The Brief

Victoria Charles has been getting students at Santa Monica College to think differently about waste for over a decade.

On the first day of class, she often gives them a warning: “You won’t be the Belle of the ball.” After learning how much waste the average person produces in a day and how this impacts the planet, they’ll feel compelled to live differently and speak up at social functions. And when they do, people won’t always like it. “You’re going to be the party pooper,” Charles cautions.

Charles teaches two of the four courses required to earn a certificate in Recycling and Resource Management at SMC. The coursework delves deep into waste — examining how culture, laws, and daily habits inform what ends up in landfills. Perhaps more importantly, students learn how waste can be prevented and repurposed.

In practice, this can involve small changes, Charles said. When she buys lunch on campus, for instance, she’s usually offered a plastic fork. Charles always declines it, even if it’s recyclable.

“Recycling is very energy intensive,” she explained. Her fork would have “to be shipped somewhere,” then “go through a lot of mechanical processing.” Instead, Charles keeps a set of reusable utensils in her office. In class, she and her students spend a lot of time discussing the need to use something for “less than five minutes and then toss it away.”

Because there are no prerequisites for the certificate, Charles’ students come from all walks of life. Some of them are fresh out of high school. Others already have higher ed degrees and are looking to chart a new path. But by the time they complete the coursework, all of them gain a new outlook on waste. Many of her students are using this knowledge to launch new careers.

Finding the right fit

Sofia Ratcovich began her higher ed journey at Santa Monica College in 2000, and it took her about five years to graduate.

“I kept changing my major,” she said. “I was like, ‘Maybe I want to be a singer, or maybe I want to look into acting.’” She still appreciates getting the chance to explore those interests.

Ratcovich earned associate degrees in biology and environmental studies, then transferred to Cal State Dominguez Hills for her bachelor’s degree.

At the time, she envisioned a career in environmental law. She was looking for a way to make a living while caring for the environment.

Throughout her undergraduate career, Ratcovich volunteered with several environmental groups. On Saturdays, she was often at the beach, leading group cleanups.

The ocean means a lot to her, Ratcovich said. She and her parents migrated to the U.S. from Mexico and, growing up, they didn’t have the means to take her to the movies or Disneyland. Instead, they spent a lot of time along the shore.

Through her volunteer work, Ratcovich met several people who encouraged her to sign up for the Recycling and Resource Management certificate at Santa Monica College. Eventually, she returned to the place where she began her higher ed journey.

The experience reinvigorated her. She said she loved being surrounded by students and faculty who also cared deeply about the planet. Plus, the classes helped her see that there were many other careers she could tap into.

Ultimately, Ratcovich went on to found Zero Waste Company, a sustainability consulting firm that advises companies on how to host events with minimal impact on the environment. The inspiration: a sustainability conference with unsustainable practices — coffee served in styrofoam cups with plastic stir sticks. Lunch served on styrofoam plates with plastic forks and cups. When it came time to discard her waste, she couldn’t find a recycling bin.

Ratcovich asked to speak with the conference’s organizers.

“I’ve been coming to this conference for years,” she told them. “I love your speakers, I love your program. But this really bothers me.”

When the organizers asked what she’d do differently, she had a list.

Since then, Ratcovich has provided guidance for major clients, including UCLA, Adidas, Red Bull, and the L.A. Times.

She offers practical advice, like wrapping cookies in paper sleeves, instead of plastic wrap. Ratcovich and her employees have also been known to comb through garbage bins, sorting out what can be recycled or composted.

“These things might seem miniscule,” she said. “But, in the end, if you change those things, you end up with food waste that can be composted, as opposed to material that just goes straight to landfill.”

For years, Ratcovich’s father wondered aloud about the sacrifices he’d made so that his daughter could devote herself to tallying trash. Then he saw the logo for her company in the newspaper.

Reinvention

Other students have also used Santa Monica’s program as a stepping stool, either for further study or to reinvent themselves.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in art history at Florida State University, Simone Paz completed the SMC program as a way to discern whether she wanted to pursue a master’s degree in environmental studies.

Years later, she recalled an assignment that required her to track everything she discarded.

“It was four days worth of gathering and collecting everything that you throw away, and just laying it all out there, cataloging it, photographing it,” she said. “It was really eye opening.”

Paz ultimately earned a master’s degree in environmental studies at Cal State Fullerton. Today, she’s preparing to launch her own startup, with a focus on sustainability in the arts.

Kyle Winterboer grew up on a farm in Iowa, then went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in music performance at Cal State Long Beach. After earning his degree, he went to Santa Monica College with plans to go into health care.

“I was thinking about physical therapy for specific music injuries,” he said. “I got through my anatomy class and really was happy with that, mom was so glad.”

Through classmates, he heard about the sustainability courses at SMC. He enrolled for fun and fell in love. Like Ratcovich and Paz, he reveled in being surrounded by faculty and classmates who were enthusiastic about resolving waste issues. Outside of the classroom, the campus itself was an inspiration.

“I loved seeing the giant worm bins behind the cafeteria,” he said. The bins, which house hundreds of thousands of worms, convert about 500 pounds of food scraps into nutrient-rich soil each week, which is then used for landscaping on campus.

Winterboer went on to earn a master’s degree in public policy at UCLA, with a focus on food and sustainability studies. He’s now weighing whether to go to law school, earn a doctorate so he can continue doing more research — or both.

An East Hollywood nursing home that nearly lost its license this year because of repeated state citations for deaths of residents at the facility was cited again last month after another person died.

The California Department of Public Health cited Brier Oak on Sunset after a 92-year-old resident bled to death on Sept. 27. Staff members had continued injecting her with blood thinners over a 40-hour period in violation of clinical guidelines.

It’s an AA citation, the most severe the department issues when violations of care standards are determined to be a substantial factor in someone’s death. The facility faces a $120,000 fine.

These kinds of citations are rare. The department has recently issued, on average, fewer than 20 AA citations yearly across more than 1,200 skilled nursing facilities in California.

Brier Oak has received three AA citations for patient deaths since late 2022.

State regulations require authorities to suspend or revoke the licenses of any facilities that get two AA citations within a period of 24 months.

The state Public Health Department began that process with Brier Oak in May based on resident deaths in 2022 and 2024. But officials dropped that effort later because they say they determined the two patient deaths had occurred 26 months apart — just outside of the two-year window.

A spokesperson for the company that owns Brier Oak told LAist it has appealed the first two citations and is considering whether to appeal the third.

Advocates for nursing home residents say the recent death could have been avoided if the state had taken action.

“There were red flags, and a lot of these red flags existed prior to the death of this poor resident,” said Tony Chicotel, senior staff attorney with  California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.

The state said Brier Oak has until Dec. 19 to notify the department if it intends to appeal.

What led to the patient deaths?

In the recent death at Brier Oak cited by the state, multiple communication and technical failures by nursing staff led to the patient bleeding out over a period of 40 hours, according to the citation.

The 92-year-old patient was immobile and had been prescribed a blood thinner called heparin to help prevent blood clots from forming. But once a patient is bleeding, those injections make bleeding worse, and potentially fatal.

When nursing staff found bright red blood in the resident’s diaper the day before she died, Brier Oak failed to follow established processes for documenting the bleeding or communicating it to a nurse practitioner or medical doctor, according to the citation.

Nurses told state authorities they delayed informing physicians because they “get mad” when contacted in the middle of the night.

The facility’s staff also failed to fully assess the patient to determine the possible causes of the bleeding and or to properly monitor the issue during crucial periods, according to the citation.

She suffered four internal bleeding episodes over 40 hours and continued to receive blood thinner injections.

The citation says a nurse practitioner at Brier Oak told state licensing authorities later that if she’d been informed about the patient’s ongoing bleeding, she would have stopped the blood thinner and sent her to a hospital.

In 2022, Brier Oak received a AA citation after a 62-year-old woman died from respiratory failure in part because nurses hadn’t been trained to operate her breathing machine.

In 2024, the nursing home got another AA citation. This time, a 63-year-old woman with paraplegia and severe obesity fell from her bed and died while a nursing assistant was changing her. The assistant was alone, even though the woman’s care plan required two staff members.

Who owns Brier Oak?

Brier Oak on Sunset is primarily owned by Genesis Healthcare, a publicly-traded nursing home operator that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July.

Once the largest nursing home operator in the U.S., Genesis was facing billions in debt when it declared bankruptcy, according to court filings. That includes millions in potential damages from lawsuits related to patient care failures.

In a brief statement to LAist, a company spokesperson said it's still considering whether or not to appeal the recent citation at Brier Oak.

The citation should trigger a suspension or revocation of the facility's license, according to state regulations. The latter means it would have to close its doors. The two most recent deaths and citations at the facility occurred within the two-year window.

The California Department of Public Health confirmed it cited Brier Oak on Nov. 26.

The department said the facility submitted a required written response before a Dec. 6 deadline, showing how it will fix the problems and prevent them from happening again..

The department determined Brier Oak was back in compliance during an onsite visit last week, a representative told LAist.

Brier Oak on Sunset currently houses about 150 patients, according to state records.

A bankruptcy judge has stalled the proposed sale of Genesis Healthcare to an affiliate of one of its investors.

Experts say it’s unclear whether the state would revoke the license of an owner who is actively trying to sell and turn over operations to someone else.

It’s been a rough start to ski and snowboard season for California mountain towns. Snowfall is well below average, but Christmas could come with some of the white stuff. Here's where things stand:

Hmmm. Didn’t we just have a record storm?

Yes. That big atmospheric river that hit Southern California last month made it one of the wettest Novembers on records. But since then, it’s been unusually warm and dry, which is not good for mountain towns that depend on snow, and the outdoor enthusiasts that flock to them.

How bad is it?

California’s snowpack is about 20% of normal for this time of the year, according to the state’s snow-tracking website. Southern California isn’t quite as bad off — we’ve gotten about half our normal snowfall so far.

As for the resorts, only about 20% of the terrain at Bear Mountain in Big Bear is open. About 35% of Mammoth Mountain is open.

Can’t they just make snow?

They are, but the unusually warm temperatures have curbed resorts’ ability to make enough snow to open more terrain. “If you're blowing water into 40-degrees, it's going to stay water,” said Justin Kanton, a spokesperson for Big Bear Mountain Resort. “ So as much as people probably would want us to just crank the snow guns all day, every day up here and just get things moving, that's not really possible.”

But there’s a silver lining!

The dry weather has allowed Caltrans to make good progress toward opening Highway 38, said Evan Engle, who chairs the board of the Big Bear Chamber of Commerce. The road typically handles up to 40% of traffic up to the mountain town, Engle said. But it’s been closed since September when it got washed out by Tropical Storm Mario.

Getting it open as soon as possible is key to keeping visitor traffic manageable, and getting supplies to Big Bear.

What’s the snow outlook?

SoCal mountains are likely to see some precipitation around Christmas, said Kyle Wheeler, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. But with temperatures not expected to drop much, it’s uncertain how much of it will be white, Wheeler said.

If you go to Big Bear: 

• If you plan to hit the slopes, get on it early, when the snow is at its best given the warm conditions. 
• No snow? There’s more to do than ski and snowboard. Check this list of winter fun events.  
• Worried about traffic? Consider going up earlier in the week. If you can’t do that, consider taking Highway 18 through Lucerne Valley. It’s a longer route if you’re coming from L.A., but less traveled, and less likely to make you car sick (fewer tight curves). 

The Los Angeles Police Department used more than 2,400 crowd control munitions in response to protests from June 6 to 14, according to a new report.

Officers used a total of 2,431 less-lethal projectile rounds and 35 canisters of tear gas over the nine days, according to LAPD reports. The department recorded 12 injuries officers caused with those weapons.

The LAPD released the missing report last week after LAist identified the use of crowd control weapons on four different days in June that had not been reported according to state law. Assembly Bill 48, which went into effect in 2022, limits when and how crowd control weapons can be used, and requires law enforcement agencies to publicly release reports on their use within 60 days.

A 30-day extension for these reports can be granted in some cases, but the LAPD released this report about three months late even if an extension was justified.

Officials acknowledged they were out of compliance on Dec. 10 before releasing the report, saying the delay “stems from the extraordinary volume and complexity of incidents” over that time.

This report is different from others

It is unusual for a crowd control report to include more than one day, and the report for June 9 through 14 covered six days and “45 sepearte [sic] non categorical use of force incidents.”

It does not describe any of those use of force incidents specifically, and the LAPD has not yet responded to LAist’s request for more detailed descriptions of those incidents.

The report also considered the entire six days to have been one continuous protest, though it included several anti-ICE protests over the week and the national “No Kings” protest on June 14.

Two reports released earlier this year for June 6 and 8 covered single days and provided more detailed descriptions of incidents where the LAPD used less-lethal munitions against protesters.