The Brief

The bear is back.

Her return in March has become as predictable as Daylight Saving Time, the Spring Equinox and green beer. This full-grown black bear arrives unannounced to pillage our backyard bird feeder and feast on the black oil sunflower seeds and, in the case of her return the other day, an added bonus of dried cranberries that we had sprinkled into the mix only hours earlier.

There you go, another shattered bird feeder headed for the landfill after getting the bear treatment!

As much as I lament the waste of metal and glass, I delight in 162's visits. That's the number on her ear jewelry, which is the green tag affixed by wildlife officials who tell me she's about 6 years old and likes to frequent the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in Altadena and La Cañada Flintridge.

If 162 has another name, she hasn't shared it with me. Instead of giving her one myself, like "Meatball" or "French Fry'' (actual local bears), I prefer to allow her the dignity of keeping her identity cloaked in the enigmatic three digits assigned when she was first captured in suburbia before being tagged and whisked off into the Angeles National Forest — the first of three times.

According to some publicity she received in 2021, she first turned up in springtime at a preschool in Altadena. "The California Department of Fish and Wildlife responded and deemed the female bear not aggressive and, in fact, wasn't really causing any problems," the Crescenta Valley Weekly reported. The wildlife biologists gave up trying to convince her to stay in her mountain habitat, as she had been fed by humans and, no surprise here, liked it.

Black bear 162, caught in the act, barely notices her audience of East Coast college students in March 2023.

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Susanne Whatley

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LAist

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This brings me to the birdfeeder(s). The last one to bite the dust at the claws and jaws of 162 was during a visit I summoned in March of last year, when my daughter and five girlfriends visiting from their Pennsylvania college were treated to a command performance by this gentle marauder. Mere hours after I'd admonished them to watch out for wildlife in the yard, including bears (boy did their eyes go wide at that notion), 162 paid an afternoon visit to the feeder. As she tore it to the ground and chomped away, these East Coast ladies marveled at the show. Out came the phones to chronicle it on video as living proof of how their California friend lives on the razor's edge, at danger's very door.

Our first bird feeder fell victim in October of 2021, at a time of year when black bears like to fatten up before their winter torpor. This untagged individual surprised me while I was broadcasting live from home during LAist 89.3's Morning Edition. Seconds before going on the air, I turned to see it through the window about 15 feet away as it mauled the feeder and chowed down on the contents. A social media-savvy colleague turned this encounter into a viral moment: This fall and next spring, I’ll make sure to put the bird feeding on hiatus.

Interesting how I could live some place my whole life and only recently experience the joy and wonderment of a close encounter with such a massive beast as Ursus americanus. But bear sightings are becoming more common because there are more bears. The US Forest Service notes on its San Bernardino website that "Black bears are being observed in areas where they were not seen 50 years ago along the Central Coast and Transverse mountain ranges of Southern California. Between 25,000 and 30,000 black bears are now estimated to occupy 52,000 square miles in California."

The black bear is also a game mammal. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife issues "bear tags" to allow the bruins to be hunted in the counties of Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside. Its Bear Management Program collects teeth from killed bears to determine their ages by counting the rings. I prefer not to think of such things.

162 may be huge with claws that could shred skin and sinew, but in my experience she is not scrapping for a fight. We've seen her (or her kind) sleep on our lawn, climb our fences, upend our trash can and terrorize our cat, but she acts without malice. Clapping and shouting "shoo, bear!" appears to be all it takes to send her on her way to surprise — and hopefully delight — someone else.

Topline:

The case: In September, the city settled a lawsuit brought forward by two brothers in their 70s who said they suffered serious injuries after an LAPD officer crashed into their car. Days before the $18 million settlement was reached, lawyers for the brothers said Feldstein Soto called an expert witness testifying for the plaintiffs and “attempted to ingratiate herself with him and asked him to make a contribution to her political campaign,” according to a sworn declaration to the court by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Robert Glassman.

The response: Feldstein Soto did not respond to an interview request. Her spokesperson said the settlement “had nothing to do” with the expert witness. Her campaign manager told LAist the city attorney had been making a routine fundraising call and did not know the person had a role in the case, nor that there were pending requests for her office to pay him fees.

What Jurado says: In a statement to LAist, Jurado said she wants to “make sure that the city’s legal leadership is guided by integrity and accountability, especially when their choices affect public trust, civic rights and the city’s limited resources."

What’s next: The motion needs to go through a few committees before reaching the full City Council. If it passes, the motion calls for the city attorney to “report to council in closed session within 45 days regarding the ethics breach violation and give updates to the City Council."

Every year in Santa Ana, Luis Cantabrana turns the front of his home into an elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe that draws hundreds of visitors.

Along the front of the house, the multi-colored altar is filled with lights, flowers and a stained-glass tapestry behind a sculpture of the Lady of Guadalupe. Cantabrana’s roof also is lit up with the green, white and red lights that spell out “Virgen de Guadalupe” and a cross.

Visitors are welcomed with music and the smell of roses as they celebrate the saint, but this year’s gathering comes after a dark year for immigrant communities.

Luis Cantabrana stands in front of the stunning altar he built in front of his home in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe. Every year, his display draws hundreds of visitors.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Why do they celebrate? 

In 1513, the Virgin Mary appeared before St. Juan Diego between Dec. 9 and Dec. 12, asking him to build a church in her honor. Her image — a brown-skinned woman wearing a green veil with her hands together in prayer and an angel at her feet — miraculously appeared on his cloak.

To celebrate in Santa Ana, worshippers gathered late-night Wednesday and in the very early hours Dec. 12 to pray the rosary, sing hymns and celebrate the saint.

Cantabrana has hosted worshippers at his home for 27 years — 17 in Santa Ana.

The altar started out small, he said, and over the years, he added a fabric background, more lights and flowers (lots and lots of flowers).

“It started with me making a promise to la Virgen de Guadalupe that while I had life and a home to build an altar, that I would do it,” Cantabrana said. “Everything you see in photos and videos is pretty, but when you come and see it live, it's more than pretty. It's beautiful.”

The Santa Ana home's elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe draws hundreds of visitors each year.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Gathering in a time of turmoil 

Many also look to the Lady of Guadalupe for protection, especially at a time when federal enforcement has rattled immigrant communities.

“People don’t want to go to work, they don’t want to take their kids to school, but the love we have for our Virgen de Guadalupe,” Cantabrana said. “We see that la Virgen de Guadalupe has a lot of power, and so we know immigration [enforcement] won’t come here.”

Margarita Lopez of Garden Grove has been visiting the altar for three years with her husband. She’s been celebrating the Virgencita since she was a young girl. Honoring the saint is as important now as ever, she said.

“We ask, and she performs miracles,” Lopez said.

Claudia Tapia, a lifelong Santa Ana resident, said the Virgin Mary represents strength.

“Right now, with everything going on, a lot of our families [have] turned and prayed to the Virgen for strength during these times,” Tapia said. “She's a very strong symbol of Mexican culture, of unity, of faith and of resilience.”

See it for yourself

The shrine will stay up into the new year on the corner of Broadway and Camile Street.

California’s unemployment agency kept paying cellphone bills for 4 1/2 years without checking whether its workers actually were using the devices.

That’s how it racked up $4.6 million in fees for mobile devices its workers were not using, according to a new state audit detailing wasteful spending at several government agencies.

The Employment Development Department’s excessive cellphone bills date to the COVID-19 pandemic, when it shifted call center employees to remote work and faced pressure to release benefits to millions of suddenly unemployed Californians.

It acquired 7,224 cellphones and wireless hotspots by December 2020. State auditors analyzed 54 months of invoices since then and found half the devices were unused for at least two years, 25% were unused for three years and 99 of them were never used at all.

The investigation, which auditors opened after receiving a tip, identified 6,285 devices that were unused for at least four consecutive months, and said the department spent $4.6 million on monthly service fees for them.

From the beginning, the department had about 2,000 more cellphones than call center employees, according to the audit. The gap widened over time after the pandemic ended and the department’s staffing returned to its normal headcount.

As of April, the audit said the department had 1,787 unemployment call center employees, but was paying monthly service fees for 5,097 mobile devices.

“Although obtaining the mobile devices during COVID-19 may have been a good idea to serve the public, continuing to pay the monthly service fees for so many unused devices, especially post-COVID-19, was wasteful,” the audit said.

Department officials told auditors they were unaware of the spending, but auditors pointed to regular invoices from Verizon that showed which phones were not being used.

“We would have expected EDD management to have reconsidered the need to pay the monthly service fees for so many devices that had no voice, message, or data usage,” the audit said.

The unemployment department began acting on the auditors’ findings in April, when it canceled service plans for 2,825 devices. It has since implemented a policy to terminate service plans for devices that go unused for 90 days.

The California state auditor highlighted the mobile devices in its regular report on “improper activities by state agencies and employees.” The audit also showed that the California Air Resources Board overpaid an employee who was on extended leave as he prepared to retire by $171,000.

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