By Sarah Stockman
Staff Writer
Last month Councilmember Mike Bonin welcomed Lisa Cahill as his Field Deputy for Pacific Palisades and Brentwood. Cahill replaces Sharon Shapiro, who previously joined the councilmember’s team in 2015.
Cahill’s job is to act as a liaison between the Councilman and his constituents. “Essentially that means I serve the constituents . . . [and] I represent the councilmember to the community,” Cahill said.
Cahill grew up in Houston, Texas, and attended the University of Texas, where she graduated with a degree in communications.
Even though she didn’t initially have a job lined up in Los Angeles, she moved here 20 years ago because “I had a handsome boyfriend,” she said. Once here, she did a variety of jobs, including employment as a yoga instructor.
She met her husband through mutual friends, and it was goodbye to the first boyfriend. “He wasn’t good enough,” Cahill joked.
The couple had two children three years apart, and Cahill became a stay-at-home mom, volunteering with numerous organizations.
“I started volunteering with TreePeople and then decided to head up a planting to get trees on my street,” Cahill said. “After organizing that planting I went on to do others, planting over 150 trees in my neighborhood” [Mar Vista].
After a year she was made manager of TreePeople’s citizen forester program where she focused on bridging the gap between the community and TreePeople. Soon she was director of sustainable solutions.
“[I was] then promoted to creating and heading up the Sustainable Solutions department, where I ran the public education campaign for water conservation and watershed health,” Cahill said.
During this past drought, the nonprofit worked with communities teaching residents how to build and use rain barrels to store water. Cahill worked with Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office to help get his Save the Drop campaign into communities.
“My job was to basically communicate that [policy] and help people do things in their own communities and in their own neighborhoods,” Cahill said. “My team . . . provided the educational materials and items that went along with that.”
Cahill took the job as field deputy because she loves Council District 11.
“I’d been a long-time fan of CD-11,” Cahill said. “I had a longstanding relationship with Bill Rosendahl’s staff and his office and, of course, with Mike Bonin.”
Cahill, who lives in Mar Vista with her husband, two children, and two rescue labradors, is no longer a constituent of Council District 11 after redistricting, but that didn’t dissuade her from taking the position.
“A number of things pointed me toward this position,” Cahill said. “It just felt like the next best step for me in my career path.” According to Councilman Bonin’s May 2017 Neighborhoods First Newsletter, “[Cahill] did stellar work standing up for the environment and helping us build a more sustainable Los Angeles [at TreePeople]. Her responsibilities there were not remotely easy, and it was her job to take some very big, very bold and very challenging ideas and turn them into reality. That’s a skill we look forward to her using at CD-11.”
Cahill is excited to be field deputy and is looking forward to working with people from the Palisades and Brentwood. She encourages people who have questions, concerns or ideas to contact her.
“It’s great to start with me because often I can help,” Cahill said. “The council member has several neighborhoods throughout West L.A. Field deputies represent his initiatives in his area.”
Cahill believes her background in community organization will be beneficial to her work representing Councilman Bonin’s goals to the community.
“The issues that are really important with the councilmember [are] public safety, traffic mitigation, and the environment,” she said.
Cahill can be reached via email at lisa.cahill@lacity.org or through the West L.A. office at (310) 575-8461.
You must be logged in to post a comment.