she wrote.
However, as The Daily Mail reported in 2022, Hernandez – who rakes in $240,000 a year – has multiple rich donors funding her campaigns.
Patty Quillin, the philanthropic wife of billionaire Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, has written multiple checks supporting Hernandez, despite living in a completely different part of the state.
Similarly, billionaire hedge fund heiress Elizabeth Simons has also helped fund Hernandez.
Simons is the daughter of the billionaire investor and Democratic donor James Simons.
She and her husband Mark Heising now run the Heising-Simons Foundation.
Simons has also backed PACs supporting New York City’s socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to the tune of $250,000, The New York Post reported.
Quillin and Simons both live nearer San Francisco than they do LA. Quillin and Reed live in Santa Cruz, whereas Simons lives in the affluent Silicon Valley suburb Atherton.
Simons and her husband also live in Atherton, where homes cost upwards of $40million. They bought their home in 2007 for $18million.
They paid $85,000 for part of the campaign for Eunisses Hernandez to win the city council election in District One of Los Angeles City Council in 2022.
Since then, Quillin has written several checks to Hernandez, according to Open Secrets, with many going as high as six figures.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Councilmember Hernandez for comment.
Hernandez faces a difficult reelection campaign, as constituents and opponents blame her for iconic MacArthur Park becoming a safe space for drug trade in broad daylight.
Maria ‘Lou’ Calanche, who is running to take her seat on the council, gave Hernandez a presence by standing up a cardboard cutout of her as she ripped into the councilmember.
Calanche reminded the locals that this is nothing new for 35-year-old Hernandez as the area slides further into chaos.
‘This district is too important for a no-show. She’s skipped three in-person debates. Meanwhile, encampments have swallowed our streets. Parents can’t even take their kids to the park – there’s human waste on the swings.’
‘We need action. Not a cardboard council member who refuses to show up,’ she added.
Hernandez protested her predecessor, Gil Cedillo, in the council seat’s efforts to clean up the park and remove the homeless encampments, even after obtaining over a million dollars to do so.
She has previously referred to the park as ‘the Ellis Island of the West Coast.’
‘It was chosen as this administration’s latest target precisely because of who lives there and what it represents: resilience, diversity and the American dream,’ she said when there were ICE raids on the park in July.
However, it has become a place of drug abuse, while there is also gun violence and, like much of LA, rampant homelessness.
According to former candidate for mayor Rick Caruso, at least one local business closes earlier in the day because of the issues with the park, while the local firehouse is the busiest in America.
“We’ve created a drug haven. It’s a foolish idea,” he said of Hernandez’s policies, which include redirecting city funds for needle distribution and safe smoking kits.
Locals say that, despite Mayor Bass’s promises to bring the problems under control, they are still waiting for the park to be made safe.
The uncontrolled blight was obvious when the Daily Mail visited the area in July after an ICE raid.
‘They have a serious drug infestation and homeless problem here that the city needs to do something about and clear it up,’ former marine Michael Harris, 62, told the Daily Mail.
The veteran chomped on a cigar while walking Dobby, his five-year-old, 100-pound Presa Carnario, a Spanish mastiff.
He called the park an ‘extreme’ microcosm of the problems impacting the city as a whole.
Bass, in a tailored powder blue pant suit, rolled into the the park on July 7 in a black SUV, with a personal cameraman in tow, to vocally confront agents on scene.
She ordered them to disperse, insisting that agents ‘have completed their mission here. They need to leave and they need to leave right now because this is unacceptable.’
Originally called Westlake Park, its name was changed in 1942 to honor of World Ward II army general Douglas MacArthur, according to the LA Conservancy website.
By the mid-twentieth century, it had become a ‘well-known cruising site within the LGBTQ community.’
Without satire, the non-profit calls the park a ‘vibrant place of music, art, and community.’
Read more
- How is socialist Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez’s massive salary justified as MacArthur Park turns into a drug-infested disaster under her watch?
- Why did Mayor Karen Bass label ICE’s presence in MacArthur Park as ‘outrageous’ and demand their immediate departure?
- How did Mayor Karen Bass react when federal immigration agents stormed MacArthur Park, sparking accusations of political spin?
- Is LA’s economy crumbling under the weight of a controversial ICE crackdown, as Mayor Karen Bass denounces Trump’s ‘military operation’ in MacArthur Park?
- Which celebrities are blasting Mayor Karen Bass for budget cuts amidst raging LA flames?
