The Brief

The Los Angeles Dodgers marked their record-tying 14th consecutive trip to MLB’s postseason with a toast of bubbly after Monday night’s 4-1 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.

The bigger celebrations will come later.

“It’s hard to say it ever feels routine, but it is the expectation here,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “I always laugh whenever we clinch a postseason spot, we just do a nice little toast. The guys that haven’t been here, they kind of see that and they expect a little bit more. That happens when you clinch the division.”

The two-time defending World Series champions, who joined Milwaukee and Tampa Bay as teams who have secured playoff spots, cut their magic number to three for a fifth straight NL West title and 13th in 14 seasons.

Los Angeles tied the Atlanta Braves’ postseason run from 1991 through 2005. The Braves made five World Series trips during that span, but won only in 1995.

“Thankfully we’re doing a little bit better than that,” Muncy said of the Dodgers three titles and five trips to the Fall Classic during their run.

Tarik Skubal — who pitched seven shutout innings and allowed only three hits — said the way the Dodgers handled clinching a postseason spot was definitely different compared to clinching situations he encountered the past two seasons with Detroit.

“I think it just speaks to the people in this room and what they expect out of this team. That was cool. A little toast and move on. Forget it happened. We’ve got more to accomplish this season,” he said.

Dave Roberts, who is in his 11th season as manager, said his message during the toast was that the Dodgers have accomplished a lot to this point but haven’t come close to playing their best baseball yet.

“We go through a lot of players every year, and guys find a way to step up, and so that’s the thing I’m probably most proud of, is the consistency of winning over the long term,” he said. “Any team, any organization can win in a given year where things line up, but to do it every single year when you’re expected to do this says something about the entire organization.”

The Dodgers (91-59) currently are the second seed in the NL. They are 2 1/2 games ahead of Atlanta and trail Milwaukee by 2 games for the top seed.

A first-round bye is important any time but especially this year for the Dodgers, who are not at full strength. First baseman Freddie Freeman has been plagued by right knee soreness and two-time NL MVP Shohei Ohtani is on the 15-day injured list due to right biceps inflammation.

“Given where our guys are health wise, to get that week would be huge. We’ve still got to play well to finish out the season to get to that point,” Roberts said before Monday’s game.

Among the hundreds of lead-polluted sites dotted across L.A. County, a disproportionate number are located in largely low-income neighborhoods of color. Too often, lead pollution is left in place, even when it’s severe enough to cause health harm, with potential long-term implications for those living there like irreversible neurological damage.

If it’s not dug up and hauled away or removed by some other biological means, it can stay in the environment for millenia.

Below are five lead-contaminated sites across L.A. County that illustrate just how pervasive and intractable this problem can be, how costly it is to clean up, and how surprising some of the sources are.

1. Ecobat Resources California

The Ecobat Resources California lead-acid battery recycling plant in the City of Industry.

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Karla Gachet

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Ecobat Resources California in the City of Industry is the only lead battery recycling plant left operating this side of the Rockies. It opened in 1959 (under the company name Quemetco), when the world of environmental regulations was more akin to the Wild West.

In 2008, the plant installed a sophisticated air filter that helped reduce lead emissions markedly. But by then, the plant had already released huge quantities of lead into the surrounding environment, carried by the wind before settling over people’s homes.

A long history of hazardous waste violations spanning decades also show Ecobat has not been as careful as it should in managing the dangerous chemicals it processes.

Multiple rounds of soil lead testing have been conducted around the plant since the early 1990s, and as recently as 2021. In 2024, DTSC ordered the company to do yet more testing to define the full extent of their pollution footprint.

That’s because “every single time they’ve gone out to sample in the community, they’ve got a non-trivial portion of the samples collected showing elevated levels of lead,” said Angela Johnson Meszaros, a senior attorney with the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice.

The nearest homes are just hundreds of feet from the plant perimeter, but state officials estimate it could have polluted soils up to 1.6 miles away. Yet, no government agency has ever cleaned up these lead–contaminated homes.

Though DTSC has linked the plant’s operations to this off-site contamination, Ecobat Resources California leadership and other industry representatives have voiced reservations about a potential cleanup, arguing the plant shouldn’t be responsible for removing pollution that might have come from other potential sources like lead paint and gasoline.

Community members and environmental advocates are worried that, when time comes to close the plant and clean up its mess (something not currently on the cards), there won’t be enough money given the scale of the possible remediation.

In Ecobat’s latest hazardous waste operating permit issued in 2025, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, or DTSC, required the company to post more than $50 million in financial assurances to cover all the cleanup costs if the plant were to close, and for any ongoing environmental monitoring of the site after that.

The number is way too small, warned Johnson Meszaros. “This amount is at best, a baseless hope about the extent of the contamination that has left the facility,” she said. “And at worst, it’s a tragic mistake.”

2. S&W Atlas Iron and Metals

Loud ground-shaking activity within S&W Atlas Iron would often disrupt classes at Jordan High school.

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Courtesy of LAUSD

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For years, S&W Atlas Iron and Metals, a scrap metal recycling plant in Watts, contaminated the neighboring Jordan High campus with toxins like lead, made the lives of students and teachers unbearable with loud ground-shaking noises, and terrorized them with multiple explosions that rained shrapnel onto school grounds. The school and the plant were separated by a single wall.

Last year, Matthew and Gary Weisenberg, the owner operators of Atlas, pleaded no contest in the Los Angeles County Superior Court to five felony counts related to the management of hazardous substances including lead, and were ordered to clean up the toxic mess they’ve left behind.

The problem isn’t over. Cancer-causing chemicals in the soil are crawling toward and onto the campus of Jordan High that court filings describe as “orders of magnitude” above state screening levels.

“Let’s call it what it is, a form of societal violence and a human rights violation,” said Jane Williams, executive director of the environmental advocacy group California Communities Against Toxics, who has tracked this case for decades.

The Weisenbergs’ two-year probationary clock runs out in October 2027.

But many in the Jordan High community have voiced frustration that the Weisenbergs are dragging their heels on this ongoing remediation, and that state regulators aren’t being tough enough, especially given how the students are already in one of the most pollution-burdened communities in the whole state.

“What I want to see is the DTSC and CalEPA really look holistically at the cumulative risks at this site and that they really start to address not just one contaminant individually but all the of the factors that are weighing on the Watts community at any given time,” said Thelmy Alvarez, who helped found the environmental justice collaborative Better Watts Initiative and who worked for years to close down Atlas.

3. Exide Technologies

Large water pipes are shown in the foreground inside the now-demolished Exide Technologies plant.

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Alfredo Santana

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LA Public Press

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For three decades, the former Exide lead battery recycling plant in the City of Vernon spewed some 3,500 tons of lead into surrounding neighborhoods until the federal government forced it to close in 2015. So far, the state has overseen the removal of lead-contaminated soil in more than 6,300 homes up to 1.7 miles around the plant. The massive cleanup is the largest hazardous waste cleanup in the state’s history.

A federal bankruptcy court released Exide Technologies from its cleanup obligations in October 2020, the company having stumped up only about $23.3 million toward those costs. This is a fraction of the nearly $950 million state taxpayers have so far forked out for the cleanup.

Major question marks remain about just how well those public funds have been used.

The nonprofit advocacy group East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice partnered with UC Irvine researchers to collect soil samples from 373 homes that had already been cleaned up. Earlier this year, they published their findings.

They found that 70 percent of these supposedly remediated homes yielded samples that still exceeded the state’s health protective soil lead threshold.

The department has been conducting its own confirmation testing on 623 properties that were previously cleaned up between mid-April 2025 and February.

The individual sampling reports and raw data have been released in batches since June. A comprehensive report on these results will be available early next year, according to DTSC spokesperson Elizabeth Leslie-Gassaway.

4. Central Metals

The now shuttered Central Metals facility in South LA, captured here in July 2025.

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Dan Ross

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Long Beach Post

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When the huge front gates used to open to Central Metals, a recycler in South Los Angeles, the neighbors who lived right across the road got a glimpse into a vast metal wasteland full of junk piles.

Those who lived in the noisy shadow of this bustling 11-acre compound, where scrap would be cut and shredded, long feared it had polluted their homes and backyards with lead.

Their fears were heightened in 2011, when the state found hazardous waste leaks from smashed battery cases at the plant, along with oily sludge and broken e-waste.

Company documents detailed 430 tons of onsite soil laced with lead and other chemicals. Regulators determined toxic dust had likely blown into the adjacent community. It was closed in 2016.

Two years later, the EPA began an investigation into lead pollution surrounding Central Metals to determine whether to include the site on the federal Superfund list.

Among the agency’s eventual findings, 11 of the 83 homes sampled had soil lead levels high enough to warrant remediation, but not significant enough, the EPA argued, to make Central Metals a Superfund site.

To help decide whether Central Metals should join the Superfund list, the EPA used a soil lead cleanup threshold of 400 parts per million (ppm).

Since that report was published, the EPA has halved its residential soil lead screening limit to 200 ppm. Using that threshold, nearly 25% of the EPA’s samples in the report were over that threshold.

If the EPA used California’s stricter residential soil lead screening limit of 80 ppm, however, a staggering 88% of its published samples would exceed that threshold, according to an LA Public Press review of the data.

Mason Thomas Reid, a researcher at Ohio State University and UCLA’s JAYLab, taking soil lead readings with an XRF gun at a home around the former Central Metals plant in July 2025.

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Dan Ross

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LA Public Press

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This matches the results of a more recent independent soil lead study at homes around Central Metals, where 86% of the samples were also above California’s 80 ppm cleanup threshold.

Both the EPA and the DTSC told LA Public Press they have no plans to remediate these homes. The only cleanup has been within the recycler’s walls.

In explaining DTSC’s position, agency spokesperson Leslie-Gassaway wrote in an email how the EPA had already found no “correlation” between the residential lead contamination and Central Metals.

“As a result, DTSC is not directing Central Metals to perform soil lead remediation near its facility,” wrote spokesperson Leslie-Gassaway.

But the independent researchers found that the higher lead levels in the homes “correlated significantly” with closer proximity to Central Metals.

Either way, “no matter who put it there, the people are still suffering as a result of exposure to all of this contamination, and that’s something that should be addressed,” said Mason Thomas Reid, a researcher at Ohio State University and UCLA’s JAYLab who helped conduct the study with key support from the non-profit Communities for a Better Environment.

5. Santa Monica Airport

Santa Monica Airport is scheduled to be closed down in 2028 after decades of community pushback, including over emission risks from leaded aviation fuels.

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Dan Ross

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LA Public Press

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While a complete ban on the sale of leaded gas for highway vehicles was finally achieved in 1996, the little piston engine planes criss-crossing L.A.’s skies are still using leaded fuel, which rains out over the world below.

In total, these planes constitute the largest lead emitter in the nation.

The EPA is also phasing out the use of leaded aviation gasoline. The goal is for this to be achieved by 2030.

In the meantime, the more than 200,000 such planes that use this fuel have access to multiple county, municipal and private airports across LA. One of those airports is in Santa Monica.

Regulatory air quality studies published in 2010 and  2011 found the highest lead levels occurred closest to the Santa Monica runways before tapering off and returning to normal levels 1 kilometer away, and that air contaminants spiked just before and after planes took off.

Around that same time, the EPA found elevated soil lead levels in two of five tested homes close to the airport, though not in limited soil and dust samples at the airport and neighboring parks.

With significantly greater lead emissions than Santa Monica is Van Nuys Airport in the San Fernando Valley. Indeed, Van Nuys ranks as one of the largest lead emitting airports nationwide. An extensive 2025 report found that residents living in the shadow of the Van Nuys Airport attributed health conditions to noise and air pollution stemming from the airport.

Their concerns are far from unfounded.

The EPA determined in 2023 that leaded aviation gasoline is a likely danger to “public health and welfare.” This 2016 study identified higher rates of respiratory problems, heart disease, and emergency room visits among those living around California’s 12 largest airports.

Overall research on lead impacts around all L.A. County’s airports remains slim, however, though the South Coast Air Quality Management District conducted air monitoring around the Whiteman Airport in Pacoima in 2018, 2019, and in 2022. It found air lead levels to be within typical ranges, and lower than a national air quality standard for the chemical.

At the same time, a 2021 study around Reid-Hillview Airport in Northern California’s Santa Clara County found that the closer children lived to the airport, the higher the amount of lead in their blood.

A subsequent analysis around the same airport found that childhood blood lead levels increased with the greater volume of air traffic and larger quantities of leaded aviation gas sold.

Santa Monica airport is set to close in 2028 after years of community pushback, including around the risks from exposures to this nasty neurotoxin.

This article was produced by the nonprofit journalism publication LA Public Press. It is co-published here with permission.

This is part three of “Lead City,” our series documenting the impact of lead pollution across L.A. County. You can read the first and second stories here. The series was produced as part of the USC Center for Health Journalism’s California Health Equity Fellowship.

The work film editors do is as old as Hollywood.

The best editors take the many scenes filmed by a production crew and seamlessly create one work.

“You don't see what I do and if you do, I'm not doing my job right,” said Ryan Westphal, a visual effects editor, who worked on the TV series "Loki " and the film "Ferrari."

For Westphal, the best of times as an editor appear to be in the rearview mirror.

“I've had a good run from about 2018 to about 2023," he said. "For some people, the really busy time was about 2021 to 2023… the gold rush years for streaming content.”

It was good enough that he was lining up his finances to buy a house in Los Angeles. Not anymore.

“I feel like I'm on borrowed time. If things don't get back to some version of what it once was, I [will] need to leave L.A., and I need to change careers,” he said.

Westphal is one of thousands of people who’ve done post-production work — like editing and sound design — who are now feeling the contraction of opportunities in Hollywood. Some who are more visible, like actors and directors, have already felt that squeeze.

He and many others are waiting eagerly to see what Gov. Gavin Newsom does with a state bill meant to help these post production workers.

Assembly Bill 2319 is also known as the California Post-Production Tax Credit. It made it through both legislative chambers in Sacramento and was sent to the governor’s desk on Sept. 2.

The bill

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has not said whether he plans to sign or veto the bill.

“I think it's a smart bill. I believe passing the bill [is] a way to keep television producers happy and here in Los Angeles,” said Juan Garza, an editor who’s worked on TV series such as "Doubt " and "Queen of the South."

California has already created tax credits as incentives for TV and film productions that do most filming and post production in the state. But this bill is different.

It would create new credits for projects that keep post-production work like editing and sound design in the state, even if they were filmed elsewhere or didn’t benefit from existing production tax credits.

For Garza, there’s a silver lining to the production slowdown. He’s also a filmmaker and has used the down time to take on several independent projects.

The Motion Picture Editors Guild represents Garza and about 8,000 other freelance and staff post-production professionals across the U.S. The union is urging Newsom to sign the bill.

Will a tax credit do enough?

But even to union members, it’s unclear if this bill will bring back the good years.

“I  think it's really a drop in the bucket of what's needed,” said Westphal, who has taken on part-time work as a security guard to make ends meet.

He said some more experienced editors have had to go to Europe to keep working. And some post-production work, like filming, has gone to other states as legislators elsewhere have attracted production out of California.

“It's a good start, but to really compete against the other states [and] the other countries, a lot more is needed,” he said.

Prosecutors said Tuesday that they won’t pursue the death penalty for Nick Reiner in the killings of his parents, actor-director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner, who were stabbed at their Los Angeles home late last year.

Nick Reiner, 32, was charged with first-degree murder on Dec. 16, two days after the stunning killings of the couple, ages 78 and 70. A grand jury allegation from this summer said he was lying in wait before killing them.

Special circumstances in the allegations against Nick Reiner made him eligible for the death penalty, but Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said the issue would be deferred while his office decided whether to pursue it. Those circumstances include multiple killings and the use of a dangerous weapon, a knife.

Hochman said his office did a thorough review, including speaking Rob and Michele Reiner’s families and evaluating mitigating factors in Nick Reiner’s favor, before reaching its decision.

The district attorney said the maximum sentence Reiner will be eligible to receive if convicted will be life without the possibility of parole.

Nick Reiner has not entered a plea after two court hearings, but his former defense attorney Alan Jackson said adamantly shortly after resigning from the case that “pursuant to the laws of California, Nick Reiner is not guilty of murder.”null

Jackson had to withdraw for undisclosed reasons that he said were beyond his and the client’s control, and a public defender took over for him.

$29 million to renovate a gym at a Santa Barbara college in Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón’s district.

$13 million for a farmers market and food innovation hub in wealthy Marin County, where Gov. Gavin Newsom lives.

$3 million to renovate the San Jose Giants’ minor league baseball stadium in Santa Clara County.

California lawmakers doled out $1.3 billion in handouts for their legislative districts with almost zero public scrutiny or input during an annual budgeting process that allows legislators and the governor to hand-pick funding recipients in private.

The money, often known as earmarks or “pork-barrel projects,” is commonplace in California and elsewhere, even in years when the state faces huge budget deficits. The practice allows lawmakers to tout their accomplishments and woo voters.

The earmark process is so secretive that few know why some projects make the cut and others don’t, raising equity and transparency concerns, even among lawmakers. Critics argue that it allows elected officials to play favorites.

“(It) is done all behind closed doors,” said Julie Baker, CEO of California for the Arts. “It is somewhat inequitable … to have a grant making process that everyone’s competing over and then have a process that’s non-transparent.”

Here’s how earmarks work: The leaders in the California Assembly and Senate, both Democrats, allow their colleagues to submit private wish-lists for funds with a suggested spending cap the leaders set. Then billions of dollars for hundreds of projects suddenly appear in a bill heard just days before lawmakers leave for the year, leaving little time for the public to weigh in. Lawmakers don’t put their names on the earmarks, making it hard to identify who requested what.

This year, Limón loosely capped Senate Democrats’ requests at $5 million each, said Sen. Dave Cortese, a San Jose Democrat who secured $6.5 million for his district. Lawmakers do not share their funding requests with each other, he said — at least not before they take credit for them in press releases or ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

“It's a confidential process between each office and leadership,” he told CalMatters.

But even he bemoaned the opaque nature of it.

“Why couldn’t we do this process a little earlier and get our requests into subcommittees so the public could just see what’s going on?” Cortese said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of here.”

‘Why did I spend all that time and energy?’

The vast majority of the funding goes to urban counties such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, which are represented by powerful Democrats, and to other pet projects in Democratic leaders’ districts. Areas that are represented by Republicans typically get little to nothing.

This year, 17 counties, mostly lower population rural counties represented by Republicans, did not appear to receive any earmark funding.

“The leadership decides the major portions of the budget,” said Sen. Roger Niello, a Roseville Republican and vice chair of the Senate budget committee. “That is frustrating, but it is the system that we have.”

CalMatters compiled the earmarks in the budget measure Assembly Bill 113 and used Digital Democracy’s Find your legislators tool to determine which county and legislative district each project falls in.

More than $550 million — 42% of all earmarks identified by CalMatters — went to non-governmental organizations, mostly nonprofits, according to the analysis. It includes at least $93 million for arts projects, museums and murals, as well as funding for immigration services, land conservation and housing and homelessness.

The rest went to city and county governments for infrastructure including parks, community pools, wildfire mitigation and road repairs.

CalMatters reached out to Newsom, Limón, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and more than 20 other lawmakers to ask for a list of their funding requests. Few provided them.

Newsom, Rivas and Limón declined to answer questions about specific projects but told CalMatters in general statements that they are proud of the earmarks.

In a statement, Newsom spokesperson Tara Gallegos said the funding in this year’s budget will “make a lasting, meaningful difference in communities across California.”

“From supporting our natural resources, and improving recreation centers to strengthening the arts and expanding food access, these additional investments reflect a continued commitment to building stronger, healthier, and more vibrant communities for all Californians,” the statement read.

Proponents of earmarks say they empower state lawmakers to prioritize projects with urgent needs in their districts instead of funneling the money through lengthy grant applications. The earmarks are also just a sliver of the state’s $352 billion budget, they noted.

“My message to (state agencies) is, ‘You guys take the other 99.9% and leave this fraction of a percent to us,’” Cortese said. “I’ll help target some real need in these districts that you are never going to see in an office in Sacramento.”

Lawmakers gather on the Assembly floor during the final days of session at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Aug. 31, 2026.

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Fred Greaves

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CalMatters

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But critics bashed state leaders for finding $1.3 billion for earmarks when the state has struggled to backfill major federal cuts to healthcare. State leaders this year relied on windfall revenue from an AI-driven economic boom, some tax increases and suspending payments to schools and state reserves to balance the budget and delay deep healthcare cuts to next year.

“They’ve said, ‘Look … there's no extra money to spend,’ and then a half billion dollars comes out in the last 48 hours of the session,” said Geoff Green, CEO of CalNonprofits, which represents thousands of nonprofits statewide. “For entities that were working through what we considered normal processes through the entirety of the session, to then see this come out at the last second, it feels like, well, why did I spend all that time and energy?”

Susan Shelley, vice president of communications at the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, accused lawmakers of handing money out to their supporters at the last moment.

“From a taxpayer perspective, we don’t have the money for this,” Shelley said.

Dance troupes, museums and MMA fighters

The biggest allocation this year was $125 million to help buy and transform a defunct Alameda County horse track into a public park — a Newsom priority. Assembly Appropriations Committee Chair Buffy Wicks and Senate Housing Committee Chair Jesse Arreguín, both Oakland Democrats, championed the funding.

Some earmarks benefited groups with wealthy backers. The state gave $25 million to the Innovative Genomics Institute, a UC Berkeley-based genome engineering research facility in Wicks and Arreguín’s districts whose funders include the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Li Ka Shing Foundation and the United States Department of Defense.

Other earmarks include:

• $20 million to help build a facility for the Jewish Family and Children’s Services Holocaust Center in San Francisco, which is backed by dozens of foundations and endowment funds. Executive director Anita Friedman said the endowments only fund roughly 2% of its budget.
• $15 million to renovate the police and firefighters memorials in Sacramento’s Capital Park
• $1 million for the state’s retirement fund for mixed martial arts fighters, currently funded through ticket and vanity plate sales.

Another $86 million went to arts projects, museums and dance troupes — more than 40% of them in San Francisco.

That includes $3 million to the ODC Dance Company, whose founder Brenda Way was inducted into the California Hall of Fame by Newsom and first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom; $2.8 million to the Center for the Art of Translation backed by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Hawthornden Foundation; and $400,000 to the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

It’s unclear who advocated for those earmarks. Democratic San Francisco Assemblymember Matt Haney said he did not request any of them. Sen. Scott Wiener and Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, both San Francisco Democrats, did not respond to requests for comment from CalMatters.

Green, of CalNonprofit, said he worries the money is not reaching those with the most acute needs, but those with the best relationships with lawmakers.

“The capacity of a large, well-staffed institute to access resources is just a completely different universe than a smaller, volunteer, community-based organization in some more rural parts of the state,” he said, adding that the recipients appear to be “folks who have relationships already.”

Relationships matter

Relationships do matter to Cortese. Among the projects he requested funding for, only one — Ashes to Beauty, which received $750,000 — is relatively new to him. He said he’s known the other nonprofits he sought funding for dating to his days as a San Jose city councilmember in the 2000s.

“If some new group came along and they seemed hopeful … but I didn’t know of them very well, I hadn’t seen their work too much in the community, I’m probably not going to entrust them with $1 million or $800,000,” he said. “It’s not a matter of any kind of favoritism.”

Cortese said his office keeps a long list of requests for funding and considers which groups are “lifting up the greater good of the community.”

Cortese asked for and received $2.1 million for First-Tee Silicon Valley, which teaches golf and leadership to high-risk kids in marginalized neighborhoods; $2.6 million to environmental nonprofit Our City Forest; and $1 million for Amigos de Guadalupe, an immigration services nonprofit.

Several earmarks went to nonprofits with ties to the governor. The Redwood High School Foundation, which funds Newsom’s high school alma mater, received $4 million for a “capital project.” Another $250,000 went to Kiss the Ground, a regenerative agriculture nonprofit whose 2020 documentary featured Newsom.

A total of $3.86 million went to the Alliance for Community Empowerment, a Los Angeles nonprofit that serves trauma and poverty survivors. Its founder, Michelle Miranda, sat on a board of community advisers to Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, an Encino Democrat who chairs the budget committee.

Gabriel’s spokesperson Alicia Isaacs-Lee did not address specific projects but said Assembly Democrats fought for “smart, targeted, one-time investments” in healthcare, food banks, legal service providers, fire departments and nonprofits.

Homeless shelter City of Refuge Sacramento received $1.8 million to open two more homes to serve children, co-founder Rachelle Ditmore told CalMatters. She is a close friend of Sen. Angelique Ashby, a Sacramento Democrat who helped the shelter secure $8 million in 2023. Democratic Assemblymember Maggy Krell, who also represents the area, donated $10,000 from her campaign account to Ditmore’s nonprofit in August 2025.

But Ditmore told CalMatters that the governor, who signed an executive order on human trafficking at City of Refuge, may have requested the funding this year.

“This is an authentic place and I’m grateful for history, but also love that this was directed by other eyes who were able to see the value,” Ditmore told CalMatters in an email.

Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, a Los Angeles Democrat, secured $13.5 million in earmarks this year, including $500,000 for the Los Angeles Black Workers Center, which she co-founded, according to a list provided by her spokesperson Paulette Thornton.

The center is the only one in the area serving Black workers, and the funding will connect Black residents to quality jobs, Thornton said.

Rural, Republican-led counties get less

Los Angeles County, where nearly a quarter of all Californians live, received at least $300 million in earmarks this year — just under a quarter of the total and more than any other county, data analysis shows.

Santa Barbara County, Limón’s home county with a population of 450,000, received at least $72.8 million in earmarks, more than any other similarly sized county. Republican-dominated Tulare County, by comparison, received just $200,000 for its 485,000 residents.

The contrast reflects the power of leadership in Sacramento, said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College.

“Part of the power … is the ability to get benefits for the district, and it’s not surprising that the legislative leaders tend to do pretty well in that respect,” Pitney said.

Last year, a quarter of the earmarks CalMatters identified — more than $100 million — went to the district of former Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, a Santa Rosa Democrat.

This year, CalMatters identified $83.7 million in earmarks benefiting Limón’s district, including the $29 million gym renovation. Others include:

• $6 million to acquire and rehabilitate a historical building that housed nonprofit La Casa de la Raza
• $5 million to restore Pershing Park in Santa Barbara
• $3.3 million for a community pool in the city of Carpinteria
• $3 million for a high school community aquatics center.

Rivas’ district received just over $10 million in earmarks, including $2.8 million for a regional soccer complex in Salinas, $2.5 million for a recreational center in King City and $525,000 for arts and culture in Watsonville. His district overlaps with that of Sen. John Laird, a Santa Cruz Democrat who chairs the budget committee.

Laird’s district received $36.9 million, including:

• $10 million for expanding public access to the PG&E-owned North Ranch property
• $618,000 for highway traffic enforcement on the Bixby Bridge
• $250,000 to the San Luis Obispo Beaver Brigade, a nonprofit advocating for beavers.

Gabriel’s district saw at least $7 million in earmarks, including $2.5 million to Mid Valley YMCA, $500,000 to Los Angeles youth film nonprofit Kids in the Spotlight and $200,000 to social services group Family Rescue Center.

Niello told CalMatters that GOP senators were only given $1 million each in earmarks to distribute.

“That means that I’m not able to do enough for my district (as) Dave Cortese is for his, and we both have the same size districts. Is that fair? To me, it’s not.”

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