Valley

Legal challenges flared this week over an Inland Empire school district’s alleged removal of library books and, separately, on its efforts to require parental notification on student gender identity — policies strongly supported by the school board president, Sonja Shaw, a leading contender to become the next state schools superintendent.

One policy of Chino Valley Unified allows parents and others to force the removal of school library books to which they object, resulting in books with sexual content or with LGBTQ+ themes being pulled off shelves, according to a complaint filed this week by a leading public-interest law firm and local parents.

The complaint, filed with the California Department of Education, asks the state agency to investigate whether education codes have been violated. The complaint also seeks to invalidate the policy and have books returned to shelves.

The other Chino Valley Unified policy under legal scrutiny would require school employees to notify parents when students express gender-identity issues at school — even if the students want to keep this information secret from their parents. The Chino Valley school board passed its notification policy in July 2023, but a state judge put the policy on hold and subsequently ruled it illegal.

However, the Chino Valley school board is seeking to reinstate the policy in light of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions. A court hearing on the matter had been scheduled for Wednesday, but has been moved to Sept. 15.

The San Bernardino County school system of 26,000 students adopted both policies under the leadership of school board President Shaw, a conservative Republican running for the office of state superintendent of public instruction. Shaw finished first in the June primary among 10 candidates, seven of them Democrats who appeared to split the Democratic vote among them.

On Wednesday, Shaw had not yet had an opportunity to review the book-policy complaint, but said both policies ultimately look out for children by safeguarding the rights of parents.

“I believe the larger issue is whether parents are going to remain the primary decision-makers for their children or whether Sacramento continues to chip away at that role,” Shaw said. “I will always stand on the side of parents.”

The book policy “is about ensuring that sexually explicit material is not placed in the hands of children in our schools,” Shaw said. “That is a reasonable responsibility for a school board, and I believe parents overwhelmingly expect us to exercise that responsibility.”

The challenge to the policies comes in the context of the November election, which pits Shaw against second-place finisher Richard Barrera, a Democrat.

Barrera said that some parents may agree with some of Shaw’s positions on culture war issues, but not with her entire agenda.

“I would say that the overwhelming majority of parents of students in our public schools find the agenda that Sonja Shaw is promoting to be terrifying,” Barrera said. “The idea that we’re going to restrict access to books for students, the idea that we are going to pick on and bully LGBTQ students, and particularly transgender students, is not a reflection of the values of parents in California.”

Barrera, the president of the San Diego Unified school board, also works as a senior state Education Department staffer, but has no involvement in handing complaints such as the one just filed, the department said.

Books removed from shelves

The Chino Valley school board adopted the book restriction policy in October 2023.

The district policy permits any community member to call for removing a library book. Such a demand, according to the policy, must be acted on immediately, with the book’s removal occurring within three days. A subsequent hearing within 45 days allows for public testimony, board discussion and a board vote, which would be the final decision.

Before the policy was adopted, community members had complained in public hearings about specific books and dramatically read aloud sexually explicit passages at board meetings to make their point. Defenders of the books said the passages were taken out of context in works that needed to be considered in their entirety.

The district began acting on its new book-removal policy before receiving any formal complaints, according to the filing submitted to state officials by Los Angeles-based Public Counsel.

In the fall of 2023, district officials asked schools for an inventory of specific titles public speakers had complained about at board meetings. Also included in the inventory were some books perceived as likely to be challenged.

Shortly after, parents and employees were no longer able to find copies of some of these books on the public-facing, book-search system, these critics told The Times in early 2024.

During this early period, only one formal complaint about a specific book was immediately received, a November 2023 request to remove the Bible “in all its forms” based on the Bible’s sexual content. This request was not carried out, the Public Counsel complaint states.

Other requests were submitted in October 2024 and covered 14 books, including: “Looking for Alaska” by John Green; “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas; “Beloved” by Toni Morrison; “Juliet Takes a Breath” by Gabby Rivera; and “More Happy Than Not” by Adam Silvera.

The complaint to the Education Department also alleges the removal this year from at least one library of an unnamed book by Maya Angelou and an unnamed middle school book that touched on sexual identity.

The complaint alleges that the Chino Valley policy is unlawful under state law and unconstitutional under state and federal law. It also alleges that, even if the policy were to survive the legal test, Chino Valley did not follow its own rules. The complaint states there is no evidence of any public hearings or board votes on a challenged or removed book.

The state Education Department had no immediate response to the filing of the complaint.

A consistent theme in the removed books was LGBTQ+ content, according to the complaint. Targeting that content would amount to unlawful discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals, who are explicitly protected against discrimination in California, said Elizabeth Graves, senior staff attorney in the educational equity unit of Public Counsel.

Ultimately, books were removed “not because they contain sexually obscene material, but because they contain content protected by law,” Graves said. “The school district appears to be targeting books that are featuring LGBTQ people, or written by LGBTQ authors.”

The state education code, Graves said, “really calls out how important accurate and inclusive education is for students, especially LGBTQ people, Black, Indigenous, and other peoples of color.”

Graves said that Public Counsel filed its complaint with the California Education Department because it can carry out an expedited complaint process in as little as 60 days.

Shaw said that if anyone questioned the district’s management of its policy, the matter could have been brought directly to district officials. Her issue, she said, is simply sexually explicit, graphic description — not references to sex. Parents can find that explicit material for their children in a public library if they choose, she added.

Parent notification on gender issues

Chino Valley became the first school district in California to adopt a parental notification policy in July 2023. It required that a school administrator, counselor or teacher notify parents if a student requests to be treated as a gender different from the student’s biological sex in any facet of school or in school records.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta quickly sued to stop the policy and San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Michael Sachs barred nearly all its elements. But he did allow parents to be notified of any student requests to change school records; for example, if a student requested to be known by a different name on a class roster.

In March, however, in a California case, a U.S. Supreme Court majority ruled that parents had a right to be told — if they asked — about their child’s sexual orientation issues at school. A lower court in the same case — Mirabelli vs. Bonta — had already ruled that school staff could not be barred from informing parents if they wanted to.

Since then, California Justice Center and Advocates for Faith & Freedom have filed a motion asking the state court to dissolve the injunction blocking Chino Valley’s original parent notification policy.

“Chino Valley is now in the impossible position of being subject to two conflicting permanent injunctions,” said attorney Emily Rae.

“The original policy was important because parents have a fundamental right to know what is happening with their own children,” Shaw said. “The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the fundamental role parents play in raising and directing the upbringing of their children. Schools should not replace parents.”

Bonta’s office asserted in court papers that the original ruling should stand because the other recent rulings did not directly apply and because the Chino policy “discriminated against transgender and gender nonconforming students by forcing school personnel to ‘out’ those students to their parents, even if their parents have not asked for such notification; even when disclosure would result in physical, emotional, or psychological abuse; and even when less harmful alternatives … were available.”

Footage shows blast victims hurried into a hospital in northwestern Pakistan, after a suicide bombing at a police station in Kabal near the Afghan border killed at least 14 people. Crowds of people had been protesting nearby when the bomb exploded.

Kylie Cantrall loves having a day off in the Valley.

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.

Born and raised in the L.A. area, Cantrall has been working in entertainment since launching a YouTube channel at 7 years old. At 21, she’s been rising through Hollywood’s ranks, doing everything from animated voices to toplining live-action series, all while garnering millions of social media followers. These days, she’s best known to the teen, tween and under set for her starmaking turn as “Red” in Disney’s “Descendants” franchise, with “Descendants: Wicked Wonderland,” which dropped last week. Ever the multi-hyphenate, Cantrall is also hoping her new eight-song EP — the aptly-titled “Valley Girl Problems,” which she’s been promoting with “Life of a Valley Girl” travelogs on TikTok — will help further her career in mainstream pop music.

Because of all that ambition, Cantrall is busy nearly all of the time. Except Sundays. “Sunday is my favorite day of the week,” she says, “and that’s because of all the things I get to do.”

Here’s everything Cantrall would do on a sunny Sunday.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

9 a.m.: Sleep, then hike

I’ll grab a yogurt for breakfast and then head out the door, on my way to Fryman Canyon for a little morning hike. That’s my go-to spot because I like that you can actually control how hard you want the workout to be. It’s not the craziest hike — it’s actually pretty calm — but there are a couple of incline points. It really is the perfect place for when you want to meet up with a friend and get some steps in, but you also don’t want to be dying while you’re trying to have a conversation.

Noon: Empanadas at the farmers market

After a hike, I’ll usually go to the Studio City Farmers Market. I’ll get a little vanilla latte with oat milk, and I’ll stop at this stand, King’s Empanadas, because they make my favorite empanada in L.A. I get the shredded chicken one, which is cute and tiny but really filling.

There’s another vendor there [Bautista Family Organic Ranch] that sells dates and they’re literally the best dates I’ve ever had in my life. They’re desserts, essentially. They’re so caramelly and sweet.

I always get berries at the market, too, like raspberries and blueberries. There’s another vendor [Thyme for Honey] who makes different flavors of granola and their coffee-flavored granola is so bomb that I’ll always get that too.

2 p.m.: Flea market finds

I’d probably meet up with a friend and go to the Silverlake Flea Market, which I’ve been really liking recently. It’s a bit of a drive for me since I’m in the Valley, though, like a cute 25 to 30 minutes.

At the Silverlake Flea Market, I’ve had a lot of luck with jewelry, like I’ve found a lot of really great rings, necklaces, and earrings, or little random other things. I always end up picking up a crystal too. It’s like an energy that just takes over me.

I might also luck out and find a cute baby tee. They have really good vintage artist T-shirts and I got a cute Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation tour shirt last time I was there.

4 p.m.: Matcha stop

After the Silverlake Flea [which is held in Atwater Village], I’ll go to a coffee shop that I’m obsessed with. It’s called Laveta, and they have the best matcha I’ve ever had. It’s got a good cream top, and the shop has a cool vibe and ambience.

6 p.m.: Fighting traffic with the top down

I like to go and frolic every now and then just to get out of my Valley bubble, but after Laveta I’d probably head home. I’m thinking I’d hit some 6 p.m. traffic, but I’d be listening to music with the top down in my Mini Cooper. Maybe some Sade, maybe some Brandy. I might throw in a little Kim Petras if traffic is clear, and I’m speeding down the freeway.

7 p.m.: Laundry and “The Morning Show”

I’d probably try to be home by 7 to do laundry. I’d watch “The Morning Show,” which is my favorite show right now. Maybe I’d do a face mask too.

For dinner, I’ll go pick up some Katsuya if I’m feeling crazy. Their spot in the Valley has my favorite sushi, and I’m a big sushi gal. I’ll get the Robert roll and maybe even a miso soup if I’m feeling crazy. I’ve got to add crispy rice with spicy tuna too.

After that, probably just more “Morning Show” and then I usually try to be in bed by 11 p.m.

When Sebastian Dollinger and his colleagues first drove into Yosemite National Park, they felt like they were entering the world at its finest — a prehistoric beauty of hulking rocks with every waterfall flowing in the valley.

It reminded Dollinger, who lives in Sweden, of the Swiss Alps in summer.

The moment didn’t last long.

As the group, in the park in early May for a fashion shoot for California luxury brand Robert Talbott, neared Mirror Lake in Yosemite Valley, Dollinger’s party felt like it had been overtaken by a massive swarm of bees as droves of other tourists buzzed around them, he said.

A tourist stands in front of an overlook near Yosemite Valley during a sunrise in mid-June in Yosemite National Park.

Tourists wait at the Yosemite Falls bus stop.

“I could have taken up climbing and gone up El Capitan just to escape the people,” Dollinger said, referencing Yosemite’s famous rock wall, “but I’m just a creative director.”

This summer, Yosemite is seeing a significant uptick in visitation, driven by the park’s internationally known splendor, its popularity on social media and a lack of its politicized reservation system. As droves of tourists flock to Yosemite, it raises the question: Is it still possible to have a fun time there despite the crowds?

Hopefully, yes, but that answer comes with a few heavy asterisks. Park-goers and local business owners say it’s crucial for those venturing into Yosemite this summer to plan their excursions outside peak times to avoid the worst of the crowds, and even then, pack their patience. The best-laid plans can still result in visitors facing significant lines at the park’s gate and restaurants, crowded hiking trails and a relentless search for parking.

By the end of June, Yosemite had seen at least 183,000 more visitors than last year, according to preliminary park visitor data. Just over 2 million people visited the park by the end of June, a 10% increase compared with last year’s visitation data.

Crowds pose for photos on the Mist Trail.

The increase in visitors is, in part, because the National Park Service is not using a timed-entry reservation system this year.

The National Park Service announced in February — after the agency under the Biden administration studied extensively how to best implement a reservation system — that officials would instead use “targeted management.” This has included sending congestion alerts to visitors’ mobile phones and encouraging visitors to venture outside the valley, as it represents only a fraction of its almost 1,200 square miles of parkland.

When asked how the agency planned to address overcrowding in Yosemite this summer, a National Park Service spokesperson who declined to give their name to The Times said in an emailed statement that temporary traffic delays can occur during peak times but aren’t evidence of “operational failure.”

“They reflect the reality of managing one of the nation’s most visited national parks while keeping visitors safe and protecting park resources,” the spokesperson said. “Claims of widespread ‘overcrowding’ are not an accurate characterization of current park operations. Visitors have benefitted [sic] from expanded access for months now, and we are seeing operational efficiency from managing traffic only when and where necessary, rather than blanketing the park with restrictions for entire seasons.”

Dozens of tourists hike their way up the Mist Trail in mid-June, one of the more popular trails in Yosemite National Park.

Visitors like Dollinger say this new approach is not working.

“After we hiked for about three hours, we met a couple from Japan, and when I talked to them they were almost in tears,” said Dollinger, who has visited other state and national parks in California. “They saved for five years to do this trip, flew to San Francisco from Tokyo, stayed in San Francisco and hired a car, and went to the park for five days, which I can only describe as hell.”

Not every Yosemite visitor that The Times spoke to for this story had as bad of a time as Dollinger, but no one disputed crowds being an issue.

Chidumebi Ajaero, who lives in L.A., said he was “very concerned” when he and his friends left for their trip in mid-April over how crowded the park would be.

It was Ajaero’s first time to visit Yosemite after moving to California about 2½ years ago from Houston. He has been to other national parks and said he knows they can get “quite chaotic” when busy.

Tents set up in Upper Pines Campground on a June weekend in Yosemite National Park.

Ajaero and his friends arrived in Yosemite on a Friday afternoon and were surprised to find there was no line to enter the Big Oak Flat entrance.

They set their campsite up at Upper Pines, a campground in the valley, and headed out early on the Mist Trail, which takes hikers to Vernal and Nevada falls via its large stone steps. There were a considerable amount of people on the trail with them, he said.

“It’s not until you get to the waterfall itself and you have the steps, and everybody is taking pictures,” Ajaero said. “There’s actually a line to move up. You’re just waiting for your turn to step up” to capture the waterfall.

Ajaero said he’s glad he went before Memorial Day, when visitation started to increase more significantly.

But because of how curated Yosemite Valley is, with a grocery store, souvenir shops and restaurants, Ajaero said it felt more like an amusement park than his trips to Joshua Tree National Park, where visitors are far more on their own.

Hikers walk on a boardwalk designed to prevent erosion in sensitive meadows.

“I didn’t love it as much as the other because of the commercialized feeling of it, and just the fact it never felt you were alone in Yosemite,” he said. “I think there’s too much going on.”

How developed Yosemite should be for its visitors has been a debate since the park’s existence.

Michael W. Childers, author of “The Mountains Are Calling: Tourists and the Unmaking of Yosemite National Park” (Nebraska), said people often use the metaphor of not wanting to turn the park into Disneyland, but a more apt comparison is how closely Yosemite resembles a resort.

Concessionaires have been in Yosemite since its beginnings, as the federal government didn’t have the money to construct its own amenities in the 1850s, he said. Yosemite Hospitality, a subsidiary of hospitality giant Aramark, manages much of Yosemite’s lodging, dining and activities (including the park’s Starbucks inside the valley).

Childers, an associate professor of history at Colorado State University, said his concern is that, since the late 1970s, conservative intellectuals have pushed to privatize the park even further.

He said the chaos being created by the Trump administration through cutting park staff and ending the reservation system is “very intentional” in the quest to argue the only way to manage the park is to privatize Yosemite.

“If you privatize the entirety of a national park, that means that your only one measuring stick is profit, and arguably, national parks are not solely designed for profit,” said Childers, an environmental historian of the American West. “They’re for experience. They’re for democracy. They’re for preservation of natural resources.”

Vehicles stop to pay the fee at the El Portal entrance gate.

Vehicles line the road near El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.

One of park officials’ most significant management challenges started when tourists began entering Yosemite by automobile. Since 1913, people could enter in a personal vehicle, but visitation numbers remained reasonable until 1926 when the “All Year Highway,” a segment of the 140 Highway, opened.

This new thoroughfare created an easy and direct route to reach the park by car that avoided steep mountain roads, according to park history. The road’s opening resulted in a near doubling of total cars visiting the park in just one year, park staff said in an Instagram post.

“The summer of 1927 has clearly demonstrated that parking is one of the most urgent, menacing problems of the entire Yosemite Valley,” said Don Tresidder, president of the Yosemite Park & Curry Co., that year, according to the park.

And has thus remained for 100 years.

The first attempt in recent years to get a handle on car traffic was the reservation system, implemented initially to spread guests out during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 but rolled out in 2021, 2022 and 2024 as the park service tested how to best employ it to cut down on traffic and help more visitors enjoy the park.

“Over the past decade, many parks have seen significant increases in visitation and crowding in popular areas, especially during peak seasons,” the agency wrote in 2024 as it sought public comments on park management. “In some parks, the level of demand is exceeding the capacity for which infrastructure was designed or is outpacing the National Park Service’s ability to sustainably support visitation.”

The park service planned to use visitor feedback and research to guide how reservations would be rolled out in 2025. Environmental and park advocates argued for the reservation system, saying that it not only protected the wildlife and land, but also that it was popular among guests.

But when Trump started his second term in office, not only did park management strategy change, so did the way the federal government viewed the park service. Hundreds of park workers were laid off, although some got their jobs back. Others took buyouts, and overall there was a 24% decline in permanent workers, according to the National Parks Conservation Assn.

One of the reservation system’s biggest critics is Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove), who said the system was decimating the economies of local gateway communities, the term used for the small mountain towns around Yosemite.

Parking lots are filled to capacity during peak hours, creating traffic congestion in Yosemite National Park.

“This is not to say that crowding in the valley hasn’t been a big problem, but the solution is better management and more capacity, not restricting access,” McClintock said on the House floor in June, noting the park had more parking, rooms and campsites before the 1997 flood destroyed infrastructure that he said wasn’t replaced.

Under the timed-entry system, visitors could still enter the park without a reservation if they arrived early — before 6 a.m. in 2021 and 2022 and 5 a.m. in 2024 — or after 4 p.m., and would be required to pay an entry fee for a three-day pass allowing them to reenter outside of peak hours.

But entering the park early or late in the day still wasn’t doable for everyone, including Ronny Shields, a father of two children from Ventura.

Shields, a lifelong Southern California resident, struggled to book a reservation when Yosemite implemented the system until he finally snagged one in 2024. His family had a great time and was eager to return.

In early June, Shields, his wife and kids, ages 4 and 7, made the trek back to Yosemite, staying outside the park at Tenaya at Yosemite in Fish Camp. Shields had researched and found information online suggesting the nearby southern entrance was less crowded.

His family arrived on a Saturday afternoon and entered the park without a wait. They found the valley was quieter than they’d ever seen it as people left.

Tourists stand in a meadow with a perfect view of Yosemite Falls.

For the rest of their trip, they entered the park before 8 a.m. or after 3 p.m., except for one day when they entered later in the morning and waited 40 minutes to enter. The other times, they found no wait.

Once inside the park before 8 a.m., their first stop was the Bridalveil Fall Trail, a short trek that takes visitors right to the base of the thundering cascade. When Shields and his family left the trail about 9:30 a.m., they noticed other guests couldn’t find parking.

They faced the same problem after they went to get food and then tried to park near the Lower Yosemite Falls trailhead. After 20 minutes, they found a spot — and joined the masses.

The trail “doesn’t feel like a hike — it feels like you’re in a crowded mall, but I think that’s the nature of the beast because it’s very short and very scenic,” Shields said.

Comparing his two visits to Yosemite, Shields said he preferred not having to deal with the reservation system, but that came with some caveats. He noticed far more visitors, although he’d expected even more. He saw more trash, several guests going off trail and trampling plant life, and far fewer park rangers to tell them to stop.

He said he didn’t see any park staff in the outdoor areas, and instead, he and his wife made sure to take their kids into the park’s buildings so they could speak to the rangers.

Tourists swim and play in the Merced River in Yosemite National Park.

“It’s nice for the kids to be able to ask questions and learn from people that love it,” Shields said. “Even I learned something.”

Jennifer Liu, a Moreno Valley resident, was at the park the same time frame as the Shields family and was able to mostly avoid the crowds on her backpacking trip through the park’s backcountry.

Liu meandered through the park using a few different trails, including the Sunrise Lakes route, to reach her ultimate destination: Half Dome on her birthday. She left her backcountry campsite about 4:30 a.m. to reach Half Dome by 6 a.m., catching the sunrise at 8,800-feet elevation from the granite monolith.

“I got lucky — the clouds cleared out and there was a nice sunrise,” she said.

Not in a hurry, Liu stayed at the top for four hours. Her fellow hikers sang her happy birthday, and she witnessed a couple get engaged.

Sunset over the Half Dome lookout in Yosemite National Park.

“By 10, when I headed back down, that’s when the crowd was starting to pick up,” Liu said, adding that she was grateful there was still space to navigate the dome’s cable system without being rushed by others.

As a means of crowd control, the National Park Service has attempted to funnel people out of the valley, where the majority of tourists spend their time and into its less frequented locations.

Park officials have tried to rebrand Hetch Hetchy, a massive reservoir surrounded by glacier-carved rock walls, by claiming that “many have compared Hetch Hetchy’s grandeur to the more well-known Yosemite Valley,” according to a recent update on the park’s website. (Previous versions of the Hetch Hetchy page made no such claim, according to archived versions of the website viewed through the Internet Archive.)

The park service doesn’t cite a source for such claims. California naturalist John Muir compared the two valleys’ beauties, but that was before Hetch Hetchy Valley was transformed by the O’Shaughnessy Dam into a massive reservoir.

“John Muir lost the fight over Hetch Hetchy, and the dam was built. And people who live in San Francisco today drink the water of Hetch Hetchy,” historian William Cronon said in the Ken Burns national parks documentary. “Muir died feeling that he’d been defeated by that, and that was a great tragedy at the end of his life.”

Still, Hetch Hetchy has long been whispered among Yosemite regulars as a place to find a little quiet.

That’s changed too.

An empty road under El Capitan in Yosemite Valley National Park.

“We used to have these secret spots we could tell people about,” said Elisabeth Barton, owner of Yosemite Basecamp in Groveland, which offers lodging, trips by local outfitters, gear and more. “‘Go to Hetch Hetchy,’ you’d say quietly and look over your shoulder. ‘Go to this waterfall’ or ‘Do this hike.’ … One of the things we’re noticing is, very quickly on a weekend, [the park] is sending out that alert that Hetch Hetchy is full or that Hetch Hetchy has ‘extreme visitation.’ It’s weird.”

Barton, whose company runs a visitor center in downtown Groveland, said there’s not much she and her team can recommend for people coming Thursday through Sunday into the park. It will be crowded regardless.

On a recent Saturday, Barton met a hiker who was devastated he couldn’t easily enter the valley without dealing with crowds. Barton let him in on a less popular trip that involved a great swimming hole, fish tacos at Whoa Nellie Deli, an adventure around Mono Lake and a drive through a stunning mountain pass. She recommended that he take a long way to reenter the park, enabling him to see the valley at a time he’d miss the crowds.

He called her a week later and told her to never recommend that to anyone ever again. He’d had a great day until he tried to reenter the park and instead waited four hours at the Tioga Pass in a line that stretched for miles. “You’re right, it was beautiful,” he told her, “but to what end?”

“I just wasn’t prepared for that,” Barton said. “It just broke me.”

Even sacred sites — with signage directing visitors away from the area — have been trampled by crowds.

The American Indian Council of Mariposa County, also known as the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, fought for decades to establish Wahhoga Village, which is an ancient village site and the last place that Indigenous people lived in Yosemite Valley before being driven out by the National Park Service.

Today, Wahhoga Village includes a traditional roundhouse, traditional cedar bark houses known as umachas and the only cabin that the park service didn’t burn when it evicted the remaining families from the site in 1969.

Wahhoga is not listed on Yosemite maps and is not intended to be used by those who aren’t either authorized or invited by the council to be there, said Deborah Tucker, a council member whose father advocated for years for Wahhoga.

But, Tucker said, in recent weeks, tourists have been found picnicking in the site. Hikers were tromping right through the middle of the village, led by a user-generated route on a popular outdoors adventure app, she said.

And while there, someone peed all over the village’s grinding stones, which are used for processing acorns into flour, along with other foods, said Tucker, whose father is Paiute and Shoshone and her mother was Choinumni, a branch of Yokut, tribes indigenous to the region.

Tourist beat the heat and float on tubes in a river in Yosemite National Park.

Under the current administration, “it’s a free-for-all,” Tucker said. “You can come up there and do what you want, park where you want and you’re disrupting not just sacred sites but other park sites that the park service has [established],” leading to littering and other pollution, noise that harms the birds and speeding cars that threaten the safety of bears and other wildlife.

Tucker said because the current administration seems fixated on money over conservation, she hopes that when people visit the park this summer, they will at least hold themselves accountable, showing respect for the land and its inhabitants.

“Clean up after yourself, maybe clean up after one another, and don’t take anything home with you that you didn’t bring,” Tucker said when asked what she’d say to the park’s visitors. “Enjoy that experience, and [you’re] welcome to come back again.”

Paul Schilling has taken over as football coach at Crescenta Valley High, and one of his first decisions was turning running back Julian Savery into a quarterback.

It’s not as if Savery, a 5-foot-11, 200-pound senior, was giving hints he wanted to play quarterback last season. In fact, he missed all of 2025 because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament injury suffered when he went up for a rebound and had his knee collapse playing pickup basketball at the YMCA on Valentine’s Day.

“I should have had a date,” Savery said.

Savery has always enjoyed using his size to run over tacklers. He last played quarterback in eighth grade for flag football and decided to help himself recover faster from his knee injury by practicing throwing a football when he couldn’t run. Schilling liked what he saw and gave him a chance in the spring. The Falcons are thrilled with his progress. He’s got speed and a good arm.

Savery declared his basketball career is over.

“Never again,” he said.

Birmingham looks for balance

City Section football will be all about whether any team can improve enough to challenge defending champion Carson.

Freshman quarterback Exavier Johnson of Birmingham High is the son of a former City Section passing standout.

(Birmingham HS)

Birmingham once relied on offensive balance to be the City Section’s top football team. Carson has surpassed the Patriots, but Birmingham is hoping to fix its passing game this season.

The Patriots certainly have one of their best group of receivers, led by Paul Turner, who has speed and big-play ability. He averaged 24.5 yards per catch as a junior. Hayden Schuler has transferred from Sierra Canyon. He ran the 100 meters in 10.93 seconds as a freshman. Nathan Chandler made lots of progress as a freshman.

The likely starter at quarterback at the beginning of the season is junior Daniel Kakooza, but by season’s end, beware of freshman Exavier Johnson, whose father with the same first name was a standout quarterback at Birmingham and Taft.

The Patriots played in the Saugus passing tournament last weekend, and coach Jim Rose said, “The passing attack already looks better than last season.”

Five former head coaches on Simi Valley staff

Former Thousand Oaks coach Bob Richards turns 84 in August and serves as an assistant at Simi Valley.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

Bob Richards turns 84 in August. He has nine grandchildren and continues to help out as an assistant coach at Simi Valley. He coached for 28 years at Thousand Oaks, including 12 as head coach until his “retirement” in 1995.

Simi Valley coach Jim Benkert has surrounded himself with five former head coaches on his staff — Richards, Dion Lambert (Granada Hills Kennedy), Richard Fong (L.A. Baptist), Justin Berenson (Buena) and Jason Sabolic (El Camino Real).

“It’s so much fun,” Sabolic said.

Run stopper

Gabe Degl’Innocenti of Hart High is a nose tackle who has completed a 640-pound squat in the weight room.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

If teams want to run on Hart this season, they’ll have to get past 5-11, 260-pound Gabe Degl’Innocenti.

“He’s full of athleticism and is as strong as an ox,” coach Jake Goossen-Brown said.

He can squat 640 pounds, which puts him on another level in the weight room.

Sierra Canyon will play its first girls’ flag football game this fall in the fourth year of the CIF-sanctioned sport. The Trailblazers are already armed with the best two returning players from Orange County transferring to the school.

Ava Irwin (2) celebrates with her teammates after catching two touchdown passes in JSerra’s 25-20 victory over Orange Lutheran for the Southern Section Division 1 flag football title on Nov. 8, 2025. (Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

(Steve Galluzzo)

Receiver Ava Irwin, the Southern Section Division 1 player of the year last season for Division 1 champion JSerra, and quarterback Makena Cook from runner-up Orange Lutheran have enrolled at Sierra Canyon, which hired Camarillo’s Michaeltore Smith as its first flag football coach.

Notes

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame has been able to convince standout safety and top athlete Tahj Skinner to play quarterback this season. He was running plays on Saturday at the Simi Valley tournament. …

The Westlake receiving duo of Charles Davis and Demare Dezeurn, both committed to California, will be difficult to stop because you can’t double team both. …

The Edison Battle at the Beach seven-on-seven passing tournament is scheduled for July 11 and has the best collection of top teams of any summer event, including St. John Bosco, Santa Margarita, Mission Viejo, Corona Centennial, Servite and Palos Verdes. There is no entry fee but parking costs $20. In other words, find a parking spot on the street. …

Paraclete quarterback Shawn Sanders, a transfer from St. Francis, is also a top kicker with range beyond 50 yards. He suffered two broken collarbones last season. Call him the “Bionic Man” because that collarbone is so strong right now without the aid of surgery. …

There were two promising freshmen quarterbacks debuting at the Simi Valley tournament in backup roles — Hendrix Tucker of Westlake and West Dunton of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame.

Patton Oswalt is an avid reader. When he thinks about his ideal Sunday in the Valley, where he has lived for more than a decade, bookstores come up more than a few times, particularly ones like the neighborhood staple the Iliad, which encourages patrons to sit and read for hours.

Currently, the 57-year-old comedian says he is rereading Mo Daviau’s 2016 time-travel/rock-nerd novel “Every Anxious Wave,” the plot to which he “truly can’t describe,” adding: “It’s about, especially for me, how does Gen X grow old? And how do they try to dodge growing old? It’s pretty f— brilliant. Imagine a day just killing two or three hours in the Iliad just reading it. Oh, it’s the best.”

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.

Not that Oswalt always has time to sprawl out with a novel. Like any touring comedian of his caliber, he admits that his schedule is constantly in flux. Not only did he spend last summer and fall promoting his 10th stand-up hour, “Black Coffee and Ice Water” (out now on Audible), but he is constantly at work on new material. On June 9, he’s launching “Tea & Scotch” on YouTube, which delves into more observational comedy subjects such as ghost-seeing cats, AI paranoia and parenting a teenager. (Oswalt tells The Times that his daughter usually does her own thing on weekends, but sometimes they’ll journey to Burbank and hit the vintage shops on Magnolia, followed by poke for lunch.)

When he’s not earmarking time in his perfect Sunday for reading, Oswalt also delights in frequenting Valley small businesses that fully embrace the indie and oddball. “I like where the Valley’s going. I like how its residents are aging,” says Oswalt. “Because they’re aging into weirdness rather than safety, which is what I will always go for. Instead of just, ‘I want the nice, reliable chain restaurant, the nice, big book chain,’ I prefer smaller shops that take risks. They’re more quirky, an actual person works here, and the imperfections are what makes it amazing.”

Below, Oswalt shares his ideal Sunday in L.A., which sometimes begins later than he’d like it to.

7 a.m.: Enjoy a quiet breakfast at home

I try to be an early riser. Today I got up at 8:30, but a great day for me is getting up at 7, because I have that hour of quiet to have my breakfast, sip some tea, do some reading, and then start my day.

But it’s hard to have a lot of those mornings in a row, because unfortunately, I also have those nights where I’m just, like, lying awake thinking. I have those crash-out days where I’m like, “Sleep until noon today! Need it! Gotta catch up.” Anyone who says that they consistently wake up at 7 a.m., for the most part, they’re probably lying.

9 a.m.: Morning coffee with a side of people watching

What’s critical about the Valley, especially Studio City, is a lot of hipsters who have aged out of Los Feliz and Silver Lake have all moved here, and they brought the good sushi, the good bookstores and the good coffee with them. So, my perfect Sunday starts at the Studio City Farmers Market. You do this kind of roaming breakfast. Where they do the farmers market, there’s an amazing tamale stand that does these chicken and green chile tamales. You get one of those, and then you go over to Joan’s on Third, and you get yourself a really strong cup of coffee, because Joan’s is right there, part of the farmers market.

It’s almost like Joan’s is the motor on a sailboat. If you can’t find the food that you like roaming around the farmers market, you can hop into Joan’s and grab something, but that’s where the good coffee is. Then you get a thing of berries from one of the sellers, and you sit. There are musicians everywhere, and it is a really good opportunity to not start your day looking at a screen and instead actually look at beautiful and flawed and imperfect and awesome people moving around and interacting. For a comedian or writer, that is gold.

11 a.m.: Worm into a book

From there, I would go up to the Last Bookstore, which just opened a location on Lankershim Boulevard in NoHo. It’s a work in progress; you can see the beginnings of the cool building that they’re doing on the interior. It’s almost like when you watch the Talking Heads’ “Stop Making Sense” and you see them assemble the stage as the concert goes on. It’s kind of amazing. So I always drop by there and spend way too much money on a book.

1 p.m.: Catch a matinee (and a matcha)

One of my favorite things is to see a movie in the afternoon. The Laemmle NoHo 7 on Lankershim is my little ’90s throwback Sunset 5, but in the Valley. They show very cool first-run indie movies, and then they will just randomly throw in [a classic], “Oh yeah, we’re showing ‘Jules and Jim.’” I just check my Fandango, to see what they’re showing in the afternoon, then I go see a movie.

I don’t really eat lunch these days, but across the street from the NoHo 7 is a place called Horror Vibes Coffee. It’s all based around horror movies. It’s weirdly popular. All these goth kids go in there, and they make really good matchas. So I’ll go in there, I’ll get a matcha, and then take that into the movie theater, see a flick. The Laemmle NoHo 7 does make really good chicken nuggets, and they do make a really, really bad for you — but delicious — bagel dog. Listen, a bagel dog with a recent indie movie? That’s mwah. [Gestures a chef’s kiss.]

4 p.m.: Head back to the bookstore

When I’m done at the movies, I will take whatever book I’ve gotten and go back down to the Last Bookstore and just sit and read. Or if you really want to go goblin-mode reading, you go to the Iliad Bookshop on Cahuenga. They encourage you just to go in there, sit, read. There are store cats everywhere that are hanging around, and the store kitties are very friendly. The Iliad has these big, overstuffed couches and chairs with blown springs. You are encouraged to sit and lounge and read. They have no problem with you doing that. A big thing for me now is having two to three uninterrupted hours of just reading. No phone, no nothing. Don’t gotta go anywhere. Don’t do anything. [Editor’s note: The Iliad is closed Sundays.]

6 p.m.: Sit down for some sushi

I’m very spoiled living in the Valley, because I live near amazing sushi. If I really want to splurge out and have what I think is the best sushi in the Valley, then I visit Sushi Tomoki, which is on Cahuenga. I just cannot rave about this place enough. They have a black cod sushi, and the black cod is slightly seared. It’s not cold, but it’s not totally cooked. There is something about cold rice and then this slightly seared, slightly burned black cod. The flavor is so perfect, I love it.

Right now, in the Valley, I’m kind of spoiled for good restaurants. There’s OyBar on Moorpark that I could go to. I go there right at 5. Otherwise there’s a line. I go right when they open. And then there’s a place called Wood & Water, further up Ventura, kind of closer to Sherman Oaks. That place is just solid, good. Everything on the menu is great, great wine list, you know. But the word is out — it’s getting crowded. Not to be a snot rag, but I go to Wood & Water so much that they kind of know me there, and they can usually get me a table. Not that I’m a big celeb, it’s just I go there a lot because their food is so good.

Once you’re my age, when I hear, “You gotta wait in line”… like, that’s why I’ve never been to Sqirl. Because I know I can’t do that, man. If I’m gonna stand in line, I’m gonna go to All Time, but I’ll just get there when they open. I can’t do lines anymore. You can do it when you’re 20, but I just want my g— breakfast.

8 p.m.: Take an outdoor stroll, then return to your book

After dinner, if it’s summertime in the Valley, I just walk through my neighborhood. There’s really good hills and stuff to go for, like, a nice nighttime walk after dinner. Or, because I’m such a freaking bookworm, I go home and sit on my big, comfy couch and just read some more until I fall asleep. There’s nothing wrong with double-dipping — you don’t have to read just once during the day. You can go back and forth.

BAKERSFIELD — The southern Central Valley is home to one of California’s few remaining congressional battlegrounds, where Democrats are itching to oust longtime Republican incumbent Rep. David Valadao.

Last year’s voter-approved Proposition 50 redrew the lines of this Latino-majority district slightly in Democrats’ favor. Two top Democratic candidates are battling over who is the best choice to face Valadao (R-Hanford) in November.

Valadao is particularly vulnerable after he voted last year to cut Medicaid spending, a critical resource for many in this poor, rural area. Two-thirds of residents in the district are enrolled in the federally funded low-income health insurance program, and more than 60,000 are expected to lose coverage when work requirements and other federal rules take effect next year.

Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) leaves a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the Capitol Hill Club on March 17.

(Tom Williams/Getty Images)

National Democratic infighting has overshadowed a classic moderate vs. progressive primary race since House Democrats’ campaign arm threw its support behind one candidate, Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains (D-Delano), over Randy Villegas, a school board trustee backed by progressives including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

The race was already tense when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Bains, a family doctor and two-term assemblywoman, to its “Red to Blue” program, which provides staff and fundraising support to Democrats running against vulnerable Republican incumbents. Local party leaders said they had received assurances from national Democrats that they would stay out of the race, which further angered Villegas and his supporters.

“This is another example as to why people’s faith in the Democratic Party and party leadership is at an all-time low,” Villegas said in an interview with The Times. “In many ways, it’s a badge of honor to not be the insider candidate and to say that I’m actually going to fight for community members here and not D.C. elites.”

DCCC chair, Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, cited Bains’ background as a family doctor and her track record in the Legislature fighting to expand access to healthcare.

Randy Villegas, running for California’s 22nd Congressional District, said his campaign manager wants him to take frequent selfies for their social media while walking neighborhoods in Bakersfield.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

“We only weigh in on primaries when we feel that one candidate stands out as the strongest possible nominee to ensure that we win in the general election,” DelBene said in a recent interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “This is a district that has been devastated by cuts to healthcare, a large Medicaid population, so she’s an incredible candidate and definitely can speak to the issues needed on health care.”

For Democrats, the outcome of the primary could have national significance. With President Trump’s popularity at a low point nationwide — and especially in California — the party hopes to win enough seats in the 2026 election to oust the Republicans from power in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Valadao, who was first elected to Congress in 2012, has been a perpetual target for Democrats, who have held a sizable registration advantage in his district. A moderate Republican, Valadao had emphasized his support for immigration reform, a departure from his party. Still, Democrats ousted Valadao in the blue wave of 2018, only for him to win back the seat in 2020 and remain in office ever since.

Both Villegas and Bains promote themselves as the Democrats’ best option to topple Valadao once again.

Villegas, the son of Mexican immigrants, is endorsed by the House Hispanic and progressive caucuses and has painted Bains as a corporate-backed candidate who would bend to special interests.

Jasmeet Bains, running for California’s 22nd Congressional District, speaks with Mary Jimenez during a campaign canvassing walk in Bakersfield.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

“We can’t just offer that we’re not Trump. The Democratic Party actually needs to stand for something,” he said. “To me that means fighting for universal healthcare, universal childhood education, banning members of Congress from trading stocks, getting rid of corporate PAC money. Those things may make Democratic leadership uncomfortable, and I’m OK with that.”

Bains is campaigning on her experience as a physician in a region known for its poor environmental and health outcomes. After medical school, she returned to Kern County, where she completed her residency and continued working at clinics that primarily serve low-income patients in the region.

She decided to run for the seat after Valadao voted in favor of H.R. 1, the Republican spending bill Trump signed into law last year that cut nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid funding to pay for tax cuts, which Bains described as a “betrayal.”

“In the Valley, your word is your bond,” she said in a phone interview as she drove the 250-mile journey from her district to the state Capitol in Sacramento. “In the beginning he kept telling everyone that he wasn’t going to vote for it, and I took him for his word.”

Jasmeet Bains brings 8-month-old, Chiquita, as she campaign walks a neighborhood in Bakersfield.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Bains is the daughter of Indian immigrants and was the first South Asian woman elected to the California Legislature. She continues to work weekend shifts at a clinic in Delano.

“I thought the healthcare disparities of people losing their private insurance and having to transfer to Medicaid” was bad, Bains said. “With the trillion dollars cut from Medicaid federally, I’m now in a position where I’m transferring my patients from Medicaid to nothing. The problem in the Valley for healthcare has gotten worse and worse and worse.”

It’s the reason labor unions including SEIU Local 521, which represents workers in public, nonprofit and healthcare sectors in Kern and other counties around the state, are backing Bains.

“Within my own union, the members that I represent in Kern County, in certain ZIP Codes they have a 15-year less life expectancy than my union members living in Monterey County, which is a very similar community” with rural agricultural interests, said Riko Mendez, the union’s chief elected officer.

He said Bains understands the region’s unique health challenges and has used her perch in the Legislature to address them, including pushing for funding to research and treat valley fever, an infection caused by fungal spores in the region’s soils.

“We think her experience, her profile, her message is one that we agree with, and that has the best chance of winning in the runoff against Valadao,” he said.

Bains’ time commitments in Sacramento and working at the clinic leave her little time for a traditional campaign knocking doors and showing up to community events. Some voters backing Villegas have noticed.

Randy Villegas takes a phone call in the shade while walking neighborhoods in Bakersfield.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

“For us, showing up is one of the most important things, and he’s the only candidate who has been doing that consistently,” 18-year-old Vanessa Orozco Romero said after a recent candidate forum in Bakersfield. Though nearly a dozen candidates for various offices were invited, Villegas and two other Democrats running for legislative seats were the only ones to attend.

Orozco Romero called the DCCC’s decision to back Bains “stupid and morally not OK,” especially since neither of the candidates earned enough delegate support to win the state party endorsement earlier this year.

Bains and Villegas have similar backgrounds as children of immigrants who grew up in the southern Central Valley. Though they both went on to earn high-level degrees, each is adamant about staying in Kern County to improve life for its residents.

The district is anchored in the eastern side of Bakersfield, home to California’s once-thriving oil fields, and stretches northward toward Fresno to include swaths of agricultural lands and small farming towns.

While there are more than twice as many registered Democrats in the district as Republicans, Democratic candidates often underperform in the Central Valley and independent voters play a crucial role picking winning candidates. Even under the new Proposition 50 lines that favor Democrats, President Trump would have beat former Vice President Kamala Harris by nearly 2 points.

Though nearly two-thirds of voters in the district are Latino, turnout is usually low among Spanish-speaking voters who are often discouraged by negative attack ads, Democratic activists said.

Save for the 2018 midterms during Trump’s first term, Valadao, a dairy farmer, has frustrated Democrats by continually winning over enough independents to hold onto the seat. Though the three candidates are competing in an open primary, Valadao is expected to advance to the general election as a longtime incumbent and the only Republican on the ballot.

“As he does in every primary election, Congressman Valadao is working hard to earn the vote of all Democrats, Independents, and Republicans,” Robert Jones, a consultant for Valadao’s campaign, wrote in an email. “We trust that the voters of the Central Valley will send the two best candidates to the general election in November.”

CLOVIS, Calif. — In the waning days before California’s primary election, the two top Republicans running for California governor delivered closing arguments in front of a friendly Central Valley audience Friday evening.

Though Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and former Fox News host Steve Hilton have attacked each other throughout the campaign, they abstained from feuding and instead focused on common enemies — Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers who control the Legislature.

Hilton criticized Newsom’s new $20-million program to provide free diapers for families of newborn babies, referring to the outgoing governor as “the great loaded diaper of California himself.”

Earlier this year, Hilton and Bianco topped the governor’s race polls as a packed field of Democrats split many of the state’s liberal voters. Under California’s “jungle primary” system, where the top two candidates advance from the primary to the general election regardless of political affiliation, that led to fleeting hope among Republicans that the two candidates could shut Democratic candidates out of the November election.

“That idea was always a fantasy,” Hilton wrote in an op-ed published in the New York Post earlier this week in which he urged Bianco to drop out of the race “for the sake of the state we both love.”

“Steve, it is time for you to drop out,” Bianco retorted in a video posted to social media soon after. “In no world, no world does Steve Hilton beat a Democrat in November.”

After winning an endorsement from President Trump in early April, Hilton has steadily outpaced Bianco in polls. A poll commissioned by the California Democratic Party released last week showed Hilton leading the field with support from 22% of likely voters, followed by Democrat and former Biden Cabinet member Xavier Becerra with 21%. Bianco was at 10%, down from 15% in a previous poll conducted two weeks prior.

Still, Bianco, the two-term sheriff of California’s fourth most populous county, is a favorite of many Republicans in the state and won more support from delegates during the party’s recent endorsing convention than Hilton, though neither reached the necessary 60% to win the party backing.

While the two candidates have needled each other with personal digs and insults throughout much of the campaign, they appeared to set that energy aside during the Clovis forum and even traded some compliments. Hilton praised “sheriffs like Chad who actually understand what public safety looks like” while Bianco acknowledged that his opponent “should be very proud” to have Trump’s endorsement.

State Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), who moderated the more than 90-minute event, praised their “extraordinary civility” before she pressured each to commit to backing whichever Republican makes it through the June 2 primary — or if they both advance, continue to focus on policy debates over attacks.

The forum was hosted by the Fresno County & City Republican Women Federated as part of a fundraiser and dinner honoring the upcoming 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. About 450 attendees were served dishes inspired by presidential favorites including sirloin steak for Theodore Roosevelt, a chopped salad from Chasen’s, a favorite Los Angeles eatery for Ronald Reagan, and a chocolate pie with cherry vanilla ice cream for Trump.

The Central Valley stretches from Bakersfield to Redding and is home to some of the nation’s most lucrative farmland. It also includes the heart of California oil country in Kern County. Yet residents feel largely neglected by statewide politicians who are more drawn to the ample votes and wealthy donors in Southern California and the Bay Area.

“We are the breadbasket of the world but we’ve been overlooked for too long,” said Andrea Shabaglian, a vice president of the Fresno Republican women’s group. “When gubernatorial candidates come here to sit down and listen to our communities, they realize that a stronger Valley means a stronger California.”

Though he lost California handily to former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, Trump dominated in the state’s midsection. Even in Fresno County, where the Republican forum was held, Trump beat Harris by a four percentage point margin despite Democratic voters slightly outnumbering Republicans.

“We need a Republican in office because California is a mess. I mean, anybody with common sense can see that,” said LuAnne Pinedo-Madden, a retiree living in the Sierra foothill community of Coarsegold who listed transgender girls being allowed to compete in girls’ sports and government corruption as her top concerns.

Pinedo-Madden said she was “pretty sure” she had decided which of the Republican candidates to vote for but declined to say whom. “I feel that if we don’t get a Republican in office, we’re looking at moving” to Utah, Idaho or Nevada, she said. “We can’t take this anymore.”

Bianco and Hilton spoke about their plans to improve public safety, small businesses, homeowner’s insurance and water management, a crucial issue for the conservative-leaning owners of vast swaths of California’s agricultural heartland.

Signs along the major highways that straddle California’s Central Valley proclaim that “Food grows where water flows” and criticize Newsom for allowing water to flow into the ocean instead of capturing and storing more of it for farming.

Both of the GOP candidates described their visions for the state, which include building new dams and raising existing ones to store more water.

“We don’t have the water problem. We have a water management problem,” Bianco said before falsely arguing that “we get more water every single year than any other state in the country” and that California has “never, ever, ever been in a drought.”

“The water will be flowing to our farmers, the oil will be flowing to our refineries, the forests will be managed, the timber will be harvested” and used to build new single-family homes, Hilton said. “We’ve got the best weather, we’ve got the best people, we’ve got the best farmers, we’ve got everything we need to make this place amazing, except a good governor. Very soon we’ll have that as well.”

Though a Republican governor would likely face a hostile Legislature intent on blocking many priorities, Bianco and Hilton both promised sweeping cuts and cutbacks of state agencies. Both pledged on Friday to replace every member of the state’s parole review board, which drew criticism in February when it granted elderly parole to a man convicted of 16 counts of kidnapping and child molestation in 1999.

“California criminal justice is absolutely broken and it was forced upon us in the name of reform. What I’m going to do is make it a crime to hear the word reform again, because we lost track of what that word even means,” Bianco said.

He also pledged to eliminate laws and environmental regulators often blamed for slowing housing development: the California Environmental Quality Act, the California Coastal Commission and the state Air Resources Board.

Though his opponent has the coveted Trump endorsement, Bianco argued that it will hurt Hilton’s chances of winning the general election. The Republican president has never been popular in deep-blue California; just 25% of adults in the state approved of Trump’s performance according to a February survey by the Public Policy Institute of California.

“Steve should rightfully be proud of being endorsed by President Trump [but] we have to actually realize, is that a good thing in California? It’s a good thing in this room,” Bianco said as the crowd cheered at the mention of the president’s name. “We have to realize strategically that President Trump ran three elections in this state, and he lost 60-40 in all three of them.”

The Riverside sheriff argued he is “the only person that can actually sway Democrats to vote for a Republican across party lines on a public safety platform.”