Charter

A divided Los Angeles school board has voted to shut down a popular charter school to make more space for its own program on the same Echo Park campus, pushing the boundaries of state law and school district authority over charters.

The 4-3 vote late Tuesday denied a renewal authorization for Gabriella Charter School, which means the 400-student school specializing in dance instruction, can’t operate beyond the end of the current school year.

Although county education officials could act independently to renew the charter, the L.A. school board decision still means Gabriella would be essentially evicted from the campus and the dance studios built for its use.

Board member Rocio Rivas, whose district includes the school, said the move was necessary to protect the interests of the district-operated school and the nation’s second-largest school system.

“This multiuse agreement has not worked,” Rivas said. “It meets the needs of Gabriella, but it’s not meeting the needs of the district. So as far as I’m concerned, this multiuse agreement should be nullified.”

A spokesperson for Gabriella said Wednesday morning that the school was considering its legal options.

The California Charter Schools Assn. spoke strongly in defense of Gabriella.

“This decision is a backhanded strategy to push Gabriella out of its longtime home on an LAUSD campus — a site the District itself invited Gabriella to share with a district-run school back in 2009,” said Keith Dell’Aquila, who leads advocacy work for the association in the L.A. area. “For 16 years, Gabriella has served countless students at that location with excellence and stability.”

The case highlights the resolve of school board members, aligned with the teachers union, to target a non-union charter school to further the aspirations of a district-operated campus.

Third-grade teacher Karla Balani helps with instruction at Gabriella Charter School.

(Karla Gachet/For The Times)

Why charter schools draw political controversy

Charters are privately operated public schools that compete for students. Charter supporters view their educational offerings as a way to spark innovation and provide needed public school competition — and simply to offer parents more choices.

Some supporters have also wanted a foothold to weaken the influence of teacher unions and build a bridge to more controversial school-choice strategies, including using public-school funds to pay for private school tuition.

Most charters are non-union and have typically been opposed by teacher unions.

Charters have enjoyed a degree of bipartisan support and were long able to shape California laws in their favor, but their political clout in the state has somewhat declined.

L.A. Unified oversees 235 charters, more than any school system in the country, and many of these started when school boards had little authority to reject them. About 1 in 5 L.A. public school students attend charters.

Gabriella has shared a campus with the district-operated Logan Academy for Global Ecology, which includes a dual-language program in Spanish and English. Both schools offer transitional kindergarten through eighth grade.

For the Logan community the charter has long been an unwanted detraction from their efforts. And they saw the renewal process as a chance to act because the board majority has become more strongly anti-charter.

Staff at Logan said Tuesday that they need more space to offer a full middle-school program on a campus that served only elementary grades for most of its 137-year history. The middle grades were added to help sustain the school.

Logan also has become a designated community school, which offers a wider range of support services for students and families, typically including health care, tutoring and counseling. And these services, too, require space.

“The fact that Logan Academy is a community school, is now a span school — circumstances for them have changed, and that is what we need to take into consideration,” Rivas said.

Third-graders practice dance in jazz class.

(Karla Gachet/For The Times)

State protections for charters

California law gives charter schools the right to use public-school facilities that are “reasonably equivalent” to those available to other public-school students.

The L.A. school board majority tested the limits of these state rules when it voted 4-3 in 2024 to give preferences to district-operated schools and ban outright the sharing of hundreds of campuses.

In a June 27 ruling, a judge concluded that the policy unlawfully “prioritizes District schools over charter schools and is too vague … To the maximum extent practicable, the needs of the charter school must be given the same consideration as those of the district-run schools.”

Under that ruling and others, courts have found that charters, such as Gabriella, are entitled to space for similar resources that the district would claim it for.

State law also sets up a process through which charter schools can request and share campuses. The process restarts every year and has resulted in annual uncertainty both for charters and others sharing the campuses.

School districts also have the option of reaching other sorts of agreements with charters. That is what happened at Logan, where the school district agreed to a multiyear lease. That lease has coincided with the full term of the charter renewal.

For Gabriella, the arrangement avoided the instability of having to move from place to place each year — especially because most elementary schools are not outfitted with dance studios.

Logan was specially modified to accommodate Gabriella’s unique program. A benefit to the district was that Gabriella became a feeder program to the district’s new arts-focused high school downtown.

Ending the multiyear lease for Logan was a high priority for Rivas.

“If this — the charter … is not renewed, then that pretty much severs their multiyear agreement,” Rivas said.

Students practice their dance at Gabriella Charter School.

(Karla Gachet/For The Times)

Impact of declining enrollment

Enrollment at Logan Academy has been trending downward, much like in the school system as a whole. Last year’s enrollment totaled 91 students in kindergarten through second grade. Three years earlier that comparable figure was 139 students.

In 2014, the school had 486 students. Last year the number was 362.

The charter school’s enrollment also is down — from a peak of 468 in the 2020-21 school year to 396 last year.

Official figures are not yet available for this year, but enrollment across the school system appears to be lower, per preliminary estimates.

Rivas said Tuesday that Gabriella had been an uncooperative tenant that flouted financially responsibilities and had, therefore, forfeited any inside track to renewal.

At the Tuesday meeting, it was brought up that the charter did not participate in a recent fire drill. It’s leaders have pledged to do so in the future.

More serious is a long-simmering dispute over whether the charter has paid an appropriate amount for use of the campus. As the charter renewal date approached, the charter leaders yielded and made an $800,000 payment to the school system. That issue has yet to be resolved.

One disputed issue is that the school district raised the usage fee retroactively — to cover a period of time that already had ended,

Board staff recommended a five-year renewal, saying the school had met the legally required academic performance standard. A charter school also can be denied renewal if it is fiscally unsound, but district staff concluded that, too, was not grounds for denial.

Board member Nick Melvoin, who voted to renew the charter, wanted to know the legal basis for rejecting it.

The answer from staff was that the decision could be based on the board’s citing of past financial disagreements that have not been entirely settled.

Melvoin strongly disagreed with the outcome.

“Co-locations are tough, and I have a lot of empathy and understanding for Logan,” Melvoin said. “I think that it’s really incumbent upon us, the adults who are the stewards of the children in this situation, to come to creative solutions on behalf of kids.”

“You have two K-8 schools that are pulling almost the same number of kids from that community,” he added, “and I think we owe it to them to try to work something out.”

Opposing the renewal were Rivas, Board President Scott Schmerelson, Karla Griego and Sherlett Hendy Newbill. Favoring renewal were Melvoin, Kelly Gonez and Tanya Ortiz Franklin.

Sept. 10 (UPI) — The exit of 300 Korean workers detained in Georgia has been delayed due to “a cause from the U.S. side,” according to the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The detainees were scheduled to board a Korean Air charter plane from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to head home Wednesday afternoon. The ministry hasn’t said what is causing the delay, The Korea Times reported.

“The government is continuing consultation with the U.S. for as swift a departure as possible. We will provide further updates once a new schedule is confirmed,” it said.

Homeland Security Investigations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement conducted the raid on Thursday and said those who were detained are not authorized to work in the United States.

Three of those detained are from Japan, and others were from Central and South American nations.

The electric battery plant in Ellabell, Ga., near Savannah, is still under construction. It’s a joint project by Hyundai and LG Energy Solution to provide batteries for Hyundai electric vehicles.

Many of those working at the plant had B-1 visas, which are issued for short-term business travel, The Korea Herald reported.

Many others got electronic travel authorization to visit the United States, but neither B-1 visas nor the travel authorizations allowed their respective holders to work.

The Korean government has stressed that the workers will leave under the rules of voluntary departure, which don’t have the same legal consequences as deportation. But, U.S. immigration law allows for bans depending on the length of the unlawful stay, so individual penalties are possible.

Complicating matters, some detainees signed forms early on that included a $1,000 payment for voluntary departure to avoid a 10-year entry ban, The Korea Times reported.

Adding to the confusion, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said Monday that the Korean nationals detained in the raid will be “deported.”

In South Korea, people are upset, said James Kim, chair and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce in Seoul.

“The sentiment is obviously very, very negative,” James Kim, told CBS News. “In my office, I usually have my TV turned on to the news — and this is obviously covered from morning to evening constantly. But everyone who I speak to, they view America as its number — one partner here from South Korea. Yes, we’re going to have some challenging times.”

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun heard demands from angry lawmakers during a parliamentary session in Seoul on Monday, before he departed for meetings with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other U.S. officials, CBS News reported.

Lawmaker Kim Joon-hyun demanded that Cho respond to the ICE raid by launching investigations into every U.S. national teaching English in South Korea who could be working illegally on a tourist visa.

“Are we giving our money, technology, and investment to the United States only to be treated like this?” CBS News reported that Kim Joon-hyun said.

During his meeting Wednesday in Washington with Cho, Rubio said, “the United States welcomes ROK (South Korea) investment into the United States and stated his interest in deepening cooperation on this front,” according to a readout shared by the State Department.

Rubio and Cho discussed advancing U.S.-South Korean ties “through a forward-looking agenda” that “revitalizes American manufacturing through ROK investment in shipbuilding and other strategic sectors, and promotes a fair and reciprocal trade partnership,” the State Department said.

Seoul and Washington have clashed over administrative and technical procedures, including the terms under which the Koreans are released and the conditions for their transfer to the airport, The Korea Herald reported.

Kim Yong-beom, presidential chief of staff for policy, on Tuesday also said that “(U.S.) law enforcement authorities have their own methods they insist on when it comes to transporting detainees by bus.

“They insist on certain practices, such as handcuffing detainees again, but we are making every effort in the final administrative negotiations to ensure that such methods are not applied,” Kim Yong-boem said.

“We are working to complete the procedures so that our nationals can safely return in the form of voluntary departure, not deportation, and are striving to conclude this within a timely period – within a day or two.”

The drive from the ICE detention facility in Folkston, Ga., to the Atlanta airport takes about four and a half hours.

Sept. 7 (UPI) — A senior South Korean official said Sunday that the country will charter a plane for the return of hundreds of workers who were detained during an immigration raid at a Hyundai battery factory in Georgia.

Kang Hoon-sik, the South Korean presidential chief-of-staff, said that negotiations with the administration of President Donald Trump had concluded during a speech at a high-ranking ruling party-government meeting, the state-funded Yonhap News Agency reported.

More than 300 workers from South Korea were arrested during the Thursday raid at the factory, which Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution operate. More than 150 other workers were also detained.

The Thursday raid was announced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and included officers from other agencies, such as Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It marked one of the largest immigrant raids in modern American history and it was not immediately clear why the ATF participated in the crackdown.

“There are still administrative procedures left,” Kang said. “Once the procedures are complete, the chartered plane will depart to bring our citizens.”

Kang’s comments came after South Korean officials convened an emergency meeting Saturday to discuss the issue. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said during that meeting that officials were “deeply concerned” about the arrest of the workers.

In additional remarks reported Sunday by the South Korean newspaper Kyunghyang Shinmun, Kang added that President Lee Jae-myung stressed that the rights and interests of South Korean citizens and the economic activities of companies investing in the U.S. “should not be unfairly violated” during U.S. law enforcement processes.

“The government will not let down its guard and will do its best until the citizens return safely,” Kang said.

Kang also said that South Korea would pursue measures to improve its visa system and residence permits for business travelers related to U.S. projects in the future.

Hyundai said in a statement Friday that none of the workers detained were directly employed by the carmaker and that it “is committed to full compliance with all laws and regulations in every market where we operate.”

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government.

Here you thought charter reform would be boring.

A 13-member citizens commission is just getting started on the painstaking, generally unsexy work of poring through the Los Angeles City Charter, the city’s governing document, and coming up with strategies for improving it. Yet already, the commission has had a leadership battle, heard allegations of shady dealings and fielded questions about whether it’s been set up to fail.

But first, let’s back up.

Mayor Karen Bass, City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and former Council President Paul Krekorian chose a collection of volunteers to serve on the Charter Reform Commission, which is charged with exploring big and small changes to the City Charter.

The commission is part of a much larger push for reform sparked by the city’s 2022 audio leak scandal and a string of corruption cases involving L.A. officials. The list of potential policy challenges the commission faces is significant.

Good government types want the new commission to endorse ranked-choice voting, with Angelenos selecting their elected officials by ranking candidates in numerical order. Advocacy groups want to see a much larger City Council. Some at City Hall want clarity on what to do with elected officials who are accused of wrongdoing but have not been convicted.

“You are not one of those commissions that shows up every few years to fix a few things here or there,” said Raphael Sonenshein, who served nearly 30 years ago as executive director of the city’s appointed Charter Reform Commission, while addressing the new commission last week. “You actually have a bigger responsibility than that.”

The real work began on July 16, when the commission took up the question of who should be in charge. Many thought the leadership post would immediately go to Raymond Meza, who had already been serving as the interim chair.

Instead, the panel found itself deadlocked.

Meza is a high-level staffer at Service Employees International Union Local 721, the powerful public employee union that represents thousands of city workers and has been a big-money spender in support of Bass and many other elected city officials.

Meza, who was appointed by Bass earlier this year, picked up five votes. But so did Ted Stein, a real estate developer who has served on an array of city commissions — planning, airport, harbor — but hadn’t been on a volunteer city panel in nearly 15 years. Faced with a stalemate, charter commissioners decided to try again a few days later, when they were joined by two additional members.

By then, some reform advocates were up in arms over Stein, arguing that he was bringing a record of scandal to the commission. They sent the commissioners news articles pointing out that Stein had, among other things, resigned from the airport commission in 2004 amid two grand jury investigations into whether city officials had tied the awarding of airport contracts to campaign contributions.

Stein denied those allegations in 2004, calling them “false, defamatory and unsubstantiated.” Last week, before the second leadership vote, he shot back at his critics, noting that two law enforcement agencies — the U.S. attorney’s office and the L.A. County district attorney’s office — declined to pursue charges against him. The Ethics Commission also did not bring a case over his airport commission activities.

“I was forced to protect my good name by having to hire an attorney and having to spend over $200,000 in legal fees [over] something where I had done nothing wrong,” he told his fellow commissioners. The city reimbursed Stein for the vast majority of those legal costs.

Stein accused Meza of orchestrating some of the outside criticism — which Meza later denied. And Stein spent so much time defending his record that he had little time to say why he should be elected.

Still, the vote was close, with Meza securing seven votes and Stein picking up five.

Meza called the showdown “unfortunate.” L.A. voters, he said, “want to see the baton passed to a new generation of people.” The 40-year-old Montecito Heights resident made clear that he supports an array of City Charter changes.

In an interview, Meza said he’s “definitely in favor” of ranked-choice voting, arguing that it would increase voter turnout. He also supports an increase in the number of City Council members but wouldn’t say how many. And he wants to ensure that vacant positions are filled more quickly at City Hall, calling it an issue that “absolutely needs to be addressed.”

That last item has long been a concern for SEIU Local 721, where Meza works as deputy chief of staff. Nevertheless, Meza said he would, to an extent, set aside the wishes of his union during the commission’s deliberations.

“On the commission, I am an individual resident of the city,” he said.

Stein, for his part, told The Times that he only ran for the leadership post out of concern over the commission’s tight timeline. The commission must submit its proposal to the council next spring — a much more aggressive schedule than the one required of two charter reform commissions nearly 30 years ago.

Getting through so many complex issues in such a brief period calls for an experienced hand, said Stein, who is 76 and lives in Encino.

Stein declined to say where he stands on council expansion and ranked-choice voting. He said he’s already moved on from the leadership vote and is ready to dig into the commission’s work.

Meza, for his part, said he has heard the concerns about the aggressive schedule. But he remains confident the commission will be successful.

“I don’t think we have the best conditions,” he said. “But I do not believe we’ve been set up to fail. I’m very confident the commissioners will do what’s needed to turn in a good product.”

State of play

— STRICTLY BUSINESS: A group of L.A. business leaders launched a ballot proposal to repeal the city’s much-maligned gross receipts tax, saying it would boost the city’s economy and lower prices for Angelenos. The mayor and several other officials immediately panned the idea, saying it would deprive the city’s yearly budget of $800 million, forcing cuts to police, firefighters and other services.

— INCHING FORWARD: Meanwhile, another ballot proposal from the business community — this one backed by airlines and the hotel industry — nudged closer to reality. Interim City Clerk Petty Santos announced that the proposed referendum on the $30-per-hour tourism minimum wage had “proceeded to the next step,” with officials now examining and verifying petition signatures to determine their validity.

— GRIM GPS: The Los Angeles County Fire Department had only one truck stationed west of Lake Avenue in Altadena at a critical moment during the hugely destructive Eaton fire, according to vehicle tracking data analyzed by The Times. By contrast, the agency had dozens of trucks positioned east of Lake. All but one of the deaths attributed to the Eaton fire took place west of Lake.

— CHANGE OF PLANS: On Monday, Bass nominated consultant and Community Coalition board member Mary Lee to serve on the five-member Board of Police Commissioners. Two days later, in a brief email, Lee withdrew from consideration. Reached by The Times, Lee cited “personal reasons” for her decision but did not elaborate. (The mayor’s office had nothing to add.) Lee would have replaced former commissioner Maria “Lou” Calanche, who is running against Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez in the June 2026 election.

— SEMPER GOODBYE: The Pentagon announced Monday that the roughly 700 Marines who have been deployed to the city since early June would be withdrawing, a move cheered by Bass and other local leaders who have criticized the military deployment that followed protests over federal immigration raids. About 2,000 National Guard troops remain in the region.

— HALTING HEALTHCARE: L.A. County’s public health system, which provides care to the region’s neediest residents, could soon face brutal budget cuts. The “Big Beautiful Bill,” enacted by President Trump and the Republican-led Congress, is on track to carve $750 million per year out of the Department of Health Services, which oversees four public hospitals and roughly two dozen clinics. At the Department of Public Health, which is facing its own $200-million cut, top executive Barbara Ferrer said: “I’ve never actually seen this much disdain for public health.”

— HOMELESS HIRE: The commission that oversees the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority selected Gita O’Neill, a career lawyer in the city attorney’s office, to serve as the agency’s interim CEO. O’Neill will replace Va Lecia Adams Kellum, who stepped down Friday after more than two years in her post.

— THE JURY SPEAKS: The city has been ordered by a jury to pay $48.8 million to a man who has been in a coma since he was hit by a sanitation truck while crossing a street in Encino. The verdict comes as the city struggles with escalating legal payouts — and was larger than any single payout by the city in the last two fiscal years, according to data provided by the city attorney’s office.

— LOOKING FOR A LIAISON: Back in May, while signing an executive directive to support local film and TV production, L.A.’s mayor was asked whether she planned to appoint a film liaison as the City Hall point person for productions. “Absolutely,” Bass said during the news conference, adding that she planned to do so within a few days.

That was two months ago. Asked this week about the status of that position, Bass spokesperson Clara Karger touted the executive directive and said the position was “being hired in conjunction with industry leaders.” She did not provide a timeline.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature homelessness program did not carry out any new operations this week. However, her Shine LA initiative, which aims to clean up city streets and sidewalks, is heading out this weekend to Wilmington, Harbor Gateway and a stretch of Crenshaw Boulevard in South L.A.
• On the docket for next week: A bunch of stuff! The City Council returns from its summer recess, holding its first meeting in nearly a month. The Charter Reform Commission heads to the Baldwin Hills library to study planning and infrastructure. Meanwhile, county supervisors are scheduled to take up a proposal to bar law enforcement officers from concealing their identities in the county’s unincorporated areas, including East L.A., Lennox and Altadena.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to [email protected]. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Last November, voters approved a sprawling overhaul to L.A. County’s government.

They didn’t realize they were also repealing the county’s landmark criminal justice reform.

Eight months later, county officials are just now realizing they unwittingly committed an administrative screw-up for the ages.

Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn co-authored Measure G, which changed the county charter to expand the five-person board and elect a new county executive, among other momentous shifts.

But nobody seemed to realize the new charter language would repeal Measure J, which voters approved in 2020 to dedicate hundreds of millions towards services that offer alternatives to incarceration.

“We can confirm that due to an inadvertent administrative error by a prior Executive Officer administration, Measure J was not placed in the County’s Charter after its passage in 2020,” said County Counsel in a statement. “As a result, when the voters passed Measure G, they repealed Measure J effective December 2028.”

The mistake appears to stem from a failure by the county’s executive office to update the county charter with Measure J after it passed in 2020. County lawyers then failed to include the Measure J language when they drafted the 2024 ballot measure.

So when voters approved Measure G, they accidentally repealed Measure J, according to the county.

The screw-up was first discovered by John Fasana, a former Duarte Councilmember who sits on the county’s governance reform task force, which is tasked with implementing the government overhaul. He said he first raised the issue with the county in early June.

“Someone goofed,” said Fasana, who was appointed to the taskforce by Supervisor Kathryn Barger. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.”

Megan Castillo, a coordinator with the Reimagine LA Coalition, which pushed Measure J to the ballot in 2020, said she was disturbed to learn last week that the fruit of years of advocacy would soon be wiped away accidentally.

“It shouldn’t be undermined just because folks rushed policy making,” said Castillo. “We know more voters were for Measure J than Measure G. It’s disrespectful to the will of the people to find this could unintentionally happen.”

Measure J requires that 10% of locally generated, unrestricted L.A. County money — estimated between $360 million and $900 million — be spent on social services, such as housing, mental health treatment and other jail diversion programs. The county is prohibited from spending the money on the carceral system — prisons, jails or law enforcement agencies.

Castillo said she was worried the repeal would result in a “deep economic fallout” for these programs with county money potentially diverted to costs required by Measure G, like the salaries of new politicians and their staff. Measure G bars the county from raising taxes meaning this money will have to come from elsewhere in the county budget.

Castillo said she first brought the issue to the attention to deputies for Hahn and Horvath last week.

“They are shocked as well,” said Castillo.

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who led the charge on Measure G, said in a statement a proposal was coming to correct the “County bureaucracy’s error related to Measure J.”

“This measure was the result of a hard-fought, community-led effort that I wholeheartedly supported—and remain deeply committed to upholding,” said Horvath. “This situation makes clear why Measure G is so urgently needed. … When five people are in charge, no one is in charge, and this is a quintessential example of what that means.”

Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who opposed the overhaul of the county charter, saw it a little differently.

“It also reinforces one of the key concerns I had about Measure G from the start. When major changes to the County Charter are pushed forward without sufficient time for analysis, public input, and transparency, mistakes become more likely. Oversights like this are exactly what can happen,” Barger said in a statement. “This error could–and should–have been caught before voters were asked to make a decision.”

Supervisor Hilda Solis said she was “surprised and concerned” to learn about the error but was confident the funding envisioned by Measure J would “continue unaffected.”

The Times reached out to the other two supervisors and has yet to receive their responses.

County attorneys said in a statement they were working with the executive office to “address this situation” and ensure the executive office “timely codified” charter amendments going forward. They emphasized that, despite the looming repeal of Measure J, the county will continue to align its budget with the goals of the measure.

Derek Hsieh, head of the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs and a member of the governance reform taskforce member, called the mistake a “cluster—.”

“I think the voters and county employees would like to know when the Board of Supervisors knew about this mistake and what they plan on doing to fix it,” said Hsieh, who was an outspoken opponent of both Measure G and Measure J.

The union, which represents sheriff‘s deputies, had spent more than $3.5 million on advertising on TV and social media to fight Measure J. The union had also joined other county labor unions to challenge the measure in court.

“There’s absolutely no question both by the will of the voters and a decision by the California Supreme Court that Measure J is the law of the land,” said Hsieh.

The screw-up became public Wednesday night at the task force’s second-ever meeting. Fasana told his fellow members who had gatherered at Bob Hope Patriotic Hall downtown he had found “a major issue.”

The news created something of an uproar in meeting that was supposed to focus on more mundane bureaucratic matters. Some members said they wanted to wait to discuss it until everyone had been briefed on what exactly he was talking about.

Others said they didn’t understand how they could talk about anything else.

“To me all the work we’re trying to move forward with stops because there’s a problem —a significant, fundamental one,” said Derek Steele, who was appointed by Supervisor Holly Mitchell.

“We may actually need to take Measure G back to the people,” said Steele. “ We need to make sure we have a solve for this.”

Both Mitchell and Barger opposed Measure G, arguing it had been put together too hastily and gave too much power to an ill-defined county executive.

Sara Sadhwani, who was appointed to the task force by Horvath, said she found the accidental repeal of Measure J “incredibly concerning,” but found the way the news had been delivered to the task force “obstructive.”

“It raises so many questions for me and raises concerns about who is operating in good faith on this task forcem,” said Sadhwani. “If this was a good faith effort, wouldn’t we have agendized this issue, instead of dropping a bomb that people have no knowledge of.”

The taskforce has asked for a report from the county’s attorneys for their next meeting.

Jaclyn Cosgrove contributed to this story.

Charter Communications is returning the Walt Disney Co.-owned cable channels that were dropped from its Spectrum TV service in 2023 after the two sides negotiated new terms for carrying ESPN and ABC.

The companies announced Thursday an “expanded distribution agreement” that will give Spectrum TV Select customers the ad-supported version of streaming platform Hulu and eight linear TV channels: Disney Jr., Disney XD, Freeform, FXX, FXM, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Mundo and BabyTV. They will be added at no additional cost for subscribers.

The cable channels were dropped in 2023 when the companies were unable to agree on terms for carrying ESPN and ABC, which led to a 10-day blackout for Spectrum customers.. The standoff kept tennis fans in Spectrum homes from seeing ESPN’s U.S. Open coverage and threatened access to the season premiere of “Monday Night Football.”

At the time, Charter resolved the dispute by agreeing to pay higher fees to keep the rights to carry the main engines of Disney’s TV lineup — including ESPN and ABC — but had to sacrifice some of the company’s smaller channels. Charter had sought to get free access to Disney’s streaming channels for its customers as well.

The terms of the expanded deal to return the dropped channels and add Hulu were not disclosed beyond saying it was “financially net positive for both companies.” It’s likely Disney needed to maintain the distribution of the channels to Charter’s nearly 15 million cable homes to keep them viable for advertisers.

“These channels expand Spectrum’s entertainment offering and create meaningful value for both companies by boosting advertising reach and strengthening audience engagement across platforms,” Charter said in its announcement of the deal.

The Disney-Charter pact is a sign of how both programmers and cable and satellite services are being more flexible as they contend with the steady decline of pay TV customers. Pricing is a key reason consumers have abandoned traditional TV for streaming.

Separately, satellite TV provider DirecTV announced Thursday it will offer a new slimmed-down package of channels called MyKids, designed for younger viewers. The package offered for $19.99 a month will provide access to kid- and teen-oriented channels from Disney, Paramount Global, Warner Bros. Discovery and Weigel Broadcasting.

MyKids, which includes Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and MeTV Toons, is one of the newest lower priced genre-based packages DirecTV is offering to customers. In addition to MyKids, DirecTV customers can select packages with news, entertainment, sports and Spanish-language channels, all priced well under the monthly cost of subscribing to the entire channel lineup.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has condemned the US military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, calling it an ‘outrageous, grave and unprecedented violation’ of international law. He accused the Trump administration of colluding with Israel to breach Iran’s sovereignty, and vowed Tehran would defend its territory ‘by all means necessary.’

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court dealt an unexpected blow Thursday to the conservative drive for religious charter schools.

The justices announced they were split 4-4 in a test case heard last month from Oklahoma, which blocks the new Catholic charter school in the state.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett had announced in advance she would not participate in the decision. A former Notre Dame law professor, she was a close friend of law professor Nicole Garnett, who led the drive for faith-based charter schools.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts sounded uncertain during the oral argument in late April. In the past, he had said states may not discriminate against religious groups, but Oklahoma’s law applied only to public schools, not private ones that were religious.

Defenders of church-state separation had argued that charter schools by law were public, not “sectarian” or religious. They urged the court to uphold the laws as written.

Four other conservative justices had signaled they would vote to allow the religious charter school.

While Thursday’s split decision is a major setback for religious rights advocates, it does not finally settle the issue of religious charter schools. It’s possible, for example, that Justice Barrett may participate in a future case.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

May 19 (UPI) — The first immigrants who agreed to self-deport and accept a $1,000 stipend left on a chartered flight out of the United States on Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said.

The flight took 64 nationals — 26 from Colombia and 38 from Honduras — back home in “Project Homecoming.” They boarded a charter bus and then a World Atlantic Airlines charter that left Houston at 9:30 a.m. CDT. Children were given toys and everyone received a lunch bag.

“This was a voluntary charter flight, not an ICE enforcement operation,” DHS said in a news release, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“All participants were offered the same benefits as any illegal alien who self-deports using the CBP Home App. They received travel assistance, a $1,000 stipend, and preserved the possibility they could one day return to the United States legally.”

Earlier this month, HHS announced the program.

They said migrants typically would be given about three weeks to prepare to depart.

“Today, DHS conducted its first Project Homecoming charter flight of 64 individuals who voluntarily chose to self-deport to their home counties of Honduras and Colombia,” Secretary Kristi Noem said. “If you are here illegally, use the CBP Home App to take control of your departure and receive financial support to return home. If you don’t, you will be subjected to fines, arrest, deportation and will never be allowed to return. If you are in this country illegally, self-deport NOW and preserve your opportunity to potentially return the legal, right way.”

The app was redesigned from the Biden administration’s CBP One, which allowed migrants to schedule an appointment at a port of entry to make an initial claim of asylum.

In February, DHS launched a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign warning undocumented migrants that they will be deported if they are in the United States.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association cautioned people against self-reporting and taking the stipend.

“AILA cautions individuals when reviewing the announcement to understand it is deceptive and gives people the impression there are no consequences, such as being barred from returning in the future,” AILA said. No one should accept this without first obtaining good legal advice from an immigration attorney or other qualified representative.”

The group said the offer may be a “trap.”

“It is unethical for the government to tell people ‘Self-Deportation Is Safe’ but not explain the hardship and legal risks to them, especially for people who do not have an attorney and will not know their rights under the law,” the group said.

HHS posted photos of migrants headed to their Central American countries.

HHS noted returnees to Honduras were also eligible for $100 in government assistance and food vouchers.

The Colombian government provided social services from the Family Welfare Institute and the Department of Social Prosperity.

The self-deportation plan comes amid other ways the Trump administration is trying to deport migrants.

The State Department is using AI to monitor social media of foreign students for alleged “pro-Hamas” sympathies. The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1958 are being used to deport people with supposed criminal records.

The Trump administration through the end of March arrested more than 158,000 unregistered immigrants, including more than 600 suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang. Of the arrests, 75% had convictions or pending charges, DHS said.

During November when Joe Biden was president, U.S. agents arrested more than 21,000 unauthorized immigrants — about one-third of Trump’s numbers.

Illegal border crossings have plunged to the lowest level in decades.

In March, there were 7,181 encounters at the border, which is a 95% reduction from 136,473 in the same month a year ago and 97% from 2022 of 211,181.

In April, it was roughly 8,400.

The proposed merger, which would create the largest cable provider in the US, could face antitrust hurdles.

Charter Communications has agreed to buy its rival Cox Communications for $21.9bn in a deal that would unite the two of the largest cable and broadband operators in the United States as they battle streaming giants and mobile carriers for customers.

The deal, announced on Friday, comes more than a decade after the companies reportedly abandoned an earlier merger attempt. Since then, pressure has intensified on cable companies, with wireless carriers attracting broadband customers with aggressive plans, while millions ditch traditional pay-TV for streaming.

The companies said they expect to realise $500m in cost savings within three years of the deal’s expected close in mid-2026.

Under the cash-and-stock deal, Charter will take on about $12.6bn of Cox’s net debt and other obligations, giving the transaction an enterprise value of $34.5bn.

Cox Enterprises, the family-owned parent of Cox Communications, will own about 23 percent of the merged entity, with its CEO Alex Taylor serving as chairman.

The combined firm will rebrand as Cox Communications within a year of the deal’s close, with Charter’s Spectrum being the consumer-facing brand. It will keep its headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, while maintaining a big presence at Cox’s campus in Atlanta, Georgia.

The merger with Cox – one of the biggest deals globally this year – will aid Charter’s push to bundle broadband and mobile services, helping it fend off competition from carriers.

Analysts have said Charter’s strategy of combining internet, TV and mobile services into a single, customizable package has shown merit, but it needs scale as cable firms rely on leasing network access from major carriers to offer mobile plans.

“This combination will augment our ability to innovate and provide high-quality, competitively priced products,” said Charter CEO Chris Winfrey, who will head the combined company.

The Spectrum-owner has a market value of nearly $60bn.

On Wall Street, Charter’s stock rose on the news of the potential merger. As of 12:00pm ET (16:00 GMT) the stock is up 1.66 percent since the market opened.

Antitrust concerns 

The merger will be among the first major tests of M&A regulation under the administration of US President Donald Trump, as it would create the largest US cable TV and broadband provider with about 38 million subscribers, surpassing current market leader Comcast.

It will likely be reviewed by the US Department of Justice’s antitrust division. Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater, who leads the division, has made it clear she intends to focus on mergers that decrease competition in ways that harm consumers or workers.

EMarketer analyst Ross Benes said the merged entity would be the largest US pay-TV operator, but the “ISP (internet service provider) side of the business is more consequential” for consumers, potentially positioning it as a regional monopoly.

Winfrey echoed Trump’s “America First” employment priorities and said the deal would bring Cox’s customer service jobs back from overseas, but he did not specify how many. Charter’s customer service teams are already based entirely in the US.

“This is the first big corporate move (in the same sector) to happen under the new Trump administration so … will set the tone for other potential moves or not,” said PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore.

Charter and Cox had also discussed a merger in 2013 before shelving the plan, according to media reports. But speculation had risen again in recent months after cable billionaire John Malone said in November Charter should be allowed to merge with rivals such as Cox, shortly after Charter agreed to buy his Liberty Broadband.

Liberty Broadband shareholders will receive direct interest in Charter under the terms of the deal with Cox.

May 16 (UPI) — Charter Communications, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the United States, announced a merger Friday with privately held Cox Communications in a multi-billion-dollar deal.

Once the merger is completed, the new entity will retain the name of Atlanta-based Cox, a subsidiary of parent company Cox Enterprises, a private firm founded in 1898 that also has dealings in the automotive industry. Cox acquired its first cable franchise in 1962.

The deal gives Cox Communications a value of approximately $34.5 billion.

Charter Communications’ stock climbed sharply on the Nasdaq Composite at market open Friday before retreating somewhat. The company’s shares were up $7.03 or 1.68% at 10:42 a.m. EDT.

Under the terms of the deal, Connecticut-based Charter is acquiring all of Cox’s commercial fiber and managed IT and cloud businesses. Cox will also get $4 billion worth of cash and approximately $17.9 billion worth of combined shares, giving the parent company an approximately 23% ownership stake in the new venture.

The new company will remain headquartered in Stamford, Conn., and also assume an existing $12 billion worth of Cox Communications’ debt.

Prior to the deal, Charter was the largest cable operator in the United States, reaching over 32 million subscribers in 41 states. It was also the fifth-largest provider of residential phone lines.

Charter’s Spectrum brand will survive the merger and will “become the consumer-facing brand within the communities Cox serves.”

In 2017, Charter announced a partnership with Comcast Communications to share information about wireless services, a year after its $78.7 billion purchase of Time Warner Cable.

“Cox and Charter have been innovators in connectivity and entertainment services — with decades of work and hundreds of billions of dollars invested to build, upgrade, and expand our complementary regional networks to provide high-quality internet, video, voice and mobile services,” Charter President and CEO Chris Winfrey said in a jointly-issued statement.

“This combination will augment our ability to innovate and provide high-quality, competitively priced products, delivered with outstanding customer service, to millions of homes and businesses.

“We will continue to deliver high-value products that save American families money, and we’ll onshore jobs from overseas to create new, good-paying careers for U.S. employees that come with great benefits, career training and advancement, and retirement and ownership opportunities.”

Winfrey will retain both executive titles upon completion of the deal.

“Our family has always believed that investing for the long-term and staying committed to the best interests of our customers, employees and communities is the best recipe for success,” Cox Enterprises Chairman and CEO Alex Taylor said in the companies’ statement.

“In Charter, we’ve found the right partner at the right time and in the right position to take this commitment to a higher level than ever before, delivering an incredible outcome for our customers, employees, suppliers and the local communities we serve.”