For more than a century, South Los Angeles has been an anchor for Black art, activism and commerce — from the 1920s when Central Avenue was the epicenter of the West Coast jazz scene to recent years as artists and entrepreneurs reinvigorate the area with new developments such as Destination Crenshaw.
Now, the region’s legacy is receiving formal recognition as a Black cultural district, a landmark move that aims to preserve South L.A.’s rich history and stimulate economic growth. State Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles), who led the effort, helped secure $5.5 million in state funding to support the project, and last December the state agency California Arts Council voted unanimously to approve the designation. The district, formally known as the Historic South Los Angeles Black Cultural District, is now one of 24 state-designated cultural districts, which also includes the newly added Black Arts Movement and Business District in Oakland.
Prior to this vote, there were no state designations that recognized the Black community — a realization that made Smallwood-Cuevas jump into action.
“It was very frustrating for me to learn that Black culture was not included,” said Smallwood-Cuevas, who represents South L.A. Other cultural districts include L.A.’s Little Tokyo and San Diego’s Barrio Logan Cultural District, which is rooted in Chicano history. Given all of the economic and cultural contributions that South L.A. has made over the years through events like the Leimert Park and Central Avenue jazz festivals and beloved businesses like Dulan’s on Crenshaw and the Lula Washington Dance Theatre, Smallwood-Cuevas believed the community deserved to be recognized. She worked on this project alongside LA Commons, a non-profit devoted to community-arts programs.
Beyond mere recognition, Smallwood-Cuevas said the designation serves as “an anti-displacement strategy,” especially as the demographics of South L.A. continue to change.
“Black people have experienced quite a level of erasure in South L.A.,” added Karen Mack, founder and executive director of LA Commons. “A lot of people can’t afford to live in areas that were once populated by us, so to really affirm our history, to affirm that we matter in the story of Los Angeles, I think is important.”
The Historic South L.A. Cultural District spans roughly 25 square miles, situated between Adams Boulevard to the north, Manchester Boulevard to the south, Central Avenue to the east and La Brea Avenue to the west.
Now that the designation has been approved, Smallwood-Cuevas and LA Commons have turned their attention to the monument — the physical landmark that will serve as the district’s entrance or focal point — trying to determine whether it should be a gateway, bridge, sculpture or something else. And then there’s the bigger question: Where should it be placed? After meeting with organizations like the Black Planners of Los Angeles and community leaders, they’ve narrowed their search down to eight potential locations including Exposition Park, Central Avenue and Leimert Park, which received the most votes in a recent public poll that closed earlier this month.
As organizers work to finalize the location for the cultural district’s monument by this summer, we’ve broken down the potential sites and have highlighted their historical relevance. (Please note: Although some of the sites are described as specific intersections, such as Jefferson and Crenshaw boulevards, organizers think of them more as general areas.)
The Los Angeles County District Attorney is investigating whether Southern California Edison should be criminally prosecuted for its actions in last year’s devastating Eaton wildfire, which killed 19 people and left thousands of families homeless, the company said Wednesday.
Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of Edison International, told Wall Street analysts during an afternoon conference call that the company was cooperating with the District Attorney’s office. He said he didn’t know the magnitude of the investigation.
The company said in its annual 10-K report, which was released Wednesday, that it “could be subject to material fines, penalties, or restitution” if the investigation “determined that it failed to comply with applicable laws and regulations.”
“SCE is not aware of any basis for felony liability with regards to the Eaton Fire,” the report said. “Any fines and penalties incurred in connection with the Eaton Fire will not be recoverable from insurance, from the Wildfire Fund, or through electric rates.”
The District Attorney’s office declined to comment.
The investigation into the fire, which destroyed a wide swath of Altadena, has not yet been released. Pizarro has said that a leading theory of the fire’s cause is that a century-old transmission line in Eaton Canyon, which had not carried power for 50 years, somehow re-energized and sparked the fire.
Edison executives have said they didn’t remove the line because they believed it would be used in the future.
Company executives knew idle transmission lines could spark wildfires. In 2019, investigators traced the Kincade fire in Sonoma County, which destroyed 374 homes and other structures, to a transmission line owned by Pacific Gas & Electric that was no longer in service.
The Times reported in December how Edison fell behind in maintenance of its transmission system before the fire.
Despite the dangerous Santa Ana wind conditions on Jan. 7, 2025, Edison decided not to shut down the transmission lines running through Eaton Canyon. Pizarro has said the winds that night didn’t meet the company’s threshold at the time for turning off the lines.
Pizarro told investors on the call Wednesday that he continued to believe that the company had acted as a “reasonable utility operator” before the deadly fire.
Under state law, if a utility is determined to have acted reasonably it can be reimbursed for all or most of the damages of the fire by a state wildfire fund.
When women take the ice for Thursday’s Olympic free skate in the global fashion capital of Milan, five skaters will compete in dresses made by Los Angeles-based designer Lisa McKinnon.
McKinnon has become the must-have name in figure skating couture, dressing the entirety of the U.S. and South Korea women’s teams. Americans Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito wore McKinnon’s designs in the short program and will do so again in the free skate.
And one of those dresses may be featured on the medal podium. Liu stands in third place after Tuesday’s short program, while Levito is in eighth and Glenn tumbled to 13th with the free skate still to come.
McKinnon knows exactly how clothing needs to fit on bodies moving across the ice — for spins, for jumps, for everything it takes to win. The fabric must be able to stretch in all directions, which necessitates a four-way stretch fabric. Design with a two-way stretch and a skater might not be able to lift their arm. Dress skaters in spandex, power mesh and stretch velvet, and they’ll move like they do in training.
American Amber Glenn competes in the figure skating short program at the Winter Olympics in Milan on Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
McKinnon sources most of the fabric locally from the fashion district in downtown L.A.
“It’s really great to just go in person because sometimes it’s the fabric that can inspire you to create something with,” McKinnon said.
McKinnon’s time on the ice that taught her how to create fashion for an athlete tailored for movement and aesthetic appeal. She grew up as a competitive figure skater in Sweden, and she started making bodysuits and dresses — which she wore to practice — for herself at age 11 or 12. By 16, she was designing dresses for elite skaters in her hometown, Mariestad, Sweden, including a Swedish national champion. At the time, they shared a coach, and the coach asked McKinnon to design a dress for the skater.
“They had seen the dresses that I made for other skaters,” she said. “They were just — you know — putting their faith in my hands that I could do this.”
After high school, McKinnon skated in tours in Europe and then North America. In the United States, she first settled in Las Vegas, where she designed dresses for local skaters. When she moved to L.A., bigger name skaters started calling. She designed for Ashley Wagner, three-time U.S. champion, and Karen Chen, who competed in her dresses at the 2018 Olympic Games. McKinnon says they were the ones who “got her noticed.” Noticed to the point that Milan is by no means the designer’s Olympic debut. In 2018, she outfitted pairs gold medalists Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot from Germany.
Since then, McKinnon has become the go-to designer for elite women’s figure skaters in the United States. At U.S. nationals in St. Louis in January, eight of the 18 senior women competed in McKinnon’s dresses. In the final warm-up alone — composed of the six skaters leading after the short program — five wore McKinnon designs. There, Glenn, Liu and Levito stood on the podium in her dresses.
In St. Louis, McKinnon hand delivered a dress to Liu, the reigning world champion who debuted a long-awaited Lady Gaga free skate routine. Liu practiced in the dress and McKinnon was able to make on-the-spot adjustments.
Surprisingly, hand delivery isn’t the norm for the dresses that run from $3,000-$8,000, averaging around $5,000 (McKinnon charges by the hour). Because McKinnon designs for skaters who train all over the country — Liu in Oakland, Glenn in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Levito near Philadelphia in southern New Jersey — FedEx shepherds the dresses across the country. Skaters make sure the dresses fit OK before McKinnon and her four-person seamstress team add sparkle, which usually means a crystal count in the thousands. Beads, paillettes and pearls are often mixed into the shine. Each crystal is hand affixed with E6000 glue.
American Christina Carreira and partner Anthony Ponomarenko compete during the ice dancing free skate at the Winter Olympics on Feb. 11 in Milan.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
McKinnon affixed faux rose pedals to a dress for American ice dancer Christina Carreira to debut during the skater’s own Olympic debut. Midway through the skating season, Carreira and partner, Anthony Ponomarenko, returned to their free dance from two years ago, “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.” They needed new costumes to differentiate from their performances two years ago, and McKinnon had already designed costumes for the team’s rhythm dance to La Bouche’s “Sweet Dreams.” McKinnon made the new dress in a little over a week, and it was set to arrive three days before Carreira left her training base in London, Canada, for the Games.
Except the dress didn’t arrive.
McKinnon learned that the package was stuck at a FedEx facility in Memphis, Tenn., after Winter Storm Fern pummeled the region.
“We would call and sometimes they’d say it’s in L.A., sometimes they’d say it’s in Memphis, so we didn’t know where it was,” Carreira said. “We weren’t getting answers, but going on social media actually helped.”
Carreira woke up after her flight to Milan to find an Instagram message with a photo of her dress. A woman told Carreira that her husband had found the package and put it on the first plane to Detroit, where Carreira’s coach, Scott Moir, retrieved the package to bring to Milan.
Carreira first tried on the dress in Milan. “It fit perfectly,” she said. “Lisa has never met me. She’s only seen me over FaceTime, and the two dresses she’s made fit perfectly.”
Carreira and Ponomarenko placed 11th in their Olympic debut.
“I wanted a dress that made me feel special at the Olympics,” Carreira said. “And both of those dresses did that.”
Carreira came to McKinnon’s designs through Glenn, who skated her short program to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” wearing a McKinnon design based on the 1989 music video. After admiring McKinnon’s designs, Carreira talked it over with Glenn at an early season competition in Oberstdorf, Germany.
“She said Lisa was super easy to work with,” Carreira said. “The dresses fit perfectly.”
McKinnon designs from her studio, which occupies the first floor of her apartment in West Hollywood. There, McKinnon and her team watch their dresses take the runway in Milan. Except the runway is made of ice and the skaters will do much more than walk.
Los Angeles city officials may be empowered to remove homeless encampments from hillside areas at severe risk of fire, even without the property owner’s permission, under a proposal that the City Council moved forward on Tuesday.
The proposal would allow the city to remove hazardous materials, including homeless encampments, from private property in hillside areas in “Very High Fire Severity Zones,” including in the Santa Monica and Verdugo Mountains.
By an 11-3 vote, the council directed the city attorney to draft changes to the municipal code, which the council will then vote on at a later date.
“Prevention [of fires] is the most cost-effective tool we have,” said Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who sponsored the proposal. “When we are in imminent threat of wildfires, especially as it relates to or is exacerbated by these types of encampments, we have a duty to act.”
Rubbish fires, many related to homeless encampments, have skyrocketed over the last several years, according to Los Angeles Fire Department data. Rodriguez said there have been five wildfires in her northeast San Fernando Valley district since she took office in 2017, though none was caused by an encampment.
Between 2018 and 2024, about 33% of all fires in the city, and more than 40% of rubbish fires, involved homeless Angelenos, according to the LAFD.
Rodriguez said the city is often left flat-footed when encampments pop up on hillsides and property owners don’t help address the issue.
“If a private property owner is not responsive, it puts the rest of the hillside community under threat,” Rodriguez said in an interview.
Rodriguez’s motion said it’s often difficult for city departments, including police and fire, to get permission from property owners to enter.
“It can take weeks to determine property ownership and to obtain the necessary signoffs from property owners to access the property, causing unnecessary delays and increasing the risk for a serious fire and threats to public safety,” the motion reads.
Some council members argued that while they agreed with the intent of the proposal, some details needed to be addressed.
Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez — who voted against the proposal — said he was concerned that homeless people would end up getting shuffled around the city.
“What I don’t want to see is this being used as a tool to push homeless folks from one side of the street to the other side of the street,” he said before casting his vote.
Soto-Martínez said he wouldn’t vote for the proposal until the city developed a definition of what a fire hazard is.
Councilmember Ysabel Jurado also voted against the proposal, saying she wanted the council to do more research before changing the municipal code.
Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez was the third “no” vote.
Nithya Raman began her political career by defeating a well-funded incumbent with deep ties to the Democratic Party establishment.
Raman, an urban planner who was running to shake up the status quo, became the first person to oust a sitting councilmember in 17 years, stunning the Los Angeles political establishment with her defeat of David Ryu in 2020.
Now, with her surprise, last-minute entry into the mayor’s race, the 44-year-old Silver Lake resident is hoping to defeat another incumbent, Karen Bass, by expanding on the formula that led to her first upset victory.
“I was an outsider when I first ran, and I think I’ll be an outsider in this race,” Raman said after filing her candidate paperwork on Feb. 7, hours before the deadline.
But after six years at City Hall, Raman is no longer an outsider. She has her own record, which is in many ways intertwined with the mayor’s, particularly on homelessness, an issue the onetime allies have worked closely together to remedy.
As a City Council member, Raman, whose previous campaigns were backed by Democratic Socialists of America Los Angeles, has sometimes walked a political tightrope, exasperating her progressive base on issues like policing. Last week, she said that the LAPD must not shrink further — a substantial evolution from her “defund the police” declaration during her first run for council.
She has also frustrated some on the left by calling for changes to the city’s “mansion tax,” which she backed in 2022 but which she now says is getting in the way of much-needed development.
Raman shook up a mayoral race that was devoid of high-powered challengers after former L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner dropped out and L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and billionaire developer Rick Caruso decided not to run.
“Nithya has shown that she can get votes. She’s going to be competitive,” said Bill Carrick, a longtime Democratic political consultant who worked on campaigns for former Mayors Eric Garcetti, James Hahn and Richard Riordan.
But her late entry will make it more difficult to get endorsements and raise money. With three months before ballots are mailed for the June 2 primary, she will have to work at double speed to build a campaign infrastructure and tap into bases that have helped her win before, from Hollywood supporters to DSA members and pro-housing advocates from the YIMBY — Yes in My Backyard — movement.
She has already missed DSA’s endorsement season. And last week, nine of her 14 City Council colleagues reiterated their endorsements of Bass, including another progressive council member, Hugo Soto-Martínez, who said he was “caught off-guard” by Raman’s “last-minute maneuver.”
Raman, who had also endorsed Bass, will have to combat hard feelings among some L.A. politicos who feel that her entry into the race is a betrayal of a mayor who helped her win reelection in 2024.
Raman has said that her decision to run was driven in part by her frustration with city leaders’ inability to get the basics right, such as fixing streetlights and paving streets.
Since launching her campaign, Raman has also joined a chorus of Angelenos criticizing Bass’ handling of the catastrophic Palisades fire, saying the city must be better prepared for major emergencies.
As the dust settles on her unexpected candidacy, political observers are assessing Raman’s prospects — both her strengths and the obstacles that stand between her and the mayor’s office.
Bass campaign spokesperson Douglas Herman declined to comment. A Raman campaign spokesperson, Jeff Millman, also declined to comment.
To win, Ryu said, Raman must tap into the strengths that helped propel her to victory in the past, including her prowess with social media.
“She couldn’t speak in front of crowds at the beginning. She was super nervous,” Ryu said. “But oh my God, her social media team, the production value of her videos. It’s a science.”
Raman’s 2020 campaign will be hard to replicate. That year, the council race focused not just on local policy but also on national issues such as #MeToo and the police murder of George Floyd, Ryu said. Big-name politicians weighed in, with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsing Raman and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsing Ryu.
The most important difference, Ryu said, is that Raman can no longer plausibly position herself as an outsider.
“Now there’s a record. It’s easy when you’re the activist fighting the system. But when you’re in there, you realize it’s a zero-sum game,” he said. “Do you want to trim trees and fix potholes or build housing? Sometimes that is the brutal reality.”
In the coming months, Raman will have to reach beyond her district, which stretches from Silver Lake to Reseda, introducing herself and her record to voters across the city. She began a media blitz in her first week as a candidate, doing interviews with NBC4, KNX News and The Times.
Her main goal should be to make it to the November runoff, said Mike Trujillo, a Democratic political consultant.
If no candidate among the roughly 40 running for mayor wins more than 50% of the vote in the June 2 primary, the top two finishers will move to the runoff.
A runoff would allow Raman a fresh start, with each candidate starting a new round of fundraising and pitching themselves to voters in a one-on-one contest.
“If it’s Nithya and Mayor Bass, they would both start at zero,” Trujillo said. “For a challenger, that is a godsend.”
That leaves political watchers doing the math of how the mayor and the councilmember could get to the runoff, and which candidates might block their way.
After Bass and Raman, the three biggest figures in the race are Spencer Pratt, Rae Huang and Adam Miller.
Pratt is a registered Republican whose house burned down in the Palisades fire. He has been sharply critical of the mayor’s handling of the fire and has gained traction with national Republicans, including allies of President Trump.
Of the more than 2 million registered voters in the city of Los Angeles, just under 15% were Republicans as of December 2025.
Mike Murphy, a Republican political consultant, thinks Pratt could get 19% to 21% of the vote, with a ceiling in the mid to high 20s.
“Not liking Karen does not make you a Republican,” Murphy said.
On the other side of the spectrum, community organizer Rae Huang has been running an unabashedly leftist campaign, calling for free buses and the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Huang has not been endorsed by DSA’s Los Angeles chapter, but she is a member of the organization.
In 2022, leftist Gina Viola won nearly 7% of the vote in the primary.
Trujillo, the Democratic consultant, said the other wild card is Adam Miller, the tech entrepreneur who has waded into the fight against homelessness. Miller could spend a significant amount of his own fortune in the race — as Caruso did against Bass in 2022.
If Pratt and Huang combine to take 25% and Miller can take somewhere in the 20% range, then Raman and Bass would have to worry about not making the runoff.
“Suddenly, you have a three-way jump ball,” Trujillo said.
Despite having more name recognition than some of her opponents, Raman will need to raise significant funds in a short time.
“My hope is that money will flow,” said Dave Rand, a land use attorney active on housing issues who supports Raman.
Rand said that developers and people in the YIMBY movement will support Raman, who has been a strong advocate for building more housing in Los Angeles.
Mott Smith, a developer and Raman supporter, said he believes fellow developers who know Raman will “gladly” contribute to her campaign.
Smith said he is concerned about Angelenos associating Raman with DSA, which could turn off more moderate voters.
“She will win if Los Angeles gets to know the pragmatic, solutions-oriented Nithya, as opposed to the cartoon image that one paints when they hear she is the latest of the DSA candidates to run for office here,” he said.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in an interview Monday that she does not want embattled mogul Casey Wasserman running the 2028 Summer Games.
Bass told CNN’s Dana Bass that it was “unfortunate” that the organizers of the Los Angeles Olympics are supporting Wasserman amid revelations that he exchanged flirty emails with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell two decades ago.
Bass initially declined to take a position on the drama surrounding Wasserman, saying two weeks ago that it was up to the board of the LA28 Olympics — the nonprofit behind the Games — to decide whether to keep him.
But Monday, Bass offered a new take on Wasserman’s fate.
“My opinion is that he should step down,” Bass said. “That’s not the opinion of the board.”
She said that “we need to look at the leadership” of LA28 and that her job is to make sure that the city is “completely prepared” for the Games.
Wasserman has previously apologized for his correspondence with Maxwell and expressed regret for having any association with both her and Jeffrey Epstein. The exchanges took place before Maxwell’s crimes became known and before she was sentenced to prison for luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by financier Epstein.
Wasserman announced last week that he would sell his sports and entertainment company because of backlash over the email exchanges.
The executive committee of the LA28 board announced Wednesday that it reviewed the mogul’s past conduct and determined that based on the facts and his “strong leadership” of the Games, he should continue to serve as chair of LA28.
The LA28 executive committee — a subset of its broader, 35-member board — said it took “allegations of misconduct seriously.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, carrying the Olympic flag, LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman, front right, and Team USA Olympians skateboarder Tate Carew, second from left, diver Delaney Schnell, rear right, and volleyball player Micah Ma’a, top right, arrive in Los Angeles on Aug. 12, 2024.
(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)
It met Wednesday after hiring outside counsel O’Melveny & Myers LLP to assist reviewing Wasserman’s interactions with Epstein and Maxwell. Wasserman, it said, fully cooperated with the review.
L.A.’s Olympic leaders have yet to reveal who is on the committee. Bass’ office last week said her appointees on the executive committee include entertainment attorney Matt Johnson, real estate developer Jaime Lee and union leader Yvonne Wheeler.
At least 10 L.A.-area politicians, including a third of the 15-member Los Angeles City Council, have called on Wasserman to resign from leading the Olympics, with many arguing the exchanges are a distraction.
City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who is challenging Bass in the upcoming mayor’s race is among those calling for Wasserman to step away. Raman previously worked at a women’s rights organization formed in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement before becoming a council member.
Even before revelations about the emails, there were tensions between Wasserman and some Los Angeles politicians concerned that financial shortfalls in staging the $7-billion Summer Games will need to be covered by local taxpayers.
The relationship between the city and LA28 was further strained when the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, published allegations in 2024 that Wasserman was a “serial cheater” who’d carried on affairs with young female staff members. Wasserman, who separated from his wife, Laura, in 2021, has denied the allegations.
Former Mayor Eric Garcetti picked Wasserman, a close friend, more than a decade ago to run the Olympics.
The world’s best basketball players are in the Los Angeles area this weekend for NBA All-Star weekend. It is first time the annual midseason festival is being held at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, the recently-opened home of the Clippers. Festivities started Friday and included the celebrity all-star game, during which one team of celebrities was coached by NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo and the other was coached by actor Anthony Anderson. Team Giannis got the win 65-58, led by an MVP performance from “How to Get Away with Murder” star Rome Flynn. The dunk contest, three-point contest and skills challenge were showcased on Saturday. This year’s dunk contest participants included Carter Bryant of the Spurs, Jaxson Hayes of the Lakers, Keshad Johnson of the Heat and Jase Richardson of the Magic. The three-point contest featured eight players, including five All-Stars. The Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard, who isn’t playing this season while recovering from a torn Achilles, managed to win the three-point contest.
Fans cheer are illuminated by Intuit Dome lights as they cheer during all-star festivities Saturday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
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1.The Spurs’ Carter Bryant moves the ball between his legs in midair before dunking during the all-star dunk contest on Saturday.(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)2.Dodgers star Mookie Betts is welcomed to the court during the celebrity all-star game by the Clippers cheerleaders at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Friday.(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)3.Celebrity Keegan-Michael Key laughs with teammates during the all-star celebrity game at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Friday.(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Team Vince Carter celebrates as Philadelphia 76ers guard VJ Edgecombe wins the Rising Stars game most valuable player honors Friday at the Intuit Dome.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
Smoke fills and lights are deployed during the NBA All-Star events Saturday at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
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1.Magic guard Jase Richardson completes a reverse dunk during NBA All-Star dunk contest Saturday at the Intuit Dome.(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)2.Pelicans guard Jeremiah Fears (0) rises up for a lay up while being guarded by Wizards guard Kyshawn George (18) during the final of the NBA rising stars game at Intuit Dome on Friday.(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)3.Lakers forward Jaxson Hayes throws up peace signs as he introduced before the NBA all-star dunk contest Saturday at the Intuit Dome.(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
The Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard competes in the NBA All-Star three point contest on Saturday at the Intuit Dome.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Actor Rome Flynn holds up a trophy and smiles after winning NBA All-Star celebrity game MVP honors at the Kia Forum Friday.
As a child, I spent nearly every weekend with my best friend shooting hoops and jumping fences throughout Hollywood.
It was always amusing seeing tourists — especially foreigners — line up around buildings and outside nightclubs and lounges that held no meaning to me, at the time.
These monuments I ignored as a youngster became the must-see places of my teenage years and early 20s.
It was at the Viper Room where a 20-year-old me was tossed out of line trying to crash the same venue where Pearl Jam had played.
I was first scandalized by the price of a drink for a date’s $10 cocktail at the Troubadour in West Hollywood (I think I was making $6.50 an hour at the time). But I had to visit one of Jim Morrison’s favorite haunts.
It was fun to see favorites, but more importantly, to read about new places and legends.
Hopefully, there’s a spot that intrigues you. Let’s take a look at a few selections.
Capitol Records (Hollywood)
The most famous tower in all of music was never overtly intended to look like a stack of LPs and a stylus needle.
“The building was not designed as a cartoon or a giggle. To have it trivialized with the stack-of-records myth is annoying and dismaying,” architect Louis Naidorf has said of his Capitol Records Building. “There’s not a thing on the building that doesn’t have a solid purpose to it.”
That was no obstacle for it becoming emblematic of both Los Angeles and the record business. It’s still home to one of the most renowned recording studios on Earth, and its silhouette remains a Hollywood icon and a symbol of Los Angeles on par with the Hollywood sign nearby.
(Ken Hively/Los Angeles Times)
Elliott Smith Wall (Silver Lake)
The beloved singer-songwriter Elliott Smith posed at the swooping mural outside Solutions speaker repair in Silver Lake for the cover of his LP “Figure 8” in 2000.
After he died by suicide in 2003, the wall became an unofficial memorial for Smith, where fans left touching notes, song lyrics and nips of liquors mentioned in his songs.
While the wall has been cut out in spots to make room for various restaurants — and it’s often covered in more flagrant tagging — it’s still a living connection to one of the city’s most cherished voices.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Chaplin Studio (Hollywood)
John Mayer calls it “adult day care”: the historic recording studio behind the arched gates on La Brea Avenue where famous musicians have been keeping themselves — and one another — creatively occupied since the mid-1960s.
Known for decades as Henson Studios — and as A&M Studios before that — the 3-acre complex in the heart of Hollywood has played host to the creation of some of music’s most celebrated records, among them Carole King’s “Tapestry,” Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” Guns N’ Roses’ “Use Your Illusion” and D’Angelo’s “Black Messiah.”
Charlie Chaplin, who was born in London, began building the lot in 1917 in a white-and-brown English Tudor style; he went on to direct some of his best-known films, including “Modern Times” and “The Great Dictator,” on the property.
The Lighthouse Cafe (Hermosa Beach)
The Lighthouse Cafe might seem familiar from its cameo in the Oscar-winning movie “La La Land,” but this jazz cafe was once instrumental in shaping the West Coast jazz scene.
The beachside spot first opened as a restaurant in 1934 and was changed into a bar by the 1940s. It first started to play jazz in 1949 when the owner let bassist Howard Rumsey host a recurring jam session. The jams quickly began to draw both a vivacious crowd of listeners and a core group of budding jazz musicians.
Over the years, musicians like Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis and Max Roach all made regular appearances at the Lighthouse. Today, the venue still hosts jazz brunches every Sunday and other musical gigs throughout the week.
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The way Sheila E. remembers it, she received her first call about a gig as a working Los Angeles musician as she was busy unpacking the moving truck with which she’d just moved to L.A.
“‘Can you come do a session?’ — that type of thing,” the Oakland native recalls with a laugh. “It was pretty awesome.”
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
This was 1980 or ’81, she reckons, just after she’d come off the road playing percussion for the jazz star George Duke; by 1984, she’d become a star herself with the pop hit “The Glamorous Life,” which she cut with her mentor Prince and which went to No. 7 on Billboard’s Hot 100.
Over the decades that followed, Sheila E. went on to record or perform with everyone from Ringo Starr to Beyoncé. Yet her latest projects look back to her earliest days playing Latin jazz with her father, fellow percussionist Pete Escovedo: “Bailar” is a salsa album with guest vocal spots by the likes of Rubén Blades and Gloria Estefan, while an accompanying instrumental disc features appearances by players such as bassist Marcus Miller and trumpeter Chris Botti.
Sheila E. will tour Europe in April. Here, she runs down her routine for a welcome day off at home in L.A.
10 a.m.: Parents in the pews
I would get up around 7:30 or 8, and the first thing I’ll do is go to church. My church is called Believe L.A., and it’s in Calabasas. My pastor is Aaron Lindsey, who’s an incredible gospel producer who’s won many Grammys. The band is always on point, and it feeds my soul — it’s what I need as part of my food. You just walk out so happy. I mean, I walk in happy most of the time. But you walk out filled with love and peace. It’s a joyful time, especially when I get to bring my parents with me. Still having them around is a huge blessing. They just celebrated their 69th anniversary. That’s really rare.
Noon: No juice required
After church we’ll go to brunch at Leo & Lilyin Woodland Hills. Sometimes I’ll order the breakfast, which is two eggs and turkey bacon and potatoes. But sometimes that’s a little bit too heavy, so I’ll get the orzo salad, which is really good. I might have an espresso, or I might have a glass of Champagne. I don’t like mimosas — just give it to me straight.
1:30 p.m.: Retail therapy
My parents love driving down Ventura Boulevard. We’ll stop at some places and go window shopping, or maybe we’ll go to the Topanga Westfield mall. And when we finish at the mall, I have to go to Costco. The Costco run is really just for my dog — I have to get all her food. I get turkey and vegetables, and I cook all that and pre-make her meals for two weeks so I don’t have to deal with it. I can just open it, warm it up and feed her. She’s a mixed pit rescue, and her name is Emma. I got her when she was 5 months old in Oakland while we were performing, and now she’s 12. She’s a sweetheart.
4 p.m.: Family secret
We’re sports fans, so if it’s football season, we have to hurry up and get back to my house for the game. We’re a 49ers family. I would say the Raiders because we’re from Oakland, but we’ve always been 49ers fans. I mean, when it’s time to root for the Raiders, we do. We don’t hate like the Raiders hate on us. I’ll cook food depending on who all’s coming over — my nephews and various friends and so on. I grill a lot, so I’ll do steaks or lamb chops or chicken wings. My mom loves making potato salad. I can’t tell you the recipe — it’s a secret. It’s actually her mother’s potato salad, and they’re Creoles. Those Creoles don’t mess around with their potato salad.
8:30 p.m.: Games after the game
I never tell anyone to leave. Sometimes people spend the night — it’s an open house. If we’re not too tired, we’ll start playing board games or card games. Don’t get us started on poker.
11:30 p.m.: Steam time
Before bed I’ll get into the sauna just to relax and do a little sweating. Then I go take a shower with jazz or spa music playing. Sometimes I’ll do a little stretching before I get in the bed. I usually don’t read before I go to sleep. My go-to is HGTV — I set it for an hour and a half, and I’m out.
When we decided to rank the best Los Angeles movies, we thought 101 titles would be plenty: room enough for undeniable classics, personal obsessions, even a guilty pleasure or two. Of course it wasn’t. You let us know, endorsing many of our selections but insisting we’d missed a few.
Sifting through your responses, 14 films had the most passionate advocacy. You’ll find them listed below in alphabetical order. Together they make up a perfectly valid alternate list, one that captures the glamour and romance of L.A. — as well as its lovable plasticity — just as well.
‘American Gigolo’ (1980)
Richard Gere and Lauren Hutton in the movie “American Gigolo.”
(Paramount Pictures)
Reader Cindy Simon from Pacific Palisades shares an anecdote: “I had just moved to L.A. from New Jersey. My friend and I — young mothers — ducked out of our baby-centered life to see ‘American Gigolo.’ The first scene was the incredible Richard Gere smoothly walking outside a Malibu beach house. My friend and I literally gasped!”
There is so much to recommend to this movie — an excellent choice and a regrettable omission on our part. Not only is it responsible for introducing Blondie’s “Call Me” to the world, it does so via an opening credits scene of Pacific Coast Highway cruising that all but defined L.A. hedonism as the ’70s became the ’80s.
‘The Anniversary Party’ (2001)
Jennifer Beals, Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh in the movie “The Anniversary Party.”
(Peter Sorel / Fine Line Features)
“A dysfunctional showbiz marriage in the Hollywood Hills, a party with a lost dog, what’s not to love?” asks reader Jim Ehlers of Pasadena. “It’s so iconically L.A. — the sexy mid-century modern house. When do you get Parker Posey, Gwyneth Paltrow and John C. Reilly in the same cast?”
That spectacular glass-walled home in the Hollywood Hills is the Schaarman House, designed by architect Richard Neutra. But fans know the movie for other reasons: Phoebe Cates came out of retirement to act with her “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh. Today’s audiences ogle a young Alan Cumming.
‘City of Gold’ (2015)
Jonathan Gold in the documentary “City of Gold.”
(Sundance Selects)
Junko Garrett of Eagle Rock says this documentary “captures the essence of L.A.: diversity and vibrancy, amazing food and people. I was a big fan of Jonathan Gold’s articles and looked forward them every week.”
So did we. Gold’s omnivorous enthusiasm remains a guiding light for so many Angelenos and his Pulitzer-winning food writing is easy to find. We’re still going to several of the film’s featured restaurants: Jitlada, Chengdu Taste, Guelaguetza.
‘Crash’ (2004)
Thandiwe Newton and Matt Dillon in the movie “Crash.”
(Lorey Sebastian / Lions Gate Films)
More than a few of our readers bemoaned the omission of an Oscar-winning best picture like “Crash.” Says Jim Rodriguez of Torrance, it “captures the quintessential reality that, in L.A., all the levels of social strata, at one time or another, exist side by side on our roads and freeways, separated by a few feet, metal and glass. And yet, still so isolated from each other.”
And Ian Barnard of DTLA calls the movie “a wonderful antidote to Hollywood’s whitewashed and unrealistically glamorous depictions of L.A.” It shows the city “in all its diversity, prejudices, contradictions, inequities and generosities.”
To us, “Crash” will always be the movie that stole “Brokeback Mountain’s” glory. But let’s be generous and note that Carney’s Restaurant on Ventura gets a nice moment.
‘The Day of the Locust’ (1975)
William Atherton, left, and Donald Sutherland in the movie “The Day of the Locust.”
(Paramount Pictures / Getty Images)
The Nathanael West novel is, of course, essential, so where’s the movie? Reader Andrea Hales, a San Diegan who lived in Los Angeles for 15 years, calls the film version “eerie and fascinating, capturing the essence of Los Angeles: the city of hopes and dreams, fires and riots. The setting is 1930s Hollywood but it could be today.”
One thing is certain: As a one-stop shop for classic L.A. locations, you can’t do much better than “The Day of the Locust,” which takes us to the Ennis House, Paramount’s iconic Bronson Gate and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
‘Earthquake’ (1974)
A scene from the movie “Earthquake.”
(United Archives / Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
Reader Dina Schweim, writing from Winston-Salem, N.C. (fine, we’ll allow an outsider’s perspective in this case), expressed her disappointment to not find “Earthquake” on our list: “There are few things I love more than a good disaster movie that obliterates L.A. to balance out fanciful and the corrupt — and yes, I was pleased to see that ‘Volcano’ made the list but ‘Earthquake’ really does capture the raw core of what destruction in L.A. can look like.”
The film was mostly shot on the Universal backlot and we wish it had more of an authentic L.A. feel. Still, if you harbor satisfaction at seeing the city get trashed (and who doesn’t on occasion?), we’re not getting in the way of that rumble.
‘(500) Days of Summer’ (2009)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel in the movie “(500) Days of Summer.”
(Chuck Zlotnick / Fox Searchlight Pictures)
You like this one. Really like it. “It celebrates and beautifies the city in a way few other movies ever have,” says Anthony Cavalluzzi of Yorba Linda, adding, “Its absence completely invalidates the list.” And Michael Backauskas of Beverlywood writes, “I went to see it five times and I never do that.”
Any film about an aspiring architect is going to make the most of its locations. If you mourn the lovers’ bench at Angel’s Knoll Park, know that it became immortal because of this film.
‘Get Shorty (1995)’
John Travolta and Rene Russo in the movie “Get Shorty.”
(MGM)
This comedy’s dialogue was quoted in our comments twice. For reader Sean Dickerson of Beverly Grove, the movie gives us “maybe the greatest line about our city: ‘What is the point of living in L.A. if you’re not in the movie business?’” And for David Hughes of Sierra Madre, the moment comes when John Travolta’s gangster-turned-Hollywood-wannabe is asked what he knows about the movie business: “I don’t think the producer has to know much.”
There is an unforced charm to the way Travolta’s character falls in love with Hollywood — he’s already a movie geek but other elements fall into place for him. Eagle-eyed viewers will recognize both the Aero and Vista theaters.
‘Grand Canyon’ (1991)
Kevin Kline and Danny Glover in the movie “Grand Canyon.”
(20th Century Fox)
Paul Krekorian of Encino calls this one “a brilliant and underrated study of life in Los Angeles. In a deeply personal way it lays bare so many of the societal challenges Los Angeles always struggles with — economic segregation, racial division and injustice, violence, the disparity between Hollywood-created facades and the reality of ordinary life, and the struggle to find meaning and substance.”
Its writer and director, Lawrence Kasdan, was also responsible for “The Big Chill,” a similar portrait of generational flux, and there are quiet moments in “Grand Canyon” that are some of his best. It also starts with a Lakers game.
‘Knight of Cups’ (2015)
Christian Bale in the movie “Knight of Cups.”
(Melinda Sue Gordon / Broad Green Pictures)
Reader Peter Turman of Brentwood sees depth in Terrence Malick’s oblique portrait of a distracted screenwriter (Christian Bale) searching for grace but finding a lot of sex, calling it “a fever-dream meditation on Los Angeles and Hollywood, with its promises, chimeras, illusions, seductions, nightmares and disappointments, told by a great filmmaker who knows of what he speaks.”
Malick shot all over Los Angeles but his moments on the Warner Bros. lot, the enormous numbered studio buildings looming, may be his most beautiful.
‘Lost Highway’ (1997)
Patricia Arquette and Balthazar Getty in the movie “Lost Highway.”
(October Films)
Even with two other David Lynch films placing on our list, that wasn’t enough for Clark Leazier of West Hollywood, who calls the L.A. vistas and landmarks in “Lost Highway” “the most burned in my brain — particularly the Firestone Auto Shop that is now the popular All Season Brewing in Mid City. Also it captures Southern California nighttime driving in a messed up yet accurate way.”
Lynch obsessives know “Lost Highway” to be the one narrative film in which you can see the director’s own house, part of his compound on Senalda Drive in the Hollywood Hills, used as the setting for his main characters’ mansion.
‘Spanglish’ (2004)
Paz Vega, left, Téa Leoni and Adam Sandler in the movie “Spanglish.”
(Bob Marshak / Columbia Pictures )
Says Rochelle Lapides of Ventura County, “It tells one of the essential stories of our Los Angeles-bound Mexican immigrant population and the cultural challenges they face. Also, in my opinion, it’s one of Adam Sandler’s best dramatic roles.”
Agreed, especially on Sandler, whose turn in “Punch-Drunk Love” so impressed director James L. Brooks, he decided to cast him here. The film’s romantic patio scene is filmed at the Beverly Hills restaurant Il Cielo.
‘Star 80’ (1983)
Mariel Hemingway, left, Eric Roberts and Cliff Robertson in the movie “Star 80.”
(Paramount Pictures / Getty Images)
“Talk about dying for the dream,” writes William Mariano of Escondido. “It was filmed in the same spot she died.” He means Playboy model Dorothy Stratten, murdered by her sicko husband Paul Snider in a Rancho Park home that was actually used by the movie’s production while filming their dramatization of the crime.
“Star 80” does crystallize the ominous side of the L.A. myth, as a place where you’ll arrive, find success (and exploitation) and be destroyed in the process. Bob Fosse completists need to see it; it was the “All That Jazz” director’s final movie.
‘Tequila Sunrise’ (1988)
Kurt Russell, Michelle Pfeiffer and Mel Gibson in the movie “Tequila Sunrise.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
Jean Clark of Manhattan Beach celebrates this thriller’s cast, cinematography and plot, which she sums up as “classic good guy vs. bad guy and the woman who loves them both, set against the dark underbelly of glamorous L.A. and its golden beaches back in the 1980s.”
And Jean would know — the movie was largely shot around Manhattan Beach. But don’t go looking for Michelle Pfeiffer’s restaurant Vallenari’s. It was entirely constructed on a soundstage.
It’s one thing most everyone agrees on: federal funding cuts have left the Los Angeles County health system teetering toward financial collapse.
But the supervisors’ chosen antidote — a half-cent sales tax to replenish county coffers — is being condemned by a slew of cities as its own form of financial catastrophe.
“I heard from every city in my district,” said Kathryn Barger, the only supervisor who voted against putting the sales tax on the June ballot.
The resounding reaction? “Absolutely not,” she says.
“People are fatigued,” Barger said. “I’m not convinced that it’s going to pass.”
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Observers wouldn’t have sensed that fatigue from the rowdy crowd of supporters that filled the board meeting Tuesday, along with seldom-used overflow rooms. The supervisors voted 4-1 at the meeting to put the tax on the ballot.
“There really are no other viable and timely options,” said Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who introduced the measure along with Supervisor Hilda Solis. “Trust me, I looked high and low.”
The goal, supervisors say, is to generate $1 billion per year to backfill the dwindling budgets of local hospitals and clinics battered by federal funding cuts.
The county’s already bracing for impact. The Department of Public Health announced Friday it would shutter seven clinics. Officials say it’s just the beginning, with the county poised to lose more than $2 billion in funding for health services over the next three years. Hospitals could be down the road, they warn.
But many cities, some of which could have local sales tax hit more than 11%, are revolting on the plan.
“I have been getting calls and texts and letters like honestly I have not gotten in a long time,” Supervisor Janice Hahn told the audience as a message from Jeff Wood — the vice mayor of Lakewood — pinged on her phone. “They are really diving in on this one.”
In a series of opposition letters, the cities unleashed a torrent of criticism. Norwalk called the tax “rushed.” Palmdale said it had “significant flaws.” Glendale found it “deeply troubling and fundamentally unfair.”
Some bristled at the cost to consumers. Palmdale and Lancaster — some of the poorest cities in the county — could wind up with some of the highest sales tax rates in the state if the measure passes.
Some cities say the bigger issue is they don’t trust the county. They point to its checkered history of pushing ballot measures that don’t live up to their promises.
Measure B, a special parcel tax, was passed in 2002 to fund the county’s trauma center network. An audit more than a decade later found the county couldn’t prove it used the money for emergency medical services.
Measure H, the homelessness services tax measure, was passed in 2017 as a temporary tax. Voters agreed in 2024 to make the tax permanent and to double the rate — though some cities insist they’ve never gotten their fair share of the funds.
“It’s a historical issue,” said Glendora mayor David Fredendall, whose city opposes the sales tax. “We don’t trust it.”
The county decided to put the sales tax on the ballot as a general tax, meaning the money goes into the general fund. Legally, supervisors could use the money for whatever services they desire.
“They say ‘No, this is our plan’, but we’re going to expand from five to nine supervisors over the next few years before this tax expires,” said Marcel Rodarte, the head of the California Contract Cities Assn., a coalition of cities inside the county. “They may say we need to use these funds for something else.”
A general tax also is easier to pass, since it needs only a majority vote. Special taxes — levies earmarked for a specific purpose — need two-thirds of the vote.
The measure also asks voters to approve the creation of an oversight group that would monitor where the money goes. The supervisors also voted on a spending plan for the tax money, which would dedicate the largest portion of funds for uninsured residents over the next five years.
Some opponents predict the tax will stick around longer than advertised.
“A temporary tax is like Bigfoot,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., a group that advocates for lower taxes. “It exists in fantasy.”
State of play
— FRIENDLY FIRE: Three hours before the filing deadline, L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Ramanjumped into the race for mayor, challenging her former ally Karen Bass. Her candidacy will be Bass’ most serious threat.
— DEFUND DETOUR: Shortly after, Raman staked out her position on cops, saying she doesn’t want the LAPD to lose more police. Raman called for department downsizing when she first ran for city council in 2020.
— LOYAL LABOR: The head of the AFL-CIO, the county’s powerful labor federation, blasted Raman as an “opportunist.” Federation president Yvonne Wheeler said her organization will “use every tool” at its disposal to get Bass reelected.
— PETITION PUSH: Scores of candidates for L.A. city offices picked up their petitions Feb. 7, launching their effort to collect the signatures they need to qualify for the ballot. The first to turn in a petition was Councilmember Traci Park, who is facing two challengers while running for reelection in a coastal district.
— EYES ON ICE: Los Angeles police officers must turn on their body cameras if they’re at the scene of federal immigration enforcement operations, according to a new executive directive issued by Bass. LAPD officers also must document the name and badge number of the agents’ on-scene supervisor.
— CONTESTING CLEANUPS: A federal judge ruled this week that the city of L.A. violated the constitutional rights of homeless people by seizing and destroying their personal property during encampment cleanups. Lawyers for the plaintiffs want U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer to issue an injunction requiring the city to give homeless people the opportunity to contest the seizure of their property.
— HOTEL HIKE: Voters in the June 2 election will be asked to hike the city’s tax on nightly hotel stays — increasing it to 16% from 14% — for the next three years. The tax would then drop to 15% in 2029.
— PAYDAY POLITICS: The county is considering a proposal that would remove supervisors’ final decision-making power in contract disputes involving sheriff’s deputies and firefighters. Supporters say it’ll take politics out of labor negotiations while opponents warn of bloated labor costs.
QUICK HITS
Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature homelessness program went to Los Angeles City Council District 13, bringing 50 unhoused Angelenos indoors from an encampment.
On the docket next week: The county’s back to its marathon budget briefings. Tune in Tuesday for presentations from the sheriff, district attorney and probation department.
Stay in touch
That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
Faced with numerous complaints about broken streetlights that have plunged neighborhoods into darkness, two Los Angeles City Council members unveiled a plan Friday to spend $65 million on installing solar-powered lights.
With 1 in 10 streetlights out of service because of disrepair or copper wire theft, Councilmembers Katy Yaroslavsky and Eunisses Hernandez launched an effort to convert at least 12% of the city’s lights to solar power — or about 500 in each council district.
Broken streetlights emerged as an hot-button issue in this year’s election, with council members scrambling to find ways to restore them. Councilmember Nithya Raman, now running against Mayor Karen Bass, cited the broken lights as an example of how city agencies “can’t seem to manage the basics.”
By switching to solar, the streetlights will be less vulnerable to theft, said Yaroslavsky, who represents part of the Westside.
“We can’t keep rebuilding the same vulnerable systems while copper theft continues to knock out lights across Los Angeles,” she said.
Three other council members — Traci Park, Monica Rodriguez and Hugo Soto-Martínez — signed on to the proposal. All five are running for reelection.
Miguel Sangalang, director of the Bureau of Street Lighting, said there are 33,000 open service requests to fix streetlights across L.A., although some may be duplicates. The average time to fix a streetlight is 12 months, he said.
Repair times have increased because of a rise in vandalism, the department’s stagnant budget and a staff of only 185 people to service the city’s 225,000 streetlights, he said.
About 60,000 street lights are eligible to be converted to solar, according to Yaroslavsky.
Council members also are looking to increase the amount the city charges property owners for streetlight maintenance. Yaroslavsky said the assessment has been unchanged since 1996, forcing city leaders to rely on other sources of money to cover the cost.
Last month, Soto-Martínez announced he put $1 million into a streetlight repair team in his district, which stretches from Echo Park to Hollywood and north to Atwater Village. Those workers will focus on repairing broken lights, hardening lights to prevent copper wire theft and clearing the backlog of deferred cases.
On Monday, city crews also began converting 91 streetlights to solar power in Lincoln Heights and Cypress Park. Hernandez tapped $500,000 from her office budget to pay for the work. The shift to solar power should save money, she said, by breaking the cycle of constantly fixing and replacing lights.
“This is going to bring more public safety and more lights to neighborhoods that so desperately need it and that are waiting a long time,” she said.
In recent years, neighborhoods ranging from Hancock Park and Lincoln Heights to Mar Vista and Pico Union have been plagued by copper wire theft that darkens the streets. On the 6th Street Bridge, thieves stole seven miles’ worth of wire.
Yaroslavsky and Park spoke about the problem Friday at a press conference in the driveway of a Mar Vista home. Andrew Marton, the homeowner, pointed to streetlights around the block that have been targeted by thieves.
Many surrounding streets have been dark since shortly after Christmas, Marton said. He has changed his daily routines, trying not to walk his dog late at night and worrying for the safety of his family.
He said he reported the problem to the city and was told it would take 270 days to fix. He then reached out to Park, who contacted the police department, he said.
A couple of neighboring streets had their lights restored, he said, but his street remains dark at night.
Park said she and Yaroslavsky identified $500,000 in discretionary funds to pay for a dedicated repair team to fix streetlights, either by adding solar or by reinforcing the existing copper wire, in their respective Westside districts.
Casey Wasserman, the embattled sports and entertainment mogul who is the face of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, is preparing to sell his talent agency.
In a memo to his staff Friday, Wasserman acknowledged his appearance in a recently released batch of documents related to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his companion, Ghislaine Maxwell, had “become a distraction.”
In his memo, which was reviewed by The Times, Wasserman said he was “heartbroken that my brief contact with them 23 years ago has caused you, this company, and its clients so much hardship over the past days and weeks.”
Representatives for Wasserman did not immediately return for requests for comment.
“I’m deeply sorry that my past personal mistakes have caused you so much discomfort,” Wasserman wrote to his staff. “It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to the clients and partners we represent so vigorously and care so deeply about.”
“I know what I know, and I am following my gut and my values,” Wambach wrote on Instagram. “I will not participate in any business arrangement under his leadership…He should leave, so more people like me don’t have to.”
Wasserman told his staff that Mike Watts, a longtime company executive, would assume day-to-day management of the firm while he begins the process of selling it.
The Wall Street Journal first reported Wasserman’s staff memo.
Wasserman’s grandfather, Lew Wasserman, was a Hollywood titan who built the studio MCA into a powerhouse that acquired Universal Pictures. Casey Wasserman’s sports and talent agency, also built through a series of savvy acquisitions, has about 4,000 employees.
Wasserman plans to stay in his position leading the LA28 Olympic Committee, which has stood by him. In a recent statement, LA28 noted that the racy emails with Maxwell were sent following a humanitarian mission to Africa two decades “before Mr. Wasserman or the public knew of Epstein and Maxwell’s deplorable crimes…This was his single interaction with Epstein.”
“The Executive Committee of the Board has determined that based on these facts, as well as the strong leadership he has exhibited over the past ten years, Mr. Wasserman should continue to lead LA28 and deliver a safe and successful Games,” LA28 concluded.
The messages to Maxwell were part of a massive trove of Epstein-related documents made public by the Department of Justice this month.
In them, Wasserman wrote to Maxwell, who is now serving a lengthy prison sentence for sex trafficking of minors, “I thought we would start at that place that you know of, and then continue the massage concept into your bed … and then again in the morning … not sure if or when we would stop.”
She responded: “Umm — all that rubbing — are you sure you can take it? The thought frankly is leaving me a little breathless. There are a few spots that apparently drive a man wild — I suppose I could practise them on you and you could let me know if they work or not?”
Wasserman released a statement saying: “I deeply regret my correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell which took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light. I never had a personal or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. As is well documented, I went on a humanitarian trip as part of a delegation with the Clinton Foundation in 2002 on the Epstein plane. I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them.”
Seven California Highway Patrol officers who piled atop a man screaming “I can’t breathe” as he died following a drunk driving stop.
All three cases had similar outcomes: charges dropped or reduced to no time behind bars after a plea deal.
After a year in office, a pattern has emerged for L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, who found himself saddled with a number of misconduct and abuse cases against police officers filed by his predecessor, George Gascón.
During his 2024 campaign, Hochman often chastised Gascón for filing cases he claimed wouldn’t hold up before a jury — while also promising to continue bringing prosecutions against police when warranted.
In recent months, Hochman has downgraded or outright dismissed charges in many high-profile cases that Gascón filed. In the two misconduct cases Hochman’s prosecutors have brought to trial, the district attorney’s office failed to win a conviction.
Those outcomes have infuriated the loved ones of victims of police violence, local activists and even former prosecutors, who say Hochman’s backslide on the issue was predictable after he received millions in campaign contributions from police unions.
Greg Apt, a former public defender who served under Gascón as second-in-command of the unit that prosecutes police cases, said he quit last year out of frustration with the new leadership.
“I had concerns that the cases were not going to be treated the same way under Hochman that they were under Gascón, that alleged police wrongdoing would not be given the same level of oversight,” he said.
Hochman has scoffed at the idea that he’s too cozy with cops to hold their feet to the fire, saying his campaign’s war chest reflected bipartisan support that included Democrats who have been critical of police.
The district attorney said he’s made decisions based on what he can actually prove in court, and argued case reviews within the Justice Systems Integrity Division have become even more rigorous under his leadership.
“I’m going to look at the facts and the law of any case. I don’t believe in the spaghetti against the wall approach where you throw the spaghetti against the wall, and see if anything sticks, and let the jury figure it out,” he said. “That would be me abdicating my responsibility.”
Hochman’s supporters argue he has restored balance to an office that was often filing cases against police that were either legally dubious or flat out unwinnable.
Tom Yu, a defense attorney who often represents cops accused of wrongdoing, said Hochman is handling things in a more fair and objective manner.
Former Torrance Police Officers Cody Weldin, center, and Christopher Tomsic, right, pleaded guilty last year in a conspiracy and vandalism case in which they allegedly spray painted a swastika on a car. Attorney Tom Yu, defense for Weldin, is seen listening to the proceedings.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“By and large, he’s not going after the cops. But he didn’t dismiss all the cases either. I’m OK with that,” Yu said. “On a personal level, I think he’s doing a very difficult job in the police cases, because someone is always going to be unhappy with the decisions he made.”
It is difficult to win a guilty verdict for an on-duty shooting, with no such convictions in Los Angeles County since 2000. Laws governing use-of-force give officers great latitude, often protecting them even when they shoot someone who is later found to be unarmed or in situations where video evidence shows no apparent threat.
Hochman questioned why he is being criticized when the California attorney general’s office has reviewed dozens of fatal shootings of unarmed persons throughout the state since 2020 and filed no criminal cases.
“If you bring weak cases and you lose, it undercuts your credibility of being any good at your job,” Hochman said. “It undercuts your credibility in saying that we believe in the facts and the law and bringing righteous cases.”
Hochman brought 15 cases against police officers in 2025, according to documents provided to The Times in response to a public records request, compared with 17 filed by Gascón in his final year in office.
But while Gascón had a strong focus on the kinds of excessive force cases the public was clamoring to see charged when he was elected in 2020, Hochman has more often filed charges for offenses such as fraud and evidence tampering.
Hochman’s recent dismissal of charges against most of the officers involved in the death of Edward Bronstein has drawn outcry from his family and at least one former prosecutor.
Bronstein died after screaming in agony as six California Highway Patrol officers piled on top of him in Altadena in 2020. The officers were trying to get a court-ordered blood draw after Bronstein was pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving.
Video from the scene shows Bronstein arguing with the officers while handcuffed and on his knees.
The officers warn Bronstein they’re going to force him down to get a sample. Right before they do, Bronstein mumbles that he’ll “do it willingly,” but they shove him face down while a seventh officer, Sgt. Michael Little, films the encounter. A minute passes. Then Bronstein’s body goes limp.
Officers can be seen trying to revive Bronstein, calling his name and slapping the side of his head, according to the video. But several minutes elapse before officers attempt to deliver oxygen or CPR. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón announces he will ask a judge to resentence Erik and Lyle Menendez for the killing of their parents in 1989, a decision that could free the brothers.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
In 2023, Gascón filed manslaughter charges against the seven officers, as well as the nurse who carried out the blood draw. But late last year, Hochman dismissed charges against all except Little, whose case was reduced to a misdemeanor, for which he received 12 months of probation. Little is no longer a CHP officer, according to an agency spokesman.
Prosecutors are still pursuing manslaughter charges against the nurse at the scene, Arbi Baghalian. His defense attorney, Joe Weimortz, said Baghalian had no control over the officers’ actions or the decision to pursue the blood draw. Weimortz also said he believed the officers were innocent.
Bronstein’s daughter, Brianna Ortega, 26, said in a recent interview that Hochman’s decision to drop the charges felt like a betrayal.
“It just seems like because they’re cops … they must get away with it,” Ortega said. “How are you going to put the blame on one person when all of you are grown men who know better? You have common sense. You have human decency. He is literally telling you he can’t breathe.”
The Los Angeles County coroner’s office could not conclusively determine Bronstein’s cause of death but attributed it to “acute methamphetamine intoxication during restraint by law enforcement.” Bronstein’s family was paid $24 million to settle a wrongful death suit in the case.
Hochman said his office reviewed depositions from the civil case — which he said Gascón did not do before filing a case — and did not believe he could win a manslaughter case because it was impossible to say any officer specifically caused Bronstein’s death. Hochman said the officers had no intent to harm the man and were following orders of a superior officer.
“We looked at each officer, what they knew, what their state of mind was at the time. Understanding that there was both a sergeant there and a nurse, who was in charge of not only taking the blood draw but obviously doing it in a safe manner, and then deciding whether or not we could meet the legal standard of involuntary manslaughter for each officer,” he said.
Edward Tapia, the father of Edward Bronstein, speaks at a news conference about his son, a 38-year-old Burbank man who died while being restrained by California Highway Patrol officers in 2020 after refusing to have his blood drawn after a traffic stop. The family received a $24-million civil rights settlement in 2023 after filing a lawsuit against the state.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Bronstein’s killing was one of three cases in which Hochman assigned new prosecutors in the months before a trial started or a plea deal was reached. Aside from the Bronstein case, the others ended in an acquittal or a hung jury. All three prosecutors who were removed from the unit that handles police misconduct cases had either been appointed by Gascón or had a political connection to the former district attorney.
“When somebody’s lived that case for years, and then you take them off, it suggests that you’re less than serious about winning that case,” said Apt, the former prosecutor on the Bronstein case.
Hochman said he was simply bringing in staff with more trial experience on each case, insisting politics had nothing to do with the transfers. One of the cases, which involved allegations of perjury against L.A. County sheriff’s deputies Jonathan Miramontes and Woodrow Kim, ended with a lightning fast acquittal. Records show jurors deliberated less than an hour before coming back with a not guilty verdict.
In the other case, Hochman’s staff came closer to convicting a cop for an on-duty shooting than anyone else has in L.A. County in a quarter-century.
Former Whittier police officers Salvador Murillo, left, and Cynthia Lopez during their arraignment at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles. Murillo was charged in a 2020 shooting that left an unarmed man paralyzed. Murillo’s trial ended with a deadlocked jury in November 2025.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Former Whittier Det. Salvador Murillo stood trial in November for shooting an unarmed man in the back as he fled down an alley in 2023. Nicholas Carrillo ran away on foot from a vehicle stop and was leaping over a fence — unarmed — when Murillo squeezed off four rounds. Two severed Carillo’s spine, paralyzing him.
The jury came back deadlocked, although a majority of the panel was leaning toward a conviction. Hochman said it is likely he will ask prosecutors to take Murillo to trial a second time, though a final decision has not been made.
This year, Hochman will have to weigh in on a pair of politically charged police killings.
The Department of Homeland Security said the off-duty ICE agent was responding to an “active shooter.” Porter’s family has said he was firing a rifle into the air as a celebration to ring in the new year.
Melina Abdullah, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter L.A., was part of a group that met with Hochman about Porter’s killing and other cases last month in South L.A.
She described the encounter as confrontational — and a disaster.
“I don’t know how we can expect any safety and accountability with this man in office,” Abdullah said.
Hochman must also decide how to proceed with the case of Clifford Proctor, a former LAPD officer charged for shooting an unarmed homeless man in the back in 2015.
Proctor left the LAPD in 2017 and was not indicted on murder charges until 2024. Gascón reopened the case in 2021, after prosecutors previously declined to file charges.
Hochman has not said if he intends to take Proctor to trial.
Hochman said that while he knows cases of police violence drive emotional reactions, he has to constrain himself to a cold analysis of the facts in front of him.
Reflecting on his confrontational meeting with Black Lives Matter activists, which centered on his recent move to dismiss charges in the 2018 killing of Christopher Deandre Mitchell by Torrance police officers, Hochman said he can’t pursue cases just because people are upset.
“They couldn’t point out anything in that analysis that they disagreed with,” he said. “Other than the result.”
A day after federal prosecutors announced that the catastrophic Palisades fire was caused by the rekindling of a smaller arson fire days earlier, Los Angeles city officials were in damage control mode.
The ultimate authority on how to handle the deluge of media inquiries was Mayor Karen Bass, according to an internal email reviewed by The Times.
The carefully coordinated approach led by Bass also involved the release of the highly anticipated Palisades fire after-action report, hours after the prosecutors’ announcement and as the Los Angeles Fire Department was facing criticism for not putting out the earlier blaze.
“Any additional interviews with the Fire Chief would likely depend on the Mayor’s guidance,” LAFD spokesperson Capt. Erik Scott wrote in an Oct. 9 email to a Bass aide, then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva and others. “Regarding a press conference, I would be cautious as it could invite a high volume of challenging questions, and this would also be contingent on the Mayor’s direction.”
The behind-the-scenes perspective into the city’s media strategy comes as Bass has denied a story published in The Times last week in which unnamed sources said she directed changes to the after-action report over concerns about legal liabilities. Revisions that downplayed failures by the city and the LAFD in handling the disaster were first revealed in a Times investigation published in December.
In one instance, LAFD officials removed language from the “failures” section saying that the decision not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available crews and engines ahead of a forecast of dangerously high winds “did not align” with the department’s policy and procedures during red flag days.
The final report said that the LAFD “balanced fiscal responsibility with proper preparation for predicted weather.” Elsewhere, it said that the number of engine companies rolled out ahead of the fire “went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix.”
That passage in the “failures” section, which was renamed “primary challenges,” was being revised by LAFD officials up until at least two days before the report was released on Oct. 8, according to emails reviewed by The Times.
“I added Chief Robert’s verbiage to replace CHALLENGES 1 on page 44. I made some other formatting edits,” an LAFD administrative aide wrote in an Oct. 6 email to several people, including an LAFD official named Eric Roberts. Roberts did not respond to an email from The Times requesting comment.
Yusef Robb, an advisor to the mayor, said Thursday that Bass is customarily involved with the decision-making of city departments. She has criticized the LAFD’s pre-deployment decisions and would have no reason to soften the after-action report’s language on that topic, Robb said.
“From Animal Services to the Zoo, the Mayor’s Office is in contact with every city department on issues large and small, and so obviously and appropriately the Mayor’s Office engaged with LAFD about the rollout of the report,” Robb said in an email. “What did not happen is the illogical and false assertion that the Mayor sought to soften critiques in a report that she herself demanded and on issues of which she has been publicly critical for more than a year.”
Scott said Thursday that he did not “have anything further to add beyond what was already shared.”
Two sources with knowledge of Bass’ office said that after reviewing an early draft, the mayor told Villanueva that the report could expose the city to legal liabilities. The sources said Bass wanted key findings about the LAFD’s actions removed or softened before the report was made public.
The sources told The Times that two people close to Bass informed them of the mayor’s role in watering down the report, which was meant to spell out mistakes and to suggest measures to avoid repeating them. One source spoke to both of the people; the other spoke to one of them. The sources requested anonymity to speak frankly about the mayor’s private conversations with Villanueva and others.
Bass last week called the Times story “completely fabricated.”
“There was no cover up on my part,” she said. “There was absolutely no reason or desire that I would want to water down this report.”
She added: “I do not have the technical expertise to make any sort of substantive changes to anything.”
Last summer, LAFD officials formed an internal crisis management team and brought in a public relations firm — paid for by the nonprofit LAFD Foundation — to help shape its messaging about the fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes. The emails reviewed by The Times show that the firm, the Lede Co., had a role in reviewing and suggesting edits to the after-action report.
Other internal emails reviewed by The Times show that Bass met with Villanueva about the after-action report in mid-July.
“The FC had a meeting with the Mayor this afternoon where she discussed the Palisades internal AAR,” Kairi Brown, Villanueva’s chief of staff, wrote on July 17, referring to the fire chief and the after-action report. “She asked for him to put together … answers to other questions.”
Scott’s Oct. 9 email, whose recipients also included at least one member of the LAFD’s crisis management team and the outside public relations consultants, sought guidance on how to manage the “abundance of requests” from news reporters, referencing a shared Google document where all “current inquiries and notes” were compiled.
He suggested a “three-prong approach” to contextualizing the topic of “holdover” fires. The Palisades fire was a holdover from the Jan. 1 Lachman fire, which continued to smolder and burn underground until kicked up by heavy winds on Jan. 7.
Scott said that the team should outline the LAFD’s efforts to extinguish the Lachman fire, define the “holdover phenomenon” and highlight new policies and procedures to prevent it from happening in the future.
LAFD leaders had already been under intense scrutiny for missteps before the Palisades fire, while commanders had insisted that they did everything they could to put the Lachman fire out.
Weeks after the Oct. 8 announcement about the Lachman fire by federal prosecutors, The Times reported that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area on Jan. 2, even though crews warned that the ground was still smoldering. The LAFD also decided not to use thermal imaging technology to detect heat underground.
The author of the after-action report, Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, declined to endorse the final version because of changes that altered his findings and made the report, in his words, “highly unprofessional and inconsistent with our established standards.”
Even with the deletions and changes, the report delivered a harsh critique of the LAFD’s performance during the Palisades fire, pointing to a disorganized response, failures in communication and chiefs who didn’t understand their roles. The report found that top commanders lacked a fundamental knowledge of wildland firefighting tactics, including “basic suppression techniques.”
A paperwork error resulted in the use of only a third of the state-funded resources that were available for pre-positioning in high-risk areas, the report said. And when the fire broke out the morning of Jan. 7, the initial dispatch called for only seven engine companies, when the weather conditions required 27.
There was confusion among firefighters over which radio channel to use. The report said that three L.A. County engines showed up within the first hour, requesting an assignment and receiving no reply. Four other LAFD engines waited 20 minutes without an assignment.
As Scott looked to the mayor for guidance on whether Villanueva would participate in more media interviews, he wrote in the Oct. 9 email that on social media, the LAFD should consider highlighting favorable coverage of interviews with the fire chief.
A day later, the LAFD notified The Times that Villanueva and other top fire officials “are not planning any additional interviews regarding the incident.”
Robb said Thursday that Bass did not restrict Villanueva from doing interviews.
“The Mayor’s Office, as it frequently does with all city departments, made it clear that LAFD needed to make sure the information it provides was accurate and that the personnel providing information were well prepared to provide accurate information,” Robb said. “Ultimately, how they did that was up to them.”
Former Times staff writer Paul Pringle and Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.
After losing count of just how many bush poppy shrubs were blooming around me, I snapped a few photos of the delicate yellow flowers and texted them to my friend and colleague, Jeanette Marantos.
I didn’t expect to find so many blooming plants along the Mormon Rocks Interpretive Trail in San Bernardino National Forest. Jeanette, The Times’ plants writer, was often tasked each spring with answering whether Southern California would see a superbloom, and I had planned to tease her about whether this counted. I didn’t realize our short text exchange would be the last time we’d speak.
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Jeanette, a beloved mother, grandmother, plant queen and journalist, died Saturday from a sudden heart emergency. We, the entire Times Features team, are devastated, along with the rest of our colleagues who knew her.
“She was the most loving person I ever met, probably to a fault in some cases. If she knew you and you were a part of her life, she was fiercely loyal always,” said her son, Sascha Smith.
Jeanette started writing for the Los Angeles Times in 1999, doing Money Makeovers until 2002. She returned to write for The Times’ Homicide Report in 2015 and she started writing gardening coverage in the Saturday section in 2016 before moving to the Features team in 2020 to cover all things flora full time.
Jeanette was maternal to me (and many others on our team). She often messaged me to see if I’d returned from a hike I’d taken for The Wild. Whenever I went skydiving (for work!), she wanted updates about when I’d landed. After I sent her the video, she wrote to me, “You are so much braver than I! I kept watching and thinking ‘when is he gonna pull that chute?! WHEN IS HE GOING TO PULL THAT CHUTE?!!!’” (I don’t think that I am braver than Jeanette was.)
Jeanette Marantos at the L.A. Times Plants booth at the Festival of Books on April 21, 2024.
(Maryanne Pittman)
Jeanette was also a strong LGBTQ+ ally. I am one of the few transgender people at The Times, and I knew Jeanette always had my back when work-related issues arose. I wrote about being trans and nonbinary for “Our Queerest Century,” The Times’ queer history project that published in 2024.
“I have been thinking about what to say after reading your beautiful piece about growing up queer in Oklahoma,” she wrote to me. “My first reaction was I wanted to hug you and tell you how sorry I was for the mean, ugly, stupid things you were told. And my second reaction was simply awe, that you worked through all of that and embraced yourself nonetheless, and found a way to forgive.”
I hope you enjoy the three trails below. I had one of the best days Friday that I’ve ever had hiking in Southern California. I was just so overwhelmed by the endless possibilities of discovery and adventure the desert provides. I was grateful for that joyful reserve when my heart broke open the following day over the news about Jeanette.
I hope your trip to the desert provides joy, healing or anything else your soul needs to bring home.
A view of the massive Mormon Rocks formation in San Bernardino National Forest.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
1. Mormon Rocks Interpretive Trail
Distance: 1 mile Elevation gained: About 200 feet Difficulty: Easy Dogs allowed? Yes Accessible alternative:Mormon Rocks Viewpoint Area (see note below)
The Mormon Rocks Interpretive Trail is a one-mile loop east of Wrightwood in the San Bernardino National Forest that will take you through beautiful desert and past land and boulders with thousands of years of history to share.
If you’ve ever been driving on the 15 Freeway south of Barstow and wondered, “What are those massive rocks,” they were likely Mormon Rocks. I’ve passed the site several times on my way to Wrightwood to hike in the San Gabriel Mountains and always wondered about the name. “This area is called ‘Mormon Rocks,’ but perhaps a more fitting title would be ‘Serrano Rocks.’ The name refers to the jutting sandstone formations that provided brief shelter for Mormon colonists who crossed this area in 1851 and founded the city of San Bernardino,” according to a U.S. Forest Service brochure.
The brochure suggests “Serrano Rocks” because the area was home to the Serrano people, who lived in the area from about A.D. 1200 to the mid-1800s. “Before the Serrano, archaic hunters and gatherers lived in the area for thousands of years,” according to the forest service.
Massive rock formations in the Mormon Rocks area of San Bernardino National Forest.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
To begin your hike, you will park near the Mormon Rocks fire station. You’ll need to arrive early in the day, as the gate to the trail closes at 4 p.m. Additionally, there are no public restrooms.
The trail will take you on an easy loop where you’ll gain enough elevation to get striking views of the massive white, pink and brown sandstone formations across State Highway 138. The trail would be fun for children 7 and older, as long as you’ve educated them on how to react if they see a rattlesnake. (Stay tuned — even an outdoors reporter must be reminded every now and then how to react!)
I usually use the citizen science app iNaturalist to identify plant and animal life on trails. The app uses your phone’s camera and artificial intelligence to identify in real time what’s before you. I had several years shaved off my life when I pointed my phone’s camera at a blooming narrowleaf goldenbush only to have iNaturalist suggest I was pointing at a “western rattlesnake.”
I leaped away, cursing loudly, but no one rattled their tail at me or made a sound. Was it an AI mistake or was I simply lucky enough to have encountered the most docile rattler in the Mojave Desert? Either way, I skedaddled on down the trail!
Bush poppies bloom along the Mormon Rocks Interpretive Trail in San Bernardino National Forest.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
For those seeking an accessible alternative, the area around the massive boulders across the street from the Interpretive Trail might be an option. There are several unofficial dirt paths that are fairly flat, although they might be washed out in places. There is a gentle path, though, that will take you next to the ancient mountainous boulders.
For those who hike the Interpretive Trail, I’d recommend visiting the boulders across the way afterward too. There are several unofficial paths, so take good care in choosing the best route. Whenever I’m boulder hopping, I like to remind myself when considering my route: What goes up must come down, including you!
Also, there is unfortunately a lot of illegal dumping that takes place at Mormon Rocks. If you’d like to help organize a cleanup effort, please contact me. I’d love to help return this area to the pristine environment it deserves!
A faint rainbow forms over the Devil’s Punchbowl Natural Area near Pearblossom.
The 1.1-mile Loop Trail at Devil’s Punchbowl Natural Area takes visitors past massive sandstone formations from millions of years ago before they were warped and forced upward by tectonic pressure from multiple fault lines, including the Punchbowl and San Andreas faults.
You’ll begin your hike near the Devil’s Punchbowl Nature Center, which I’d recommend visiting if open. Poe and Blair, two female ravens who serve as animal ambassadors, live in an enclosure outside the center. They’re bonded to each other, sometimes holding each other’s beaks. (Yes, it is as precious as it sounds.)
The Devil’s Punchbowl Natural Area sits near the San Gabriel Mountains.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
As you hike down, you can observe 300-foot sandstone walls, shaped over millions of years by water, weather and other natural factors. The path dips down to Punchbowl Creek, which was flowing as of early February, and features several small water cascades. I enjoyed rock hopping along the creek, exploring more of the canyon.
Punchbowl Creek flows through the park, continuing to shape the sandstone rocks formed over millions of years.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Keep a keen eye out near the creek, as bighorn sheep are sometimes in the area.
I would usually direct Wild readers to also check out the Devil’s Chair hike, a 7.4-mile out-and-back hike in Devil’s Punchbowl that leads to one of the most majestic overlooks in L.A. County. However, it’s closed right now. County workers told me it should reopen in a few weeks after they’re finished repairing it from damage caused by recent storms.
Instead, I’d recommend exploring the various boulder fields (with safety in mind!), a sort of choose-your-own adventure through the desert. Just make sure to respect any signage regarding private property or signs asking you to keep out of an area to protect sensitive habitat.
The Saddleback Butte Peak Trail leads hikers through the Western Mojave Desert to its Saddleback Butte, a 3,651-foot solitary mountain dating to the Cretaceous geologic period, roughly 70 million years ago.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
3. Saddleback Butte Peak Trail
Distance: 3.8 miles out-and-back (see notes for loop option) Elevation gained: 1,030 feet Difficulty: Moderate Dogs allowed? No Accessible alternative:Prime Desert Woodland Preserve in Lancaster
The Saddleback Butte Peak Trail is a 3.8-mile out-and-back trail near Lancaster that will take you past Joshua trees of every shape and size, fragrant creosote bushes and, if lucky, fields of blooming wildflowers. The trail ends at Saddleback Butte, “a 3,651-foot solitary mountain dating to the Cretaceous geologic period, roughly 70 million years ago,” according to a California State Parks brochure.
To begin your hike, you will park at the day-use spot in the campground area. You will first need to pay the day-use fee ($6 per vehicle, $5 for seniors, $3 for disabled guests) for Saddleback Butte State Park.
From the trailhead, you will hike about 1.3 miles east until the trail jags southeast and then north, a V-shaped path that will lead you to the top of Saddleback Butte. You will have impressive views atop this ancient peak of the San Gabriel Mountains, the Antelope Valley and miles more of the Mojave Desert.
Joshua trees dot the landscape at Saddleback Butte State Park near Lancaster.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
If you’d like, you can turn this into a loop trail by hiking 1.5 miles back along the Little Butte Trail before turning southward onto the unpaved park road, which is just under a mile and will lead you back to the campground. This lollipop-loop style route would be just over four miles through this 2,955-acre park.
I hope you’re luckier than I was, and you spot desert tortoise, yucca moths and any other animals that will send delight into your soul.
(Altrendo / Getty Images)
3 things to do
1. Put the ‘fun’ in fungi in Arcadia The Los Angeles Mycological Society will host its 42nd Annual Wild Mushroom Fair from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the L.A. County Arboretum. The fair will feature a mushroom walk, cooking demonstrations and more. The event is included with paid admission and free for Arboretum members. Learn more at lamushrooms.org.
2. Love the land back in L.A. Coyotl + Macehualli needs volunteers from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday to weed around budding wildflowers and emerging saplings. Participants are encouraged to bring offerings, like a song, tobacco or prayer, along with tools to help manage the land. Learn more at the group’s Instagram page.
3. Slam out the stumps in Chino Hills Volunteers are needed Sunday at Chino Hills State Park Discover Center for Stump Fest 2, a community workday at the park. Volunteers will remove stumps that are taking water from the native tree habitat. Tools and leadership provided. Call to RSVP. Learn more at the park’s Instagram page.
The must-read
Video still of a wolf entering L.A. County.
(California Department of Fish and Wildlife)
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, we have the makings of a howling good love story. On Saturday, a wolf entered Los Angeles County, marking the first time in at least 100 years that the elusive canines were documented in the area. Times staff writer Lila Seidman reported that the 3-year-old female wolf, BEY03F, is wearing a GPS collar she was outfitted with last May. BEY03F is seeking a partner “and the fact that she is still on the move is an indication that she has not found a mate and suitable habitat,” Axel Hunnicutt, gray wolf coordinator for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, said. BEY03F was born in 2023 and has traveled more than 370 miles looking for a strapping lupine lover. Could this be the start of a local wolf pack? As of Tuesday, BEY03F was in southern Kern County.
Happy adventuring,
P.S.
Angeles National Forest announced this week that multiple trails in the Mt. Baldy area will be closed through Feb. 23 because of upcoming winter storms. Three hikers have died this winter while trying to traverse the Devil’s Backbone trail, a narrow trail that becomes perilous to cross once covered in ice and snow. The closed trails are: Mt. Baldy Trail; Mt. Baldy Bowl Trail; Devils Backbone Trail; Three T’s Trail (Timber Mountain, Telegraph Peak and Thunder Mountain); Icehouse Canyon Trail; Chapman Trail; and Ontario Peak Trail. The closure order comes with the potential of a hefty fine should hikers be caught violating the mandate.
For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.
From Steve Galluzzo: As the NBA has evolved, so too has its midseason showcase.
The league’s 75th All-Star Game takes place Sunday at Intuit Dome and Kelly Flatow, executive vice president and head of the events group at the NBA noted how things have changed since the last time the event was in Los Angeles.
“This will be my 20th All-Star and I joined the events group in 2016, so I was responsible for All-Star when it was here at Staples Center in 2018,” she said. “So it’s great to be back in L.A.”
There is plenty in store for the public this year — both in Inglewood and the downtown area.
One key component of the All-Star spectacle is NBA Crossover — a chance for fans to experience the sport through pop culture, fashion, technology, music and entertainment.
“Every year All-Star grows in different shapes and forms,” Flatow said. “What we used to call a weekend is now an entire week. In fact, the Clippers have done an incredible job making All-Star an entire season long celebration of the game.”
Lauren Betts had 22 points, seven rebounds and five assists and No. 2 UCLA pushed its winning streak to 18 games by thumping No. 13 Michigan State 86-63 on Wednesday night.
Kiki Rice finished with 18 points and seven rebounds for the Bruins (24-1, 14-0 Big Ten). Gabriela Jaquez added 13 points, all in the first half, and Gianna Kneepkens chipped in 12.
UCLA now has nine wins over ranked opponents, six in conference play.
Rashunda Jones scored 15 points and Emma Shumate had 12 for the Spartans (20-5, 9-5), who have dropped three of their last four games. Grace VanSlooten and Kennedy Blair, the team’s top scorers entering the game, were held to a combined 18 points on six-for-25 shooting.
Bruce Thornton scored 21 points and hit two late throws to help Ohio State secure an 89-82 win over USC on Wednesday.
Ohio State (16-6, 8-6 Big Ten) trailed 43-40 at halftime after opening two of 13 at the free-throw line, but Thornton steadied the Buckeyes in the second half. He became the fifth player in program history to reach 1,935 career points and moved into fifth all-time in Ohio State scoring.
The Buckeyes grabbed their largest lead at 67-60 with eight minutes left after a Devin Royal layup and a John Mobley Jr. three-pointer. USC (18-7, 7-7) answered with a 7-0 run capped by a Jordan Marsh three to cut it to 70-69, but Christoph Tilly scored inside, and Royal added a jumper to push the margin back to five.
Kawhi Leonard scored 27 points and his three-point play with two seconds remaining lifted the Clippers to a 105-102 victory over the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night.
Leonard, who had 12 rebounds, scored 19 points in the fourth quarter to extend his career-best streak of 20-point games to 33.
The Clippers (26-28) led by four points when Kevin Durant made one of two free throws before a layup by Alperen Sengun cut the lead to 102-101 with 43 seconds left. Leonard missed a three-pointer and Jabari Smith Jr. grabbed a rebound to give Houston (33-20) the ball.
1937 — Cleveland is granted an NFL franchise. The Rams play in Cleveland for nine years before moving to Los Angeles. After the 1994 season, the Rams move to St. Louis.
1947 — Boston’s Bill Cowley becomes the NHL all-time scoring leader when he scores a goal and an assist for the Bruins in a 10-1 win over the New York Rangers. Cowley’s 529 points is one more than Syd Howe, who retired one year earlier.
1958 — Boston’s Bill Russell scores 18 points and grabs 41 rebounds to lead the Celtics to a 119-101 victory over the Syracuse Nationals.
1968 — Jean-Claude Killy of France wins the men’s giant slalom in the Winter Olympics at Grenoble, his second gold medal en route to the Alpine triple crown.
1972 — The Soviet Union ice hockey team wins the gold medal with a 5-2 victory over Czechoslovakia at the Winter Olympics. The United States is awarded the silver because it had beaten and tied Czechoslovakia.
1982 — Wayne Gretzky scores 153rd point of season, breaking NHL record.
1985 — Pittsburgh’s Mario Lemieux becomes the first rookie to be named most valuable player at the NHL All-Star game. The 19-year-old center scores two goals, including the game-winner, and has an assist to lead the Wales Conference to a 6-4 win over the Campbell Conference.
1989 — The largest crowd (44,735) in NBA All-Star Game history turns out at the Houston Astrodome to watch the West beat the East 143-134. Utah’s Karl Malone win MVP honors after scoring a team-high 28 points.
1993 — The San Jose Sharks tie an NHL record by losing 17 straight games, the latest a 6-0 defeat by the Edmonton Oilers.
1994 — Loy Allen Jr. becomes the first Winston Cup rookie to win a pole in the Daytona 500. Allen is .031 seconds quicker than six-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt.
1995 — Sacramento’s Mitch Richmond scores a game-high 22 points and wins MVP honors in leading the West to a 139-112 triumph over the East in the NBA All-Star Game at America West Arena in Phoenix.
1997 — Morocco’s Hicham el Guerrouj breaks indoor track’s oldest record, winning the mile in 3 minutes, 48.45 at the Flanders meet held in Ghent, Belgium. Ireland’s Eamonn Coghlan ran 3:49.78 in 1983 in New York.
2005 — Allen Iverson scores 60 points, a career high, to lead the Philadelphia 76ers to a 112-99 victory over the Orlando Magic.
2007 — Duke, saddled by its first four-game losing skid in 11 years, falls out of The Associated Press men’s poll for the first time since the end of the 1995-96 season. The Blue Devils had been in the media poll for 200 straight weeks — the second longest streak behind UCLA’s record 221 weeks.
2014 — Tina Maze of Slovenia and Dominique Gisin of Switzerland tie for gold in the Olympic women’s downhill. Both speed down the Rosa Khutor course in 1:41.57 seconds for the first gold-medal tie in Olympic alpine skiing history.
2018 — Virginia is ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press men’s basketball poll for first time since 1982, when Terry Holland was the coach and Ralph Sampson was the Cavaliers’ star player.
2018 — Dutch speed skater Ireen Wüst becomes first Winter Olympian to win an individual gold medal in 4 straight Games with victory in the 1,500m at Pyeongchang; first speed skater to win 10 Olympic medals.
2023 — Super Bowl LVII, State Farm Stadium, Glendale, Arizona: Kansas City Chiefs beat Philadelphia Eagles, 38-35; MVP: Patrick Mahomes, KC, QB.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
The head of the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, blasted Nithya Raman on Wednesday, calling the city council member an “opportunist” for launching a campaign to unseat Mayor Karen Bass after previously signaling her support for Bass.
Federation president Yvonne Wheeler said in a statement that her organization, which represents an estimated 800,000 workers, will “use every tool” in its arsenal to get Bass reelected.
“With Donald Trump’s ongoing war against the people of Los Angeles, our working families and immigrant communities, now is not the time for distractions from a political opportunist — especially one who backed the Mayor’s re-election campaign just weeks ago,” Wheeler said.
Raman, whose district stretches from Silver Lake to Reseda, was announced as one of the mayor’s endorsers on Jan. 27 in a campaign press release listing Bass’ San Fernando Valley supporters. Two days later, she appeared in a second campaign press release as one of Bass’ female endorsers.
The primary election is June 2, followed by a November runoff if no candidate secures a majority of the vote.
Raman’s campaign team did not immediately respond to Wheeler’s assertions after being contacted by The Times.
In her statement, Wheeler described Bass as a “lifelong progressive” while suggesting that Raman, whose council campaigns were backed by the Democratic Socialists of America and several other progressive groups, falls short on that front.
“You can’t truly be progressive unless you are a true champion of working people,” she said. “Karen Bass is the only candidate in this race who meets that criteria.”
The federation represents about 300 labor organizations in L.A. County, including unions representing teachers, social workers, construction trades and entertainment industry workers. In previous city elections, the group has spent big on its favored candidates, paying for campaign materials, door-to-door canvassers and other expenses.
Before that vote, labor unions said the upgrade would generate much-needed construction jobs at a time when housing production has been down. Raman and Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky warned the project was too financially risky and would saddle the city with significant budget shortfalls starting in 2031 — after Bass is out of office.
“What I fear is that we’re going to have a beautiful new Convention Center surrounded by far more homelessness than we have today, which will drive away tourists, which will prevent people from coming here and holding their events here,” Raman said at the time.
Bass supported the project, as did a majority of the council.
Raman also drew the ire of some construction union leaders last month by drafting a last-minute proposal to ask voters to change Measure ULA, a tax on property sales of $5.3 million and up. Raman, who described herself as a supporter of Measure ULA, brought her proposal to the council floor one day before the deadline to take action.
Raman, who backed Measure ULA in 2022, said she now believes it has had unintended consequences, putting a major damper on real estate development and inhibiting the production of much-needed housing.
Los Angeles County leaders are pushing forward a measure for the November ballot that would remove their ability to have final say on one of the costliest decisions they make: How much to pay firefighters and sheriff’s deputies.
The supervisors voted 4 to 0 on Tuesday to have their lawyers draft a ballot measure that would give final decision-making power in contract disputes regarding pay and working conditions for public safety workers to a three-person panel, a practice known as binding arbitration.
Supporters say the proposal, which the supervisors are pushing to get on the November ballot, would offer a new tool to smooth over disputes and provide a “reset” after recent tumultuous contract negotiations.
“It incentivizes both parties to come to a fair agreement,” said Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who introduced the measure along with Supervisor Hilda Solis.
The supervisors are expected to vote again on the proposal in the coming months before putting it on the ballot.
Currently, if contract talks hit an impasse, the five county supervisors can, after a complex mediation process, impose a final offer. Public safety workers, who are not allowed to strike, say they have no leverage with which to fight back, giving the county final word.
Under the new proposal, the power dynamics would shift. An arbitration panel would instead make the final decision on some contract disputes for public safety employees, including firefighters, sheriff’s deputies and county lifeguards. The panel would have one arbitrator chosen by the county, one chosen by the union and one agreed to by both sides.
It’s rare for labor negotiations to get to this point. The county said it has imposed contract terms after reaching impasse over negotiations twice since 2001, once with the Union of American Physicians and Dentists in 2001 and Supervising Deputy Probation Officers in 2024.
“The goal is to never have to get to that step,” Horvath said.
Unions say the measure would give them needed leverage and remove political pressure from the thorniest contract questions. Critics say it shifts financial control away from politicians and into the hands of unaccountable arbitrators, which could lead to bloated labor costs.
“Arbitrators aren’t elected, they’re not required to weigh countywide trade-offs like homeless services, healthcare, capital improvements, all of those things,” said Supervisor Holly Mitchell, the only supervisor to abstain from the vote.
Interim County Executive Officer Joseph M. Nicchitta said he viewed it as a potential “seismic change” in how the county handles labor negotiations.
“Because the arbitrators ‘pick a winner’ as between the parties’ final offers, the decision will no longer be a compromise. One side will win,” Nicchitta wrote in a Feb. 9 letter to the board.
Substantial raises mandated by arbitrators, he wrote, “could, among other things, materially and detrimentally increase the County’s day-to-day operating costs, lead to workforce reductions and program curtailments, balloon our unfunded pension liabilities, and damage the County’s credit ratings.”
The decision of who gets final say over wage increases will become increasingly important as county leaders try to steer the government through financial tumult brought on by federal cuts, booming labor costs and billions in sex abuse payouts. Last week, the supervisors unanimously approved $200 million in homeless service cuts to close the budget gap.
Horvath said more than 20 jurisdictions in California use binding arbitration for public safety workers, including the counties of San Francisco and Sacramento.
Public safety unions are simultaneously gathering signatures to get the proposal on the ballot in case the board decides against moving forward. A coalition of public safety unions has started a campaign arguing that binding arbitration would “remove politics from pay decisions” and leave “pay decisions in the hands of neutral experts.”
“They have every intention and probably all of the resources needed to collect signatures to put something on the ballot that gets them this,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said. “This makes sense to work on something that we can have some input in.”
L.A. County voters will be asked this June to hike the sales tax rate by a half-cent to soften the blow of federal funding cuts on the region’s public health system.
The county Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 1 Tuesday to put the sales tax on the ballot. County officials estimate it would generate $1 billion per year to replenish the shrinking budgets of local hospitals and clinics. The tax, if approved by voters this summer, would last for five years.
The supervisors say the increased tax — a half-cent of every dollar spent — would offset major funding cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is expected to slash more than $2 billion from the county’s budget for health services over the next three years.
“Millions of people look to us to step up even when the federal government has walked away,” said Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who introduced the ballot proposal along with Supervisor Hilda Solis.
The tax was pushed by Restore Healthcare for Angelenos, a coalition of healthcare workers and advocates, who argue it is necessary to ward off mass layoffs of healthcare workers and keep emergency rooms open.
Mitchell said she was trying to make sure supervisors learned their lesson from the closure of Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in 2007, which ripped a gaping hole in the health system for South L.A. residents who had to travel farther to more crowded emergency rooms.
“People died as a result of that,” she said. “I don’t want to go back there.”
Supervisor Kathryn Barger cast the lone no vote, saying she believed the county should look to the state for help rather than taxpayers. She also said she was concerned the tax money was not earmarked for healthcare costs but rather would go into the general fund, giving officials more discretion over how it gets spent.
“We are not, as a whole, credible when it comes to promises made, promises broken,” she said.
Members of the audience hold up signs inside the county Hall of Administration, where supervisors discussed how to replenish more than $2 billion in federal funding cuts to the county healthcare system.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
As part of the tax hike, voters would be asked to also approve the creation of an oversight group to monitor how the money is spent. The supervisors also voted on a spending plan for the money, which would have the largest chunk of funds go to care for uninsured residents.
Los Angeles County currently has a sales tax of 9.75% with cities adding their own sales tax on top. If the healthcare hike passes this summer, the sales tax would be more than 11% in some cities. Palmdale and Lancaster, some of the poorest parts of the county, would potentially have the highest sales tax of 11.75%.
County public health officials painted a grim picture of what life looks like for the poorest and sickest residents if new money doesn’t flow into the system. Emergency rooms could be shuttered, they warned. Contact tracing and the daily testing of ocean water quality could slow down. Tens of thousands of health workers could lose their jobs, they said.
“The threat is real already,” said Barbara Ferrer, the head of the county Department of Public Health.
Some on Tuesday condemned the measure as well-intentioned but ill-formulated. The California Contract Cities Assn., a coalition of cities inside Los Angeles County, argued a larger sales tax would “disproportionately burden the very residents the County seeks to protect.”
“My phone has been blowing up,” said Janice Hahn, one of two supervisors who said the Citadel Outlets, a large shopping mall in City of Commerce, called to say they were worried shoppers were going to start crossing county lines.
With the effects of the federal cuts expected to be felt across the state, other California counties have already started to look to consumers to replenish government coffers. Last November, Santa Clara County voters approved a similar sales tax measure to raise money for the public health system.
On the last day of January, hundreds of people filled the pews of Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Koreatown to hear not the word of God but the gospel of the Democratic Socialists of America.
It was the local chapter’s bimonthly meeting and also a kickoff event for a year during which they planned to build on an already impressive foothold in L.A. politics. Four of their own are council members and the two up for reelection — Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martínez — received standing ovations after their impassioned speeches. They implored the faithful to believe that anything is politically possible in a year when President Trump is waging war on Los Angeles and one of their own, Zohran Mamdani, is the mayor of New York.
Among the true believers was someone who arrived late that day: L.A.’s original democratic socialist insurgent, Nithya Raman.
She shocked the city’s political class in 2020 by beating Councilmember David Ryu — the first time in 17 years that an incumbent lost their seat. Her upset blazed the way for Hernandez and Soto-Martínez in 2022 and fellow DSAer Ysabel Jurado in 2024. They’ve created a progressive bloc that has helped Mayor Karen Bass implement her agenda, offering Her Honor cover from critics on the left while also pushing for democratic socialist principles such as less police spending and more intervention programs.
Raman kept a low profile at the DSA-LA event, according to attendees. The 44-year-old listened to her colleagues’ speeches and those of other hopefuls, made small talk with fellow members and then left.
There was no hint that afternoon of the political earthquake she uncorked this Saturday, when Raman announced a mayoral run against longtime ally Bass. The council member described the mayor to The Times as an “icon” who nevertheless needs to be replaced because “Los Angeles is at a breaking point.”
I can only imagine Bass — whom Raman publicly endorsed just a month ago — was surprised.
The mayor seems vulnerable, for sure. From her handling of the Palisades fire to crumbling infrastructure to the economy and so much more, critics maintain Bass spent all of last year living up to the old Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams duet: She did things too much, too little and too late. This was all before sources told The Times last week that Bass ordered an after-action report on the Palisades fire be — no pun intended — watered down to limit legal liability against the city.
Her supporters point to a drop in homelessness and homicides over the last four years as reason enough for Bass to return — but their hosannas haven’t gotten as much traction as an incumbent should be seeing at this point in a reelection campaign. That’s why the proverbial smart money had someone on the right side of L.A.’s Democratic spectrum mounting a strong challenge this year — Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez or Traci Park, L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath or even 2022 challenger Rick Caruso.
While Mamdani’s fall win got local progressives dreaming about one day doing the same in Los Angeles, the prospect of a strong challenger from the left in this mayoral cycle was considered so unlikely that DSA-LA didn’t have candidate Rae Huang — a dues-paying member and Presbyterian minister — speak at the Immanuel gathering since she couldn’t gather enough signatures to make her case for an endorsement in the fall.
Raman has proved effective enough as a council member to win her reelection outright two years ago during the primaries despite a well-funded effort to paint her as a limousine leftist. I admire her brio to take on Bass and respect her place in L.A. political history. I’m glad someone is going to make the mayor work hard to get reelected because no incumbent should ever have an automatic reelection.
But Nithya Raman?
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, left, talks with Mayor Karen Bass at Hazeltine Park in Sherman Oaks during a 2024 rally for Raman’s ultimately successful reelection bid. She’s now challenging Bass in the 2026 mayoral election.
(Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)
Presbyterians, such as those who pray at the Koreatown church, have historically believed in predestination, the idea that God has determined everyone’s fate and we can’t do a thing about it. Raman doesn’t belong to the denomination, but perhaps its tenets moved her at Immanuel into believing that another unlikely political revival is in her stars. Because that’s the only way to make sense of Raman’s turn and belief that she can pull off the victory.
Raman’s 4th District is one of the wealthier in the city, a mishmash of Encino rich, Silver Lake hipster and the San Fernando Valley lower middle class — relatively sheltered from the day-to-day struggles of many working class and working poor Angelenos living in L.A. While Soto-Martínez and Hernandez draw their perspective and base from the union and activist left, Raman’s loudest supporters have struck me as folks who might have the passion and money to win over her district but don’t have the street-level knowledge and experience to sell their candidate to all corners of the city.
Raman has walked the progressive walk during her two council terms by getting arrested at sit-ins, showing up to protests and through her City Hall work. But the coalition she needs to topple Bass seems exceedingly hard to build.
She’d have to run under the assumption that enough people on the left think the current mayor is a sellout — or at minimum, just not progressive enough. That conservative and centrist voters so loathe Bass that they’ll hold their nose and vote for a democratic socialist. She’d have to win over Latino voters, who went with Caruso four years ago but who represent only 19% of Raman’s district in a city that’s nearly majority Latino.
Raman would have to peel off labor from Bass, who has counted on and rewarded their support from Sacramento to Washington to City Hall for over two decades. Needs to paint Bass as soft on Trump’s deportation deluge despite her consistently calling him out. Appeal to homeowners who won’t like Raman’s ties to YIMBY-minded folks seeking to shove multistory units anywhere and everywhere. Convince Black voters — who already must reckon with the likely reality that the city will not have three Black council members for the first time since 1963 because the leading candidates to replace outgoing Curren Price are Latinos — that dethroning the city’s first Black female mayor is somehow good for the community’s political future.
And then there’s Raman’s fellow DSA members. The rank-and-file are currently furious at her for recently, unsuccessfully trying to tweak L.A.’s so-called mansion tax. Raman can’t run in the primary with DSA’s endorsement because that process ended last fall. Supporters can petition for a vote on the matter, but that opens her anew to critics who engineered a censure of her during her 2024 reelection campaign for accepting an endorsement by a pro-Israel group while the country was bombing Gaza.
Raman — who can keep her council seat if she doesn’t beat Bass — is about to find out that L.A. isn’t as progressive as people make it out to be.
Los Angeles Councilmember Nithya Raman speaks to a crowd as she hosts an election night event in Edendale in March 2024 in Los Angeles.
(Myung Chun/Los Angeles Times)
She might have visions of a populist movement a la what happened in New York ushering her into City Hall — but she’s no Mamdani and Bass is no Eric Adams. Even fans of Raman I talked to over the weekend are upset that the progressive march that DSA-LA has successfully launched in city and county politics this decade now must deal with a curveball from within. It threatens to distract from efforts for other campaigns in a year when the left needs to concentrate on defeating true opponents — not a fellow traveler like Bass.
Raman must figure this disruption is worth the risk for her legacy and will further strengthen L.A.’s left. Let’s see what voters decide.
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