Supervisor

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

There is no shortage of budget-busting costs facing Los Angeles County, Supervisor Lindsey Horvath recently told guests at this week’s Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum luncheon.

There’s the costly fire recovery effort. And the deep cuts from the federal government. And a continuing homeless crisis.

As Horvath wrapped up her remarks, Emma Schafer, the host of the clubby luncheon, asked about yet another expenditure: What was up with that $2-million settlement to the county’s chief executive officer Fesia Davenport?

“We were faced with two bad options,” Horvath told the crowd dining on skewered shrimp.

Horvath said she disagreed with Davenport’s demand for $2 million, but also believed “that we have to focus on a functional county government and saving taxpayer money.”

Three months ago, all five supervisors quietly voted behind closed doors to pay Davenport $2 million, after she sought damages due to professional fallout from Measure G, the voter-approved ballot measure that will eventually eliminate her job.

Measure G, which voters passed in November, reshaped the government, in part, turning the county’s chief executive into an elected position — not one selected by the board. The elected county executive, who would manage the county government and oversee its budget, will be in place by 2028. Davenport, a longtime county employee, had been in her post since 2021.

Davenport, as part of her financial demand, said Measure G caused her “reputational harm, embarrassment, and physical, emotional and mental distress.”

Critics contend unpleasant job changes happen all the time — and without the employee securing a multimillion dollar payout.

“Los Angeles County residents should be outraged,” said Morgan Miller, who worked on the Measure G campaign and called the board’s decision a “blatant misuse of public money.”

Horvath, who crafted Measure G, promised during the campaign it would not cost taxpayers additional money. More recently, she voiced dissatisfaction with Davenport’s settlement, saying the agreement should have had additional language to avoid “future risk.”

Horvath said in a statement she considered having the settlement agreement include language to have Davenport and the county part ways — to avoid the risk of litigating additional claims down the road.

Supervisor Janice Hahn, who pushed for Measure G alongside Horvath, said she voted for the settlement based on the advice of county lawyers.

“In the years I worked to expand the board and create an elected county executive, I never disparaged our current CEO in any way,” she said in a statement. “I always envisioned the CEO team working alongside the new elected county executive.”

Davenport has been on medical leave since earlier this month and did not return a request for comment. She has told the staff she plans to return at the start of next year.

It’s not unusual for county department heads to get large payouts. But they usually get them when they’re on their way out.

Bobby Cagle, the former Department of Children and Family Services head who resigned in 2021, received $175,301. Former county counsel Rodrigo Castro-Silva got $213,199. Adolfo Gonzales, the former probation head, took in $172,521. Mary Wickham, the former county counsel, received $449,577.

The county said those severance payments, all of which were obtained through a records request by The Times, were outlined in the department heads’ contracts and therefore did not need to be voted on by the board.

Sachi Hamai, Davenport’s predecessor, also received $1.5 million after saying she faced “unrelenting and brutal” harassment from former Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

Davenport’s settlement was voted on, but not made public, until an inquiry from LAist, which first reported on the settlement.

David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition, says the county is required under the Brown Act to immediately report out a vote taken on a settlement if the deal is finalized and all parties have approved it. But if it’s not, he says, they don’t need to publicly report it — they just need to provide information when asked.

“You don’t have to proactively report it out in that meeting. You still have to disclose it on request,” said Loy. “ I don’t think that’s a good thing — don’t get me wrong. I’m telling you what the Brown Act says.”

State of play

— DEMANDING DOCUMENTS: Two U.S. senators intensified their investigation into the Palisades fire this week, asking the city for an enormous trove of records on Fire Department staffing, reservoir repairs and other issues. In their letter to Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) showed much less interest in the Eaton fire, which devastated Altadena but did not burn in the city of Los Angeles. An aide to County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, said neither she nor other county offices had received such a document request.

— BUMPY BEGINNING: The campaign of City Council candidate Jose Ugarte is off to a rocky start. Ugarte, who is backed by his boss, Councilmember Curren Price, recently agreed to pay a $17,500 fine from the Ethics Commission for failing to mention his outside consulting work on his financial disclosure forms, But on Wednesday, two ethics commissioners blocked the deal, saying they think his fine should be bigger. (Ugarte has called the violation “an unintentional clerical error.”) Stay tuned!

— A NEW CHIEF: Mayor Karen Bass announced Friday that she has selected Jaime Moore, a 30-year LAFD veteran, to serve as the city’s newest fire chief. He comes to the department as it grapples with the continuing fallout over the city’s response to Palisades fire.

— LAWSUIT EN ROUTE: Meanwhile, the head of the city’s firefighter union has accused Bass of retaliating against him after he publicly voiced alarm over department staffing during the January fires. Freddy Escobar, president of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112, said he’s preparing a lawsuit against the city. Escobar was suspended from his union position earlier this year, after an audit found that more than 70% of the transactions he made on his union credit card had no supporting documentation.

— HE’S BACK! (KINDA): Former Mayor Eric Garcetti returned to City Hall for the first time since leaving office in 2022, appearing alongside Councilmember Nithya Raman in the council chamber for a celebration of Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights. Garcetti, a former U.S. ambassador to India, described Diwali as a “reawakening,” saying it may be “the longest continuous human holiday on earth.”

— GENERATIONS OF GALPIN: The San Fernando Valley auto dealership known as Galpin Motors has had a long history with the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, the civilian oversight panel at the LAPD. On Wednesday, the council approved the nomination of Galpin vice president Jeffrey Skobin, to serve on the commission — making him the third executive with the dealership to serve over the past 40 years.

— AIRPORT OVERHAUL: Los Angeles World Airports is temporarily closing Terminal 5 at Los Angeles International Airport, carrying out a “complete demolition” and renovation of the space in the run-up to the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. During construction, JetBlue will be operating out of Terminal 1, Spirit shifts to Terminal 2 and American Airlines lands in Terminal 4, the airport agency said.

— OUT THE DOOR: Two of the five citizen commissioners who oversee the Department of Water and Power have submitted their resignations. DWP Commissioner George McGraw, appointed by Bass two years ago, told The Times he’d been laying the groundwork for a departure for six months. McGraw said he found he could no longer balance the needs of the commission, where he sometimes put in 30 to 40 hours per week, with the other parts of his life. “I needed extra capacity,” he said.

— NO MORE MIA: DWP Commissioner Mia Lehrer was a little more blunt, telling Bass in her Sept. 29 resignation letter that her stint on the board was negatively affecting her work at Studio-MLA, her L.A.-based design studio. Lehrer said the firm has been disqualified from city projects based on “misinterpretations” of her role on the commission.

“As a result, I am experiencing unanticipated limitations on my professional opportunities that were neither expected nor justified under existing ethical frameworks,” she wrote. “These constraints not only affect my own business endeavors but also carry significant consequences for the forty-five professional and their families who rely on the continued success of our work.”

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to address homelessness went to Cotner Avenue near the 405 Freeway in Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky’s Westside district.
• On the docket next week: The board votes Tuesday on an $828-million payout to victims who say they were sexually abused in county facilities as children. The vote comes months after agreeing to the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history.

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

Los Angeles County launched an investigation Tuesday to determine whether a record $4-billion sex abuse settlement approved this year may be tainted.

County supervisors unanimously approved a motion to have county lawyers investigate possible misconduct by “legal representatives” involved in the recent flood of sex abuse litigation against L.A. County. The county auditor’s office also will set up a hotline dedicated to tips from the public related to the lawsuits, according to the motion.

“It is appalling and sickening that anyone would exploit a system meant to bring justice to victims of childhood sexual abuse,” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who first called for the investigation. “We must ensure that nothing like this ever happens again and that every penny that we are allocating to victims goes directly to the survivors.”

Barger said she was “incredibly disturbed and quite frankly disgusted” by a Times investigation published last week that found seven plaintiffs in the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history who claimed they were paid by recruiters to sue the county. Two people said they were told to make up claims of abuse. The plaintiffs who spoke with The Times said the recruiters paid them outside a social services office in South Los Angeles.

All of the people who said they were paid by the recruiters were represented by Downtown L.A. Law Group, or DTLA, a personal injury firm with more than 2,700 plaintiffs in the settlement. DTLA has denied any involvement with the recruiters. The Times could not reach the recruiters for comment.

“We do not pay our clients to file lawsuits, and we strongly oppose such actions,” the firm previously said in a statement. “We want justice for real victims.”

The county agreed to a $4-billion settlement in the spring to resolve thousands of lawsuits by people who said they were sexually abused inside the county’s foster homes and juvenile halls as children. The lawsuits were spurred by a 2020 law that changed the statute of limitations and gave victims a new window to sue.

To pay for the settlement, most county departments had to slash their budgets. Supervisor Holly Mitchell called it a “painful irony” that many of the people who were paid to sue were there to get help from the South L.A. social services office in her district — part of a department which now faces cuts.

“We are not an ATM machine,” Supervisor Hilda Solis said. “We are the safety net.”

The Times found many of the attorneys involved in the case will receive 40% of their client’s settlement. Barger said she was shocked to learn that meant more than $1 billion in taxpayer money could go to law firms.

“I seriously doubt any of those attorneys understand the depth of what they have done,” Barger said. “It is going to have an impact on the county’s ability to function.”

The motion passed Tuesday directs county lawyers to enlist law enforcement “as necessary” and consider referring the allegations in The Times’ reporting to the State Bar.

California lawmakers, labor leaders and a powerful attorney trade group also have called for the bar to investigate.

The State Bar has declined to comment on whether it will launch an investigation, but said California law generally prohibits making payments to solicit or procure clients, a practice known as capping.

A majority of the supervisors expressed anger Tuesday at the 2020 change, saying the law was poorly crafted and left the county hemorrhaging billions. Many counties and school districts have similarly decried the change to the statute of limitations, which they say forced them to fight decades-old cases without records. Governments are required to throw out older records related to minors for privacy reasons, leaving lawyers often unable to prove whether a person suing them was at the facility where the abuse allegedly occurred.

The law change was championed by former lawmaker Lorena Gonzalez, now the president of the California Federation of Labor Unions. Barger repeatedly called the law, commonly referred to as AB 218, the “Gonzalez bill.”

“I’m calling it what it is,” said Barger, noting that school districts across the state now find themselves in similarly dire financial straits. “Maybe it is time for us all to get together and figure out how we clean up the mess that the Gonzalez bill put into play.”

Gonzalez says she believes plaintiffs attorneys have taken advantage of her legislation and is looking for someone in Sacramento to pass a new bill that will make it easier for jurisdictions to defend themselves. She emphasized that her priority was protecting real victims and said her bill didn’t change the burden of proof.

“What, are they just pissed because they can’t do due diligence?” she said. “They’re deflecting their whole responsibility in this. I’ve been clear there should be changes made. They should be clear that maybe they didn’t live up to their own burden of proof.”

Over the last week, some county unions and state legislators have questioned whether county lawyers did enough to screen the abuse claims before agreeing to pay out billions. The supervisors planned to meet with county lawyers in closed session Tuesday afternoon to discuss, in part, how the claims had been vetted.

“Did we do depositions? Did we do due diligence? “ Supervisor Janice Hahn said. “That was the first thing that came to my mind is what responsibility did we have to actually vet each and every one of the cases?”

The supervisors emphasized that they believed there were many legitimate claims in the settlement, and they wanted those victims to get compensated for the abuse they suffered at the hands of county employees.

Many victims have told The Times that they suffered egregious abuse decades ago at the hands of probation staff, who they said would molest them and threaten them with solitary confinement if they told higher-ups. MacLaren Children’s Center, a now-shuttered county-run shelter in El Monte, was also rife with predatory staff, according to interviews with half a dozen victims.

“It must truly reach those who are harmed,” Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said. “These funds must go to survivors — not individuals or entities who are looking to profit from someone else’s suffering.”

Backed by a hefty list of prominent endorsers, Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis has officially kicked off her bid for a southeast L.A. County congressional seat, should new district maps be approved by California voters in November.

“I’ve been standing up for the people — and against Trump — as a Supervisor, and now it’s time to campaign for the House and fight for the people and democracy in the Congress,” Solis said in a statement Friday.

The former secretary of Labor, 67, previously served in Congress and the statehouse before becoming a county supervisor.

Solis’ campaign launch included endorsements from five sitting members of Congress, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and civil rights leader Dolores Huerta, among others.

The heavyweight list speaks to the legislator’s deep backing in local Democratic politics. It also doubles as a warning to other potential candidates about the establishment firepower behind Solis’ nascent campaign, despite the seat she’s angling for not actually existing yet.

Solis would run in the redrawn 38th District, which is currently represented by Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Whittier). Should the maps pass, Sánchez is likely planning to run in the redrawn 41st District, which will include her home of Whittier, leaving the new 38th District without an incumbent candidate. Both districts will be heavily Democratic.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s push to redraw California’s district maps to favor Democrats will be decided by voters in a Nov. 4 special election — a decision that could potentially determine the balance of power in the Congress in 2026. The plan punches back at President Trump’s drive for more GOP House seats in Texas and other states.

The Times reported this month that Solis was lining up support for a potential candidacy even before the new maps were finalized. At least one California lawmaker told The Times that Solis referred to the district as “my seat” when asking for backing — a reference to the seat she once held, even though the new district doesn’t yet exist. Solis confirmed her candidacy to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune on Thursday.

Along with Sanchez, former Obama administration staffer TJ Adams-Falconer has also filed campaign fundraising paperwork in the district.

In a police department with a long tradition of colorful nicknames — from “Jigsaw John” to “Captain Hollywood” — LAPD Sgt. Joseph Lloyd stands out.

“The Grim Reaper.”

At least that’s what some on the force have taken to calling the veteran Internal Affairs detective, usually out of earshot.

According to officers who have found themselves under investigation by Lloyd, he seems to relish the moniker and takes pleasure in ending careers, even if it means twisting facts and ignoring evidence.

But Lloyd’s backers maintain his dogged pursuit of the truth is why he has been entrusted with some of the department’s most politically sensitive and potentially embarrassing cases.

Lloyd, 52, declined to comment. But The Times spoke to more than half a dozen current or former police officials who either worked alongside him or fell under his scrutiny.

During the near decade that he’s been in Internal Affairs, Lloyd has investigated cops of all ranks.

When a since-retired LAPD officer was suspected of running guns across the Mexican border, the department turned to Lloyd to bust him.

In 2020, when it came out that members of the elite Metropolitan Division were falsely labeling civilians as gang members in a police database, Lloyd was tapped to help unravel the mess.

And when a San Fernando Valley anti-gang squad was accused in 2023 of covering up shakedowns of motorists, in swooped the Reaper again.

Recently he was assigned to a department task force looking into allegations of excessive force by police against activists who oppose the government’s immigration crackdown.

At the LAPD, as in most big-city police departments across the country, Internal Affairs investigators tend to be viewed with suspicion and contempt by their colleagues. They usually try to operate in relative anonymity.

Not Lloyd.

The 24-year LAPD veteran has inadvertently become the face of a pitched debate over the LAPD’s long-maligned disciplinary system. The union that represents most officers has long complained that well-connected senior leaders get favorable treatment. Others counter that rank-and-file cops who commit misconduct are routinely let off the hook.

A recent study commissioned by Chief Jim McDonnell found that perceived unfairness in internal investigations is a “serious point of contention” among officers that has contributed to low morale. McDonnell has said he wants to speed up investigations and better screen complaints, but efforts by past chiefs and the City Council to overhaul the system have repeatedly stalled.

Sarah Dunster, 40, was a sergeant working in the LAPD’s Hollywood division in 2021 when she learned she was under investigation for allegedly mishandling a complaint against one of her officers, who was accused of groping a woman he arrested.

Dunster said she remembers being interviewed by Lloyd, whose questions seemed designed to trip her up and catch her in a lie, rather than aimed at hearing her account of what happened, she said. Some of her responses never made it into Lloyd’s report, she said.

“He wanted to fire me,” she said.

Dunster was terminated over the incident, but she appealed and last week a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge granted a reprieve that allows her to potentially get her job back.

Others who have worked with Lloyd say he is regarded as a savvy investigator who is unfairly being vilified for discipline decisions that are ultimately made by the chief of police. A supervisor who oversaw Lloyd at Internal Affairs — and requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media — described him as smart, meticulous and “a bulldog.”

“Joe just goes where the facts lead him and he doesn’t have an issue asking the hard questions,” the supervisor said.

On more than one occasion, the supervisor added, Internal Affairs received complaints from senior department officials who thought that Lloyd didn’t show them enough deference during interrogations. Other supporters point to his willingness to take on controversial cases to hold officers accountable, even while facing character attacks from his colleagues, their attorneys and the powerful Los Angeles Police Protective League.

Officers have sniped about his burly build, tendency to smile during interviews and other eccentricities. He wears two watches — one on each wrist, a habit he has been heard saying he picked up moonlighting as a high school lacrosse referee.

But he has also been criticized as rigid and uncompromising, seeming to fixate only on details that point to an officer’s guilt. People he has grilled say that when he doesn’t get the answer he’s looking for, he has a Columbo-esque tendency to ask the same question in different ways in an attempt to elicit something incriminating.

And instead of asking officers to clarify any discrepancies in their statements, Lloyd automatically assumes they are lying, some critics said.

Mario Munoz, a former LAPD Internal Affairs lieutenant who opened a boutique firm that assists officers fighting employment and disciplinary cases, recently released a scathing 60-page report questioning what he called a series of troubling lapses in the LAPD’s 2023 investigation of the Mission gang unit. The report name-drops Lloyd several times.

The department accused several Mission officers of stealing brass knuckles and other items from motorists in the San Fernando Valley, and attempting to hide their actions from their supervisors by switching off their body-worn cameras.

Munoz said he received calls from officers who said Lloyd had violated their due process rights, which potentially opens the city up to liability. Several have since lodged complaints against Lloyd with the department. He alleged Lloyd ultimately singled out several “scapegoats to shield higher-level leadership from scrutiny.”

Until he retired from the LAPD in 2014, Munoz worked as both an investigator and an auditor who reviewed landmark internal investigations into the beating of Black motorist Rodney King and the Rampart gang scandal in which officers were accused of robbing people and planting evidence, among other crimes.

Munoz now echoes a complaint from current officers that Internal Affairs in general, and Lloyd in particular, operate to protect the department’s image at all costs.

“He’s the guy that they choose because he doesn’t question management,” Munoz said of Lloyd.

In the Mission case, Munoz pointed to inconsistent outcomes for two captains who oversaw the police division accused of wrongdoing: One was transferred and later promoted, while another is fighting for his job amid accusations that he failed to rein in his officers.

Two other supervisors — Lt. Mark Garza and Sgt. Jorge “George” Gonzalez — were accused by the department of creating a “working environment that resulted in the creation of a police gang,” according to an internal LAPD report. Both Garza and Gonzalez have sued the city, alleging that even though they reported the wrongdoing as soon as they became aware of it, they were instead punished by the LAPD after the scandal became public.

According to Munoz’s report and interviews with department sources, Lloyd was almost single-handedly responsible for breaking the Mission case open.

It began with a complaint in late December 2022 made by a motorist who said he was pulled over and searched without reason in a neighboring patrol area. Lloyd learned that the officers involved had a pattern of not documenting traffic stops — exploiting loopholes in the department’s auditing system for dashboard and body cameras. The more Lloyd dug, the more instances he uncovered of these so-called “ghost stops.”

A few months later, undercover Internal Affairs detectives began tailing the two involved officers — something that Garza and Gonzalez both claimed they were kept in the dark about.

As of last month, four officers involved had been fired and another four had pending disciplinary hearings where their jobs hung in the balance. Three others resigned before the department could take action. The alleged ringleader, Officer Alan Carrillo, faces charges of theft and “altering, planting or concealing evidence.” Court records show he was recently offered pretrial diversion by L.A. County prosecutors, which could spare him jail but require him to stop working in law enforcement. Carrillo has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

In an interview with The Times, Gonzalez — the sergeant who is facing termination — recalled a moment during a recorded interrogation that he found so troubling he contacted the police union director Jamie McBride, to express concern. McBride, he said, went to Lloyd’s boss, then-deputy chief Michael Rimkunas, seeking Lloyd’s removal from Internal Affairs.

The move failed. Lloyd kept his job.

Rimkunas confirmed the exchange with the police union leader in an interview with The Times.

He said that while he couldn’t discuss Lloyd specifically due to state personnel privacy laws, in general the department assigns higher-profile Internal Affairs cases to detectives with a proven track record.

Gonzalez, though, can’t shake the feeling that Lloyd crossed the line in trying to crack him during an interrogation.

He said that at one point while Lloyd was asking questions, the detective casually flipped over his phone, which had been sitting on the table. On the back of the protective case, Gonzalez said, was a grim reaper sticker.

“And then as he turned it he looked at me as if to get a reaction from me,” Gonzalez said. “It was definitely a way of trying to intimidate me for sure.”

A SUSPECT has been arrested after American Idol music supervisor Robin Kaye and her husband were found dead in their home.

Robin and husband Thomas DeLuca, both 70, were found dead with gunshot wounds to their heads in their Los Angeles mansion on Monday, the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed to The U.S. Sun.

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Now, police have arrested suspect Raymond Boodarian, 22, although the nature of his arrest is not yet clear.

Family members had called for a welfare check for the couple on Monday, July 14, after they hadn’t been heard from in four days, police said.

When cops arrived at their home in L.A.’s swanky Encino neighborhood, they found blood at the front entrance of the house, TMZ first reported.

Officers smashed a window to get inside, where they discovered the couple’s bodies.

They were both declared dead at the scene at around 2:30 pm.

Footage obtained by ABC affiliate KABC showed the home’s sliding glass door was shattered.

Neighbor Hannah Massachi, a local realtor, told The U.S. Sun locals are “very shaken” and desperate for answers.

“They were a lovely couple, I saw them a few months ago,” she said, adding, “Why would somebody do this?”

“I’ve lived here for over 30 years. Everyone is proud to live in Encino and all the celebrities are here, all the movie stars. I’ve sold many homes here,” she said.

Police had been called to the couple’s $5 million home just days earlier.

EERIE SCARE

On Thursday, a suspect tried to get into Kaye and Deluca’s house while possibly carrying a gun, residents told NBC affiliate KTLA.

The couple’s neighbors said they called police after someone saw a person hopping the fence.

“We didn’t see or hear anything. My renter called 911 on Thursday because she saw somebody hopping the fence,” neighbor Amee Faggen told KABC before the victims were identified.

“And I have no idea if that was related or not. They came and left, the helicopters and police came.”

It’s unclear if the two incidents are related.

POOL CLEANER SPEAKS OUT

Kaye and Deluca’s pool cleaner, Mauro Quintero, turned up at their home on Tuesday to get paid like usual, he told The U.S. Sun.

Instead, he found crime scene tape and learned they had been murdered.

He said Deluca recently told him about another attempted break-in over a month ago.

“Tom told me about a month ago that people tried to break in in the middle of the night,” Quintero, 55, said, adding that the intruders were scared off by the couple’s two small dogs barking.

“But they have little dogs and they woke him up and they ran off.”

He said the couple put up security cameras after the scare. There were also spikes on the fence surrounding the home.

“They were really nice people, the lady especially,” Quintero recalled.

“I only ever saw the two of them at the house.”

Law enforcement sources said they believe the shooting happened Thursday during a possible burglary at the house, reports NBC4 Washington.

Following their tragic deaths, a spokesperson for American Idol said: “We are devastated to hear of Robin and her dear husband, Tom’s, passing.

“Robin has been a cornerstone of the Idol family since 2009 and was truly loved and respected by all who came in contact with her.

“Robin will remain in our hearts forever and we share our deepest sympathy with her family and friends during this difficult time.”

More to follow… For the latest news on this story, keep checking back at The U.S. Sun, your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, sports news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures, and must-see videos.

Like us on Facebook at TheSunUS and follow us on X at @TheUSSun

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SAN ANSELMO, Calif. — It’s hard to miss Brian Colbert. It’s not just his burly 6-foot-4 frame, his clean-shaven head or the boldly patterned, brightly colored Hawaiian shirts he’s adopted as an unofficial uniform.

Colbert is one of just a small number of Black people who live in wealthy, woodsy and very white Marin County — and the first Black supervisor elected since the county’s founding more than 175 years ago.

He didn’t lean into race, or history, as he campaigned in the fall. He didn’t have to. “As a large Black man,” he said, his physicality and the barrier-breaking nature of his candidacy were self-evident.

Rather, Colbert won after knocking, by his count, on 20,000 doors, wearing out several pairs of size 15 shoes and putting parochial concerns, such as wildfire prevention, disaster preparedness and flood control, at the center of his campaign. He continues, during these early months in office, to focus on a garden variety of municipal issues: housing, traffic, making local government more accessible and responsive.

That’s not to say, however, that Colbert doesn’t have deeply felt thoughts on the precedent his election set, or the significance of the lived experience he brings to office — different from most in this privileged slice of the San Francisco Bay Area — at a time President Trump is turning his back on civil rights and his administration treats diversity, equity and inclusion as though they were four-letter words.

“I think of the challenges, the indignities that my grandparents suffered on a daily basis” living under Jim Crow, Colbert said over lunch recently in his hometown of San Anselmo. He carefully chose his words, at one point resting an index finger on his temple to signal a pause as he gathered his thoughts.

Colbert recalled visits to Savannah, Ga., where he attended Baptist church services with his mother’s parents.

“I remember looking at the faces,” Colbert said, “and to me they were the faces of African Americans waiting for death, because they were aware and knew of the opportunities that had been denied to them simply because of the color of their skin. But what gave them hope was the belief their kids and grandkids would have a better life. I am a product of that hope, in so many ways.”

Colbert, 57, grew up in Bethel, Conn., about 60 miles northeast of New York City. Residents tried to prevent his parents — an accountant and a stay-at-home mom — from moving into the overwhelmingly white community. Neighbors circulated a petition urging the owners to not sell their home to the Black couple. They did so anyway.

Colbert went on to earn degrees in political science and acting, public policy and law. He traveled the world with his wife, a Syrian American, practiced law on Wall Street, ran a chocolate company and a small tech firm. He lived for 3½ years in Turkey, where he taught international law and political science at a private university.

In 2007, when the couple returned to the U.S., they set their sights on the Bay Area, drawn by the weather, the natural beauty and the entrepreneurial spirit that drew countless opportunity seekers before them. (Colbert started wearing Hawaiian shirts on the Silicon Valley conference circuit, after being mistaken one too many times for a security guard.)

In 2013, Colbert, his wife and their daughter settled in San Anselmo, a charmy tree-lined community about 15 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The relatively short commute to San Francisco, where he manages a medical concierge service, the quality schools and the vast open space were big attractions — though Colbert knew he and his family would stand out, just as he had in Bethel.

San Anselmo, with its rugged hillsides and red-brick downtown, has about 13,000 residents. The Black population is less than 2%. But Colbert’s extensive travels and life overseas convinced him that people “on a certain level [are] the same” everywhere — “warm, welcoming, kind, generous, helpful.”

He had an abiding interest in policy and public service, so in 2013 Colbert joined the city’s Economic Development Council. Four years later, he was elected to the Town Council. He served seven years, one in the rotating position of mayor, before running for the nonpartisan Board of Supervisors.

Inevitably, he encountered racism along the way. There were threatening phone calls and emails. He got the occasional side-eye as he canvassed door-to-door in all-white neighborhoods. For the most part, however, “people were incredibly pleasant” and campaigning “was no more challenging … than it would be [for] any candidate.”

On a recent sunny afternoon, Colbert was greeted heartily — “Hey, Brian!” “Hey, supervisor!” — as he strode past Town Hall to Imagination Park, a gift the city’s most famous resident, filmmaker George Lucas, bequeathed along with life-sized statues of Yoda and Indiana Jones.

These are fraught times. The reckoning that followed the murder of George Floyd has given way to a backlash and a president who disdains efforts at equality, complains of anti-white prejudice and purges powerful Black men and women in the name of a mythical colorblind society.

Given a chance to speak directly to Trump, what would Colbert — a Democrat — say?

“Mr. President, thank you for your service,” he began. “Being in public offices is hard and difficult.”

He paused. Several beats passed. A waiter cleared away dishes.

“I would encourage you to change your tone, certainly publicly, and broaden your perspective and embrace those who might have a different perspective than you,” Colbert went on. “Many people have come to this country and they’ve added value. They’ve made this country for the better.

“Remember those who don’t necessarily have easy access to power. Remember those who are struggling. Focus on those who are most vulnerable and are highly dependent on the government to help them through a short amount of time. I mean, the American experiment is incredible. Keep that in mind. A little empathy. Simple acts of kindness. Place yourself into someone else’s shoes.

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has come under heavy scrutiny for deleting the text messages she sent during the region’s disastrous January firestorms.

But she wasn’t the only elected official expunging her correspondence during those history-making days.

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents the area devastated by the Eaton fire, also routinely deletes her text messages, her spokesperson said.

“Supervisor Barger’s iPhone auto-delete setting is set to 30 days. She also manually deletes her texts sometimes,” Barger spokesperson Helen Chavez Garcia said last month.

The Times filed a public records request for Barger’s communications with Bass from Jan. 7 through late February. Barger’s office provided no written communications in response, despite Barger having publicly said that she was texting with Bass late into the night on Jan. 7, while Bass was in transit back to the city after a diplomatic trip to Ghana.

The other four supervisors — Lindsey Horvath, Hilda Solis, Holly Mitchell and Janice Hahn — do not use the auto-delete function on their phones, according to their spokespeople.

Chavez Garcia said in an email that there is “no pre-determined method that the Supervisor applies when selecting which messages to manually delete.”

Constance Farrell, a spokesperson for Horvath, said her understanding was that county officials were supposed to retain their text messages for two years to comply with the county’s record retention policy. Horvath’s office released some of her text messages in February after a Times public records request. The messages showed the supervisor sparring with Bass during the fires.

The county record retention guidelines make no mention of text messages but say that routine “administrative records” are supposed to be kept for two years.

The board’s executive office said the public record act applies to text messages, though some may be exempt from disclosure.

“Whether a supervisor’s text is a public record depends on whether it is a text regarding the conduct of the peoples’ business,” Steven Hernandez, the chief deputy for the executive office, said in a statement.

According to county policy, employees must sign an agreement every year acknowledging that all electronic communications, such as emails or instant messages, sent on county devices are the property of the county.

Bass previously kept her phone on a 30-day auto-delete setting, far shorter than the two-year retention period outlined in the city’s administrative code.

However, after being pressed by The Times, which had filed public records requests for the mayor’s correspondence during the Palisades fire, Bass’ office said it was able to recover the deleted messages using “specialized technology.”

(The Times sued the city in March over the mayor’s texts. Even though city officials ultimately provided some texts, The Times is contesting the city’s argument that releasing them was not required under state law.)

It also remains unclear whether Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who was filling in as acting mayor in Bass’ stead when the fires broke out, deleted his text messages from that time period.

After The Times filed a public records request seeking correspondence that Harris-Dawson sent to Bass or received from her between Jan. 6 and Jan. 16, Harris-Dawson’s office said it had “no responsive records.”

Harris-Dawson’s office did not respond to repeated questions over the course of several months about why there was no correspondence and whether it had been deleted.

“It’s very disappointing to see that that practice has spilled over up the street [to the County]. I was hoping it was just L.A. City Hall shenanigans and the absurdities of our two big leaders,” said Unrig LA founder Rob Quan, referring to Bass and Harris-Dawson.

Quan, who leads a transparency-focused good-government advocacy group, said he believed proper recordkeeping from January was all the more important given the historic importance of the fires.