“The Real Housewives of Orange County” star Jennifer Pedranti says that her son was involved in starting a brush fire that burned in Ladera Ranch.
Pedranti posted the admission on her Instagram stories on Thursday, saying that there will be consequences for her son.
“I would like to clear up the rumblings of my son having involvement in the Ladera Ranch fire,” her statement began.
“He and others were involved. My ex husband and myself take this very serious. This behavior is unacceptable and we are deeply sorry to our community. This is a tough learning moment for our son and our family.”
Pedranti continued that she was thankful that there was no property damage and nobody was injured. “The fire and police were absolutely amazing and gave these boys a lesson they will never forget,” she said. “There were no arrests made, but consequences for actions are being put into place.”
According to Pedranti, her son will be taking a fire safety course to “make sure a mistake like this never happens again.”
“There are consequences within our family and we will make sure our son learns from this accident.”
The brush fire originated near Ladera Ranch’s Narrow Canyon Road and Acaster Way on Tuesday afternoon and spread across seven acres before firefighters were able to get it under control.
Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Augie Romo confirmed to The Times that three minors were interviewed in connection with the Ladera Ranch brush fire and that no arrests were made. A full report will be made available in 10 days, but for now, most details of the incident remain under investigation.
The Bravo reality star shares five children with her ex-husband, biotech entrepreneur William Pedranti: sons Harrison, 22; Dawson, 19; Greyson, 16; and Dominic, 12; and daughter Everleigh, 14. She is engaged to “Real Housewives” cast member Ryan Boyajian, who reportedly was formerly involved in real estate and mortgage lending.
On election night, Santa Ana City Council member Jessie Lopez found herself in third place, far behind fellow Democratic council colleague David Penaloza and Republican business owner Mayra Ruiz in the race to represent Orange County’s 68th Assembly District.
Tearful supporters at a California Working Families Party shindig at the Mission Control bar and arcade in downtown Santa Ana hugged Lopez, gifted her flowers and wished her well.
If the 37-year-old was sad, she didn’t show it. Lopez had seen this game play out before.
In 2023, the councilmember decisively beat back a recall attempt funded by Santa Ana’s police union and apartment owners who didn’t like her unabashedly progressive views in a city where centrist Democrats have dominated politics for decades and lefty ones were long ostracized.
I wrote a column shortly after, heralding Lopez’s overwhelming victory as a new era for Latino politics in Orange County, where Latinos make up a third of the population but still wield little power.
Lopez spent the next three years along with her fellow progressive Santa Ana council members shoring up the city’s rent control policies and its immigrant defense fund. Nevertheless, few gave Lopez a chance in her assembly race.
Penaloza — who declined to vote when the council deadlocked on whether to cancel Lopez’s recall election — had the backing of the Orange County and California Democratic Party establishment, from current 68th District Assemblymember Avelino Valencia (who’s running to represent the 34th Senate District) to Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas to Katie Porter, a former Orange County congresswoman who ran unsuccessfully for governor this year.
Penaloza’s campaign mailers and video ads were so ubiquitous these past few weeks that they filled up my mailbox and interrupted my binging of Hulu’s “Vanderpump Villa.”
So did anti-Lopez mailers and commercials, funded by nearly $2.7 million in independent expenditures. Yet Lopez once again beat back her well-funded opposition.
As of Wednesday evening, the latest Orange County Registrar of Voters election results had her in second place — less than 1,000 votes away from Penaloza.
“Voters proved that while money can influence politics, it can’t buy community support,” Lopez said this week as she unsuccessfully tried to enjoy tacos and guacamole at Lola Gaspar in downtown Santa Ana, where well-wishers kept calling her or congratulating the candidate in person. “This race is about the future of California — whether we answer to corporations and insiders or to the hard-working people we’re elected to serve.”
With Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento easily winning reelection and Unite Here Local 11 co-president Ada Briceño currently coming up short in her bid to represent the 67th Assembly District, which includes parts of Los Angeles County, Lopez may be the sole O.C. Latino progressive running in November for a seat beyond the local level.
Expect Lopez versus Penaloza to become a referendum on whether the leftward trend of Latino voters in Orange County continues — or whether its center holds.
“I’ve chosen my side,” Lopez told me. “I’m proud to stand with working people.”
Then she excused herself — someone else wanted to say what’s up.
Insights
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Ideas expressed in the piece
The column portrays Jessie Lopez as a symbol of an emergent, unapologetically progressive Latino politics in Orange County, arguing that this movement is challenging decades of centrist Democratic dominance and Latino underrepresentation in positions of real power.
It emphasizes that Lopez’s political credibility comes from having already survived a 2023 recall effort backed by Santa Ana’s police union and apartment owners, which the piece describes as a decisive victory that marked a turning point for left-leaning Latinos in the region.[1]
The article frames Lopez’s record on the Santa Ana City Council—particularly work to strengthen rent control and expand an immigrant defense fund—as proof that progressive Latinos are now governing, not just organizing, and that these policies are resonating with working-class residents.[1]
It stresses the scale of opposition Lopez faces, noting that powerful interests and nearly $2.7 million in independent expenditures were deployed against her, and yet she still advanced to November, which the article casts as evidence that grassroots support can overcome big money in politics.
The column contrasts Lopez’s underdog status with the institutional backing behind rival Democrat David Penaloza, who is aligned with the county and state Democratic establishment, and interprets Lopez’s surge into second place as a rebuke to party insiders who had largely written off her chances.
It presents Lopez’s own framing of the race as a choice between “corporations and insiders” and “hard-working people,” highlighting endorsements from labor and progressive leaders as reinforcing her identity as a champion for working families rather than entrenched interests.[2]
The piece suggests that the Lopez–Penaloza matchup will function as a broader referendum on whether Latino voters in Orange County will continue a leftward drift or whether a more centrist orientation will reassert itself, positioning Lopez as the standard-bearer for the progressive side of that divide.
It further underscores Lopez’s uniqueness by noting that, with some other Latino progressives either safely re-elected at the local level or trailing in their own legislative bids, Lopez may be the only Orange County Latino progressive on the November ballot for higher office, heightening the stakes of her campaign.
Different views on the topic
Critics of Lopez in Santa Ana have argued that the councilmember’s agenda is too ideologically driven and insufficiently attentive to public safety and fiscal stability, a view that surfaced prominently during the 2023 recall, when backers contended that her policy positions undermined effective governance and community security.[1]
Recall supporters, including police union and property-owner interests, have maintained that Lopez’s role in strengthening rent control and supporting tenant protections represents an overreach that they believe discourages investment, burdens small landlords, and could ultimately reduce the supply and quality of housing in the city.[1]
Opponents have further asserted that her stances on issues such as policing and criminal justice skew too far left for parts of the electorate, arguing that more moderate Democrats or centrist candidates are better positioned to balance reform with public safety and to appeal to a broader cross-section of Orange County voters.[1]
From the perspective of some business-oriented and landlord groups, Lopez’s alignment with organized labor and progressive advocacy organizations, along with endorsements from high-profile national progressives, signals a policy direction they associate with higher regulatory costs, stricter labor standards, and a political climate they view as hostile to business growth.[2]
Within Democratic circles, the strong institutional support for David Penaloza and other establishment-aligned candidates reflects a competing view that stability, incremental change, and coalition-building with moderates are more effective strategies in competitive areas like Orange County than the confrontational style and ambitious reforms favored by progressive challengers.
Additionally, some analysts and political operatives point to mixed results for progressive Latino candidates elsewhere in the region as evidence that Lopez’s success is not guaranteed to translate into a broader realignment, and argue that many Latino voters in Orange County remain pragmatic swing voters rather than committed partisans of the left.
Skeptics of Lopez’s framing of “insiders versus working people” contend that such rhetoric oversimplifies complex policy debates, noting that unions, nonprofits, and progressive political organizations backing her are themselves powerful actors that shape legislation and budgets, and that community interests cannot be neatly divided into grassroots versus establishment.[2]
Finally, opponents warn that if Lopez’s approach becomes the dominant model for Latino politics in Orange County, it could sharpen ideological polarization inside local Democratic politics, potentially weakening the party’s ability to compete against Republicans in closely contested districts and to assemble broad coalitions needed to pass durable reforms.
After stops in Dallas-Ft. Worth and the Bay Area, FuelFest, a global car-enthusiast festival, will cruise into the OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa on June 13.
Those in attendance will get to watch the rubber hit the road on a drift course, gawk at more than 700 performance-built cars on display and behold some of the vehicles that introduced Japanese tuner cars to the American market in “Fast and Furious.”
“FuelFest is where good people, car-culture people, come to meet one another because they share a common interest, a common passion,” said Cody Walker, founder of FuelFest and the brother of late actor Paul Walker, who was known for his role in Universal Studio’s “Fast and Furious” franchise.
Audience members get to ride in the passenger seat of a professional driver’s drift car.
(FuelFest)
Organizers expect thousands of people to flock to the OC Fair & Event Center for FuelFest, moved not just by the sight and sounds of muscle cars, but by what surprises are in store to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first “Fast and Furious” movie.
“This is a love letter to the city of Los Angeles and Orange County,” “Fast and Furious” actor Tyrese Gibson, a co-sponsor of the event, said on a recent video call about FuelFest.
The event will be something of a homecoming for Walker, Gibson and the “Fast” franchise. Walker, raised in the Sunland-Tujunga area, said the event will include tributes to cars made popular by the seminal Southern California car scene, including a lowrider and exotic car display.
Of course, FuelFest is also a tribute to Paul Walker. To continue his brother’s legacy, Cody Walker quit his job as a paramedic and took charge of Reach Out Worldwide, a disaster-relief charity founded by Paul in 2010, and he created FuelFest as a means to raise money for his brother’s initiatives.
“[Paul] was 40 years old, and we thought he had about 70 to go,” Walker said on a video call, referring to his brother’s fatal car crash in 2013. “He didn’t care about being this significant person; he didn’t see himself that way. The charity is the kind of stuff he cared about.”
As for this edition of FuelFest, Walker and Gibson said they didn’t want to spoil all of the surprises, but here are six things to know before you head to the event.
1. ‘Fast and Furious’ cars will be on display
Some of the Japanese Domestic Market and American muscle staples seen in the “Fast and Furious” films will be at FuelFest.
Gibson might not know specs like RPMs or cylinders, but he said he appreciates the “Fast and Furious” characters’ gorgeous cars, including Dominic Toretto’s 1970 Dodge Charger and Brian O’Connor’s late ’90s Mitsubishi Eclipse. Those cars and other iconic “Fast” wheels will be at the fest.
“It was because of these films that people in the United States became familiar with the tuner culture of Japan, which was super niche up until that point,” Walker said. “We’re talking about 25 years. There’s iconic cars from the franchise, from a bunch of the movies that will be there.”
2. Children age 12 and under get free admission
As children, Cody and Paul Walker were practically programmed to love cars. Their maternal grandfather was a race-car driver and mechanic, and their father was a photographer for Street Chopper Magazine. An event like FuelFest, Walker said, can be formative in fostering a lifelong passion and creative outlet for car-curious children.
Gibson said organizers wanted to make tickets free for children so that entire neighborhoods in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas could have a low-cost day out. Therefore, a general admission ticket for SoCal FuelFest costs $58.24 including tax and fees, but children age 12 and under get in free with a ticketed adult.
“If you’re a single mother and you have three kids all under 12 and you want to bring your friends in the neighborhood with you, whether they’re you’re kids or your neighbors, they’re getting in for free,” Gibson said.
If you want to splurge, there’s a meet-and-greet with Gibson plus VIP Platinum admission for $739.38, including tax and fees.
At FuelFest, a global car-enthusiast festival, more than 700 cars will be on display.
(FuelFest)
3. Performances by DJ Quik, Flesh-n-Bone and more
In addition to DJ sets and live performances, ’90s rap legends DJ Quik and Flesh-n-Bone will host an evening concert on the festival stage.
Walker and Gibson are mum about who else might show up during the concert, but they promised that audiences driving in from L.A. will find the trip down to Orange County worth it.
“There are no limits to the West Coast friends that DJ Quik has,” Gibson said.
During FuelFest, ’90s rap legends DJ Quik and Flesh-n-Bone will host an evening concert on the festival stage.
(FuelFest)
4. A Lucha Libre sideshow
If that’s not enough, there will also be a Lucha Libre show with, according to Walker, a “full-blown” story that has extended across FuelFest locations.
Lucha Libre Voz, an independent professional wrestling company based in California and Arizona, will host its worldwide championship match between Tigre Uno and Septimo Dragon.
“It’s gonna be insane,” Walker said. “Best show of the year.”
5. Ride passenger in a drift car (with a helmet)
After signing a waiver, strapping on a helmet and paying a $30 fee, audience members can ride along in the passenger seat of a professional driver’s drift car. Walker calls it: A “full-blown throttle therapy session.”
Reservations for the drift car ride-along will be handled on-site. Pro tip: Get there early to beat the lines.
6. Reach Out Worldwide’s event goal
A portion of the revenue from the event, mostly from on-site activities such as the drift car ride-along, will go to charitable efforts at Reach Out Worldwide, which has assisted with cleanup, repair and resource efforts for victims of natural disasters, including Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica and the Los Angeles County fires in 2025.
FuelFest has raised about $1 million for Reach Out Worldwide since the charity resumed in 2024, more than a decade after Paul Walker’s death paused the group’s work. Cody Walker predicts the revenue from the SoCal show will help Reach Out Worldwide pass the $1-million milestone.
“I gave up everything to make sure that Reach Out Worldwide could function,” Walker said. “FuelFest started as this simple idea, but now we’ve held over 30 events and we’re in 11 markets. … Paul would be very happy with where this has all gone.”
Festival
2026 FuelFest Southern California
When: 2 to 9 p.m. June 13 Where: OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa Tickets: Prices for general admission and VIP Platinum vary. Children age 12 and under are free. Parking: $15 Info: fuelfest.com
John Seymour was the rare politician who didn’t mind harming his career if it meant doing right by his constituents.
As the newly elected mayor of Anaheim in 1978, he angered the city’s Police Department by suggesting the creation of a citizens oversight commission after residents complained that officers regularly harassed and beat them.
The lifelong Republican upset his party’s conservative base in the 1980s as a state senator, when he announced his support for abortion rights and opposition to offshore drilling.
“I’m not going to always be right,” Seymour told reporters in 1990. “Therefore, to expect one to never change a position on an issue … is too much to ask.”
“John was a guy who had great courage, he had great goodwill and a damn good mind,” Wilson, who was mayor of San Diego when he first met Seymour in the 1970s, said Monday. “He not only enjoyed a little combat, he was willing to give the time necessary for it.”
Seymour died on April 18 at his home in Carlsbad. He was 88, and the cause was Alzheimer’s disease, according to his son John.
As his party swung to the right, the moderate Seymour had no problem with becoming a political afterthought.
Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, center, poses with senators on Capitol Hill in 1991. With Thomas, from left to right, are Sens. John Seymour (R-Calif.), Larry Craig (R-Idaho), Bob Dole (R-Kan.), Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), Connie Mack (R-Fla.) and Dan Coats (R-Ind.), right front.
(John Duricka / Associated Press)
“If somewhere in a footnote, history should record my public service, I would hope that they record me as one who cared more for people than for policy, one who was a no-nonsense guy who worked hard for those in need of help, but who wasn’t hesitant to knock heads of bureaucrats in order to get things done,” he told supporters at the kickoff to his Senate campaign in 1992.
Born in Chicago, Seymour settled in Southern California in the 1960s after a stint in the Marine Corps. The UCLA graduate started a real estate business in Orange County as the region transformed from farmland to suburbia. After four years on the Anaheim City Council, he became mayor in 1978.
He quickly established the pragmatic persona that would enable his rise in California politics.
Months after Seymour’s mayoral win, Anaheim police officers stormed a Latino neighborhood and beat up dozens of people in what became known as the Little People’s Park riots. At community meetings, Seymour admitted his shock at learning about the poor relations between the police and many residents.
The mayor described his approach as: “Don’t sweep it under the rug; don’t look the other way. Admit that we have a problem.”
At the same time, Seymour was negotiating with the Los Angeles Rams to move from the Coliseum to Orange County. While other O.C. officials proposed a new stadium, he convinced the Anaheim City Council to convert Angel Stadium into a multipurpose venue that he argued would create “the greatest opportunity for Anaheim since Disneyland and the California Angels.”
The Rams moved to the city in 1980. Two years later, Seymour was off to Sacramento as a state senator.
He became head of the Republican Senate caucus in his first year and bucked the stereotype of an Orange County GOP firebrand by largely eschewing culture war issues in favor of matters like higher pay for teachers and government support for poor parents that sometimes aligned him with Democrats. That made him few friends in his own party, with many finding his personal ambition grating — he once wrote a letter to then-Gov. George Deukmejian asking that he be appointed state treasurer — and a distraction from getting more of their own elected to Sacramento.
Seymour made no apologies for selling himself as a public servant while simultaneously seeking more power.
“I like to do things,” Seymour told The Times in 1987. “I’ve been a doer all my life. I don’t like to sit around sucking my thumb. I like to resolve problems.”
That year, conservative opponents deposed him as caucus chair. They snickered two years later when he announced that while he personally opposed abortion, he now supported a woman’s right to choose.
Sen. John Seymour in 1991.
(Don Boomer / For The Times)
The impetus was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave states more leeway to regulate abortion. Since California had legalized the procedure decades earlier, Seymour reasoned that he should respect women’s choices. He spoke with people who were for and against abortion, and with his own family, before going public with his change of heart.
Naysayers accused the state senator of trying to pick up female voters as he was campaigning for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor against fellow Orange County legislator Marian Bergeson, who opposed abortion. The charge was bogus, according to longtime Seymour campaign advisor Eileen Padberg.
“He didn’t get talked into it — he was an effing Marine,” she said. “He had to be convinced in anything before making a decision. In my career representing hundreds of candidates, John was one of very few who consistently would say about their stances, ‘This is going to kill me, but I gotta do it.’”
Seymour lost the primary to Bergeson. Six months later, he was once again one of the most powerful Republicans in the state when he took the Senate seat Wilson had just vacated to become governor.
Seymour’s son John recalled his father getting the call from Wilson while the family was vacationing in Shasta.
“Dad knew that it was a heavy, weighted responsibility, and that it would affect the family,” John said. “But we kids said, ‘You should do this, if it makes you happy.’”
Seymour became the second Anaheim Republican to serve in the position, after Thomas Kuchel in the 1950s and 1960s.
Wilson told The Times that he originally wanted to keep his friend in Sacramento to help push through his agenda. But the governor figured he needed a trusted voice in Washington even more.
“You’re looking for people who are not only friends but are capable and experienced and understand what’s necessary,” Wilson said. “And I don’t think I was doing him a great favor, because it was a tough time for the state.”
California was weathering its worst recession in decades and a punishing drought. The state’s vaunted defense industry was shedding tens of thousands of jobs with the closure of military bases after the end of the Cold War.
The daunting task didn’t faze Seymour.
“I mean, you gotta be good to succeed in the private sector,” he told The Times in 1992. “But if you’re gonna succeed in getting things done in the public sector, you gotta be better than that! That’s the challenge!”
Seymour spent most of his short time in the Senate in triage mode. He lobbied especially hard for California’s real estate industry, calling himself the “realtors’ senator.” But the diminutive man’s plainspoken demeanor failed to gain traction with California voters — a 1991 Times profile deemed him “the unknown senator.” And his one moment in the national spotlight became fodder for opponents.
This time, Seymour was accused of seeking photo opportunities a month before his primary election and being tone-deaf to the riot’s root causes by airing television ads stating, “We can’t be tough enough on lawbreakers.” White House aides ridiculed him in the press as the “Velcro senator.” His Republican opponent, Orange County Rep. William Dannemeyer, labeled him “Senator Flip Flop.”
Seymour easily beat Dannemeyer, then faced Democrat Dianne Feinstein, the former San Francisco mayor whose narrow loss to Wilson in the governor’s race had earned her widespread name recognition. He received only 38% of the vote as Feinstein rode a Democratic wave that swept Bill Clinton into the White House and a record number of women into the U.S. Senate, including Barbara Boxer in California.
California Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer worked for Seymour at the time and saw his “regular guy” boss give “one of the kindest and most gracious concession speeches I’ve ever heard.”
“Then he went down to O.C. to be with his supporters,” Palmer said. “He was true to his roots.”
Wilson soon appointed Seymour to head the California Housing Finance Agency, which helps first-time home buyers access low-rate loans. He stayed in that role for two years before becoming chief executive of the Southern California Housing Development Corp. The Inland Empire nonprofit, which managed and built affordable housing complexes, is now known as National Community Renaissance, or National CORE.
John, who is the nonprofit’s vice president of acquisitions, said his father had no regrets about leaving politics behind because “housing was his passion. He saw it as a platform for people to grow. He would say, ‘Once you’re housed, you have a big, beautiful horizon to do anything.’”
Seymour did lean on his past to urge skeptical cities and counties to allow affordable housing projects, challenging them to be like him: do the right thing regardless of political cost.
“If in fact you’re going to try to change an environment in which a mayor or city council will do what they know in their hearts is right, you need to offset the political blow,” he said at a housing conference in Cathedral City in 2002. “I challenge you to form a coalition.”
Seymour is survived by his wife of 54 years, Judy; children John, Shad, Jeffrey, Barrett, Lisa Houser and Sarena Talbert; nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
