The Brief

Los Angeles is home to all kinds of interesting buildings, like the famous Capitol Records in Hollywood, or the Theme Building near the Los Angeles International Airport. Now, West Hollywood is considering adding to the list with a nearly 50-foot glass sphere hovering over Sunset Boulevard.

The West Hollywood Planning Commission Sunset Arts & Advertising Subcommittee reviewed the developer’s plan for the “Sphere on Sunset” during a special meeting Thursday.

It’s intended to be an iconic destination between Olive Drive and Kings Road, tucked between the Pendry West Hollywood and the Best Western Plus / Sunset Plaza Hotel, according to the plans. It looks like a smaller version of the new Las Vegas Sphere, but this one isn’t supposed to be a performance venue.

Inside, the three-level sphere is designed for live broadcasting with podcast space, a reception, and greenrooms. It also includes a rooftop terrace and a media-themed plaza that would be open to the public 24/7.

The outside would be covered in three different digital billboards that will take up roughly 2,000 square feet. Built out of steel and glass, some of the billboards would show typical advertising, but the rest could be used by the city for arts programming.

The developer has also been working with a graphic design firm to create an outdoor presentation of the history of the broadcasting and entertainment industries called “The Experience,” according to a staff memo.

“The circular interactive display will include an historical timeline, images, and artifacts that the public can meander through allowing a deeper understanding and appreciation for these industries and Sunset’s role in the formation of these industries,” the memo states.

An “Orb Information Center” will be at the center of the display. The circular structure will be covered with colorful-images of billboards that will help guide visitors to different parts of the experience and a “spectacular” view of the southern basin.

Screenshot of The Sphere Proposal via the West Hollywood Planning Commission Sunset Arts & Advertising Subcommittee.

City officials said in the memo that the Sphere proposal is unique. They expect the billboard and building combo to draw people out of their cars and into the area, which could help the sphere become a destination.

However, they do have some concerns about the project.

The sphere is supposed to hover 8 feet off the ground, which city officials noted could be problematic for people taller than 6 feet. Buildings are typically required to have at least 12 feet of clearance space, but the sphere may need to be at least 14 to 15 feet off the ground because of the scale.

City officials noted it’s still unclear how the huge glass orb would be supported. It would need to be suspended independently of the nearby apartment building, but it’s uncertain what that system would look like.

They also want to make sure the sphere won’t dump water down onto pedestrians during heavy rain, and they want to know how all of the glass will be cleaned and maintained.

For the digital billboards, the developer will need to make sure they comply with West Hollywood’s policies for hours of operation, brightness, and renewable energy.

The project now needs to get a recommendation for zoning and permits, which will be a part of its application package presented to the full Planning Commission. The sphere proposal would then need to go to the West Hollywood City Council for final approval.

Los Angeles will boost the number of housing and shelter opportunities for people experiencing homelessness and focus more on moving people inside rather than clearing encampments, under an agreement approved by a federal judge Friday.

The updated agreement from a 2022 settlement is the latest step in a long-running legal saga focused on the city's response to the homelessness crisis. It also means the city will offer nearly 1,100 additional beds and maintain its obligations for years longer than what was originally promised in the prior settlement agreement as officials continue to try to curb homelessness in the region.

Friday’s hearing was called by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who has been overseeing the settlement in a lawsuit brought against the city by the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, a group of downtown business and property owners.

Here are some key takeaways of the new agreement, which is detailed in 24 pages of court documents:

• The city will create a total of 14,000 housing and shelter opportunities by the end of June 2027, an increase from the 2022 settlement.
• L.A. will keep open at least 12,915 housing or shelter opportunities until the end of June 2029. The original agreement ended June 2027.
• The city will make sure that 19,600 people experiencing homelessness are moved into housing or shelter beds rather than being obligated to clear thousands of encampments.
• Reports will be filed with the court detailing L.A.’s housing and shelter, including the total number of people experiencing homelessness served. 
• The court can appoint a monitor to help oversee and enforce the agreement, which the judge also approved Friday.

Matthew Umhofer, one of the attorneys for L.A. Alliance, told LAist after the hearing that the new agreement means “accountability” for the city of Los Angeles.

“We now have the city to a point where it's actually committed to doing what it promised to do under the agreement,” Umhofer said. “We have an extension of the agreement. We have more beds coming in. It's a really good result.”

There are more than 43,500 people experiencing homelessness across L.A., with a majority living on the street rather than in shelters, according to the latest point-in-time count.

During the brief hearing, Carter thanked the parties for their work and acknowledged that they were required to make difficult decisions “for the benefit of the public.”

Carter said the agreement underscores “public need for transparency and accountability” moving forward.

What will the data monitor do? 

The data monitor is now Nardello & Co, a global investigations firm that was approved by the L.A. City Council in closed session earlier this week.

The team will be led by Wendy Wu, the head of digital investigations and cyber risk, who is based in Los Angeles.

Under the updated agreement, the monitor responsibilities include:

• Verifying the number of housing or shelter opportunities created, the address and the number of beds opened, as well as the number of people experiencing homelessness served under the court agreements, according to documents.
• The monitor is able to do field work, including observing Inside Safe operations.
• The monitor cannot have direct access to any database maintained by the city or Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority without “extraordinary good cause."
• The monitor can report issues to the court if concerns around city data and verification go unresolved.

What does the new agreement mean for LA? 

The judge’s approval also means that a months-long hearing that considered whether to hold the city in contempt of court is over.

The latest agreement means there will be no more witness testimony, no rulings and no contempt sanctions tied to the hearing, according to court documents.

Attorneys for the city repeatedly pushed back against the contempt hearing, filing objections with the judge and making an unsuccessful emergency request with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to block it from happening.

The hearing, which started last November, called several witnesses to testify, including officials with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and Matt Szabo, the L.A. city administrative officer.

The parties have been in “extensive mediation efforts to resolve the various disagreements” since last December with another judge, according to court documents. Carter ended up continuing the contempt proceedings in February, encouraging the parties to continue to work toward an agreement in mediation.

On Tuesday, nearly three months later, the parties reached a resolution for the contempt hearing and the city’s various appeals.

The Los Angeles Catholic Worker and Los Angeles Community Action Network are considered “intervenors” in the suit, representing people experiencing homelessness. Their attorneys include those from the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

Shayla Myers, director of Impact Litigation and Policy at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, said from the intervenors’ perspective, the most important aspect of the new agreement is that it does away with the encampment reduction plan — which included clearing 9,800 tents, makeshift shelters, cars and RVs — and instead focuses on measuring the number of unhoused people brought into shelters and housing.

“That is the only thing that has ever solved homelessness, destroying unhoused people's property has always made it worse,” Myers told LAist after the hearing. “The fact that the earlier settlement agreement included that quota — it was a dark day for these court proceedings and removing it is a substantial step forward in recognizing what's at stake in this case.”

How did we get here? 

L.A. Alliance sued the city and county in 2020, accusing both of failing to adequately address homelessness by not providing enough shelter and housing for thousands of unhoused people.

In May 2022, the city and L.A. Alliance entered into the settlement agreement, which was approved by the court about a month later.

Umhofer noted that they’ve been involved in the case since before the pandemic, and “the fight is not over.” But he said there are people who will advocate for those suffering on the streets.

“The goal really is to get people off the streets, into treatment, into shelter, into housing and back on their feet,” he said. “And I'm hopeful that this agreement helps.”

Bradley Hamburger, an attorney with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, the law firm representing the city, declined to comment after the hearing.

The Democratic candidate for Orange County assessor has lost her party’s endorsement as a result of complaints from her campaign staff that she repeatedly sought to use campaign contributions to pay for personal expenses, LAist has learned.

Such expenditures would violate state law, which allows candidates to tap campaign contributions only to pay campaign expenses.

The candidate, Janet Keo Conklin, denied trying to misuse campaign funds.

“ I have not done anything wrong,” she told LAist.

Multiple former campaign staffers who spoke with LAist also allege Conklin engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior in the workplace, including taking staffers’ hands and placing them on Conklin’s breasts.

Conklin denied the allegations in an interview with LAist. She acknowledged that during a conversation with a staffer who was working on Conklin’s cellphones — both a work phone and a personal phone — she alluded to receiving a nude photograph from a former client.

Conklin is a licensed real estate broker and La Palma City Council member. She is on the June ballot, where she faces Republican Party-endorsed incumbent Claude Parrish.

Parrish has had his own troubles.

Last year, LAist was the first to report on a workplace misconduct investigation commissioned by the county that found Parrish violated gender discrimination and retaliation policies in the assessor’s office and harassed a subordinate over a medical disability.

Parrish was found to have downplayed the employee’s chronic illness, shared her private medical information with coworkers, regularly commented on her diet and told her to stop taking her medicine and to “drink baking soda mixed with tap water to ‘fix’ her medical condition.” Citing the 2023 investigation’s findings, the county’s HR director sent a letter to Parrish late that year telling him to stop violating harassment policies.

Parrish told LAist he was not at fault.

The primary job of the assessor, an officially nonpartisan office, is to supervise appraisals of all taxable property in the county.

Florice Hoffman, the chair of the Orange County Democratic Party, said in an interview that party activists first told her about Conklin’s alleged improper campaign spending requests in February.

She said she and Lauren Johnson-Norris, the party’s vice chair, quickly met with Conklin and urged her to drop out of the race. Instead, she said, Conklin agreed to give up the endorsement, which the party had made weeks earlier.

Hoffman, who is a lawyer, recalled telling Conklin, “Our advice is you need to get a lawyer, a criminal lawyer.”

Janet Keo Conklin

(

Courtesy Democratic Party of Orange County

)

Johnson-Norris did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment.

When asked about Hoffman’s advice in an interview with LAist, Conklin said, “ Lawyers, they sometimes get a little too dramatic.”

She added:  ”Lawyers, they get spooked easily over any allegation, seriously, so I'm not concerned. I have not done anything wrong.”

Endorsements removed from campaign website

When LAist began reporting this article, Conklin was endorsed by key figures in the Democratic establishment, including O.C. Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento and U.S. Rep. Derek Tran, according to her campaign website as of April 24.

Tran’s endorsement was removed from Conklin’s campaign website before the entire list of endorsements was eventually removed as well.

Sarmiento told LAist he reached out to Conklin’s campaign to rescind his endorsement on Saturday pending further investigation.

“I certainly don’t want to support anyone involved in any misconduct, especially after my experience with a former colleague who is serving five years in federal prison,” he said, alluding to former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do serving time in federal prison for his role in a corruption scheme uncovered by LAist.

Tran did not respond to a request for comment.

LAist asked Conklin about losing Tran and the Democratic Party of O.C.’s endorsements.

" Endorsements come and go. If it doesn't come with money, so what?” Conklin said.

Details of the allegations 

LAist interviewed eight of Conklin's current or former campaign staff, including her former campaign treasurer.

Cine Ivery, the former treasurer, said Conklin fired her after she requested receipts for a campaign credit card and rebuffed the candidate’s repeated requests to use campaign money to pay personal expenses, including rent for Conklin’s two-bedroom apartment in La Palma.

Ivery told LAist Conklin was “constantly trying” to use campaign funds for personal use.  

“She was always trying to find a way: 'Can I pay my rent? Can I pay the house bill? Can I do this?'” Ivery recounted from meetings with the candidate.

Ivery recalled explaining federal campaign finance laws to Conklin in detail.

“You can't skate around. You can't pretend. You can't hide,” she said, recounting their back and forth.

Ivery showed LAist email exchanges with Conklin in which she asked Conklin, unsuccessfully, to produce receipts for about $1,100 in charges on a maxed-out $2,500 campaign credit card. She said Conklin fired her after these email exchanges.

Michael Trujillo, Conklin’s new campaign consultant, told LAist in an interview that allegations of misuse of campaign funds are “100% not true.”

“If they believe it to be true, they can file an FPPC complaint. They haven't, and they won't because it's not true,” he said.

Fair Political Practices Commission oversees campaign finance laws.

Over email, Trujillo told LAist Conklin terminated Ivery in January and scheduled her last day for Feb. 9.

Conklin told LAist in an interview it was staffers who lost the receipts for expenses they incurred. She added she has since brought in a new treasurer.

LAist reviewed the credit card statement, and the expenses without receipts were mainly incurred at restaurants. Former staffers, who asked to speak anonymously with LAist to protect their job prospects, told LAist those expenses were all incurred by Conklin personally.

In a written statement to LAist, Conklin’s campaign said Ivery “made the transition process unnecessarily difficult and combative.”

Ivery restricted the campaign’s access to fundraising and compliance platforms, according to the statement, and refused to transfer needed information to the campaign’s new treasurer.

The statement goes on to say that the campaign sought legal counsel and has considered filing a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission.

Ivery, the former treasurer, refused to transfer campaign funds until the receipts were provided for the outstanding credit card charges, according to the statement.

Conklin asked Ivery to retain $2,500 in campaign funds to pay off the credit card and transfer the rest of the money, according to the statement.

Ivery told LAist she could not use campaign funds to pay off the credit card charges without the receipts. Ultimately, Ivery said, she used her own personal funds to pay off the credit card charges as the credit card was issued through Ivery’s company. And, Ivery said, she transferred over the campaign materials to the new treasurer after making sure she followed federal campaign finance guidelines.

Trujillo, Conklin’s campaign consultant, told LAist, when candidates lose receipts on a campaign, they eat the charges. And, Trujillo said, campaign treasurers can pay off credit card charges with campaign funds without receipts.

Per FPPC guidelines, all expenditures above $25 require receipts.

“ It is literally the craziest thing in the world to try to figure out our credit card charges when the campaign's not even over,” Trujillo said. He said at the end of the campaign when they close out the books, they’ll chase every receipt. If a receipt is not found, the candidate will eat the charge with an in-kind donation to the campaign.

LAist checked the FPPC database Friday. No complaints appear for Ivery or Conklin.

Some of the former campaign staffers also allege that after they left the campaign, campaign payments were made to Conklin’s daughter, Natalie Khay, and to Shauna Harris, a friend of Conklin’s, who they said, did not work on the campaign. Both were reported as consultants on Form 460, a state filing required by people running for office on donations they receive and payments they make with campaign funds.

When asked about these transactions, Conklin told LAist her daughter did some work on the campaign last year and she finally paid her back when she raised money.

“ I took her for granted and I said, look, I don't have any money at this time if you can be patient, please just be patient, and allow me to raise enough money because we're grassroots,” she recalled telling her daughter.

When asked about the payments to Harris, her friend, Conklin first said she rented office space from her friend. Former staffers told LAist they were unaware of any campaign office space. They said they would work out of Conklin’s home office, cafes or over Zoom.

Trujillo, Conklin’s current campaign consultant, told LAist, it is normal for campaign staffers to work from home post-COVID.

The payment to Harris on the Form 460 filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission however was listed as a payment for a campaign consultant.

When asked about that, Conklin said,  ”Well, she gives me advice, too.”

“ She is a silent partner. And if it's a problem with the filing, then we will adjust that. But she has been with me since last year,” she said. “She's been with me from the get go.”

Harris, Conklin said, provided “advice in the background” and “ she looks over the math; she looks over the numbers.”

Harris is a longtime public educator, according to her LinkedIn profile, working over 20 years at Los Angeles Unified School District. She currently runs a Mathnasium in Lakewood. The profile does not list any experience related to campaigns.

Khay and Harris did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment.

Former staffers allege sexually inappropriate behavior

Four former staffers allege Conklin engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior in the workplace. They all told LAist they left the campaign because of these allegations.

In one incident, two former staffers, who asked not to be named due to fears of hurting future job prospects, told LAist the candidate grabbed both of their hands and placed them on her breasts during a campaign meeting at a cafe in Newport Beach.

“She was telling us about how her breasts were not real and that she has, quote, 'she has no feeling in her nipples,' end quote,” one staffer recounted.

“ We hesitated because we didn't want to touch her at all in that aspect, but she proceeds to grab both of our hands and lays them on her breast,” he said.

She then told the female staffer to “give it a squeeze,” he said.

“We took our hands off because we were just in shock,” he said.

LAist spoke with three additional people who had been told of the incident and corroborated the details of the allegations they heard at the time.

Conklin denied the incident happened.

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” Conklin told LAist when asked about the allegation. “That's really ridiculous.”

Another former staffer alleged in a separate incident Conklin asked her to organize files on two cell phones, and in the process, she said Conklin joked to avoid “d*ck pictures” while going through the phones.

When LAist asked Conklin about the allegation, she told us she had a nude photograph on her phone that she received from a client during a prior job as a salesperson.

“He sent me a d*ck pic,” Conklin told LAist. ”That's the only thing that I alluded to, OK, is that story. But no, I wouldn't say anything inappropriate to a staffer because it's not a thing.”

Conklin said she believed the former staffers are “pulling things out of context to villainize me, and I'm not comfortable being staged as this person who is acting inappropriate.”

Conklin added that she viewed her staff as family and would sometimes share personal details with them.

“Trauma dumping is emotional bonding.  That's how you bond with people when you're vulnerable,” she said.

LAist’s Ted Rohrlich contributed to this article. 

In the race for oversight over California’s budget, the two main contenders are an incumbent with three years of experience and a challenger who is set on exposing fraudulent and wasteful spending.

Malia Cohen: The incumbent

Democrat Malia Cohen has served as controller (AKA California’s chief accountant) since 2023, and has raised more than $1.2 million for the race to keep her seat. She oversees spending for a state with a budget of nearly $350 billion and one of the world’s largest economies. It’s her job to make sure the state spends wisely and efficiently.

As the governor and the Legislature hash out a budget deal for this year, Cohen has urged caution, saying higher-than-expected spending “reinforces the need for restraint.”

Cohen also has improved the state’s ability to deliver a key financial report that was chronically late for years. Cohen made up the backlog by releasing four reports in two years, and she told CalMatters that the upcoming report (called the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report) will almost be on time — late a mere two months, compared to the years others were delayed.

While running for office in 2022, Cohen told CalMatters she planned to scrutinize the state’s homelessness spending and take a critical look at the Employment Development Department and the Department of Motor Vehicles. A 2024 report by the state auditor found that California fails to adequately track its homelessness spending.

Cohen did not meet those campaign promises. She said that’s because the state auditor had already looked at those agencies. Instead of duplicating that work, she decided to focus on improving some internal functions of the state’s financial arm. She’s in the midst of ongoing efforts to modernize FI$Cal — the IT system that manages the state’s finances — and the system that pays state employees.

“The bottom line is that I do believe that Californians deserve to know where their money is going,” she said. “So that’s what I'm working to do.”

Herb Morgan: The challenger

Cohen’s main challenger, Republican Herb Morgan, has promised to pick up the slack he says his opponent has dropped. Like Cohen promised in 2022, Morgan said if elected, he will carefully scrutinize the state’s spending on homelessness. He wants to create a system where every time a state-funded nonprofit pays for anything, that transaction goes into a state database. Then, he said, he’ll use AI to monitor those purchases and flag anything suspicious.

As an example of how state spending can be transparently tracked, a public dashboard on his website logs his campaign donations in real time. He’s raised $367,000 as of the end of April.

Morgan acknowledged he’s an outlier as a Republican running in a state historically dominated by Democrats. But he believes voters will look at both candidates’ qualifications instead of voting along party lines.

“I don't care where you are on the social spectrum, 99% of us are fiscally responsible,” he said. “It doesn’t mean cutting spending. It doesn't mean defunding. It just means being responsible with our money. And that, I think, appeals to all political ideologies."

Also running is Meghann Adams, a Peace and Freedom Party candidate. A school bus driver who lives in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood, she is president of her union and manages its finances. If elected, Adams promised to expose corporate landlords that drive up rent prices, analyze the cost of imposing a single-payer Medi-Cal system and divest state investments from companies that support Israel’s war against Gaza.

She’s raised $16,000 as of the end of April.

• Read about the third candidate on the ballot Meghann Adams

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Community college students who make use of CalFresh benefits during their freshman year are more likely to stay on track academically and return for a second year, according to a new working paper from the California Policy Lab and UC Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education.

CalFresh, known federally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), provides monthly food benefits to low-income individuals and families in California. The program enables them to buy food with an Electronic Benefit Transfer card.

The research finds that community college students who had CalFresh benefits throughout their first year were more likely to complete a full-time course load, consisting of 30 or more credits. These students were also more likely to enroll the next year, compared to similar students who were also eligible for benefits but did not receive them.

“The key message is that basic needs matter and food assistance in particular can help college students to do better in school,” said co-author Igor Chirikov, a senior researcher at the Center for Studies in Higher Education.

How comparing students with similar backgrounds led to more precise findings

For the study, Chirikov and his colleague, Jesse Rothstein — a public policy, higher education and economics professor at UC Berkeley — linked administrative data from all California community colleges. They also incorporated financial aid records and data on students’ monthly participation in CalFresh.

The researchers compared students who were alike in key ways, including income, family background and prior participation in CalFresh. The students differed in whether they continued to receive benefits consistently during their first year of college. The researchers also examined whether students completed at least 30 credits in their first year and whether they returned to school for a second year. Both are indicators that students “are on track to completion,” Chirikov said.

“While it intuitively makes sense that when students have enough to eat and are less financially strained, their academic outcomes would improve, this study lets us measure that effect much more precisely,” Rothstein said in a news release. “By comparing students with similar backgrounds and financial circumstances, we’re able to isolate the role that food support plays in improving student outcomes, marking an important step forward in understanding how safety-net programs support student success.”

How does CalFresh help students?

According to Chirikov and Rothstein’s research:

• Students who received CalFresh benefits were more likely to complete a full-time course load during their first year of college (a 5% increase) than comparable, eligible students who did not receive CalFresh.   

• CalFresh raises persistence in college. Students who received the benefits were more likely to re-enroll for a second year of college (a 4% percent increase). 

• For students whose goal is to earn an associate’s degree or to transfer, CalFresh’s impact on credit completion was slightly larger (+1.8 percentage points).

Chirikov noted that while these gains may seem modest, the food assistance program averages about $860 per student. In contrast, many traditional student success interventions can cost thousands of dollars per student.

“These may sound like very small numbers, but in [California’s] large community college system— the largest community college system in the country — even small percentage point gains . . . can affect thousands of students over the years,” he said.

What challenges does CalFresh face?

The findings come on the heels of President Donald Trump signing the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” into law last summer. This legislation will reduce SNAP funding by approximately $186 billion over 10 years — a 20% cut that marks the largest reduction in the program’s history, according to Sara Bleich, a public health policy professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Key changes include the loss of eligibility for thousands of lawfully present immigrants.