The Brief

When strong winds shattered the windows on the top floor of Nancy Busacca’s Pasadena home, Michelle Hollis knew it was time to go.

Hollis, Busacca’s caretaker for the past year, packed the essentials. She tried to remain as calm as possible so as not to frighten Busacca, who, weakened by esophageal cancer, could not walk.

As flames neared the home, Hollis first worried about smoke inhalation because Busacca used supplemental oxygen. At the same time, Hollis tried to figure out how she would lift Busacca into her SUV. Luckily, a second caregiver who had wrapped up her overnight shift had stayed to help.

Hollis recalled turning to the second caregiver: “I said, ‘Hey, do you have faith?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Okay, we’re gonna get through this.’”

They did, but their experience in the wildfires that ravaged two Southern California communities last month served as another reminder of the threat that natural disasters pose for people with disabilities and limited mobility as well as their caregivers, who often take on the role of first responders in these situations.

These dangers have been apparent for decades, especially since Hurricane Katrina, the most deadly natural disaster in recent U.S. history, leveled the Gulf Coast in 2005. In California, the deadly fires that struck Sonoma and Butte counties in 2017 and 2018 resurfaced these issues. A state audit from 2019 showed that historically, emergency response by state and county agencies have struggled to properly assist people with disabilities and limited mobility.

Several of the people who were killed in the most recent Southern California wildfires were disabled and the majority were over 70, news reports identifying the victims show. The stories are tragic, but not surprising, aging and disability advocates say.

“Older adults and people with disabilities are often disproportionately impacted by wildfires due to factors like mobility limitations, chronic health conditions and social isolation, and that appears to be the case again in Los Angeles,” advocates wrote in a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature.

In the letter, a coalition of 126 organizations that included the AARP, Justice in Aging and the Alzheimer’s Association, asked the governor and lawmakers to prioritize disabled and older residents as the state distributes wildfire recovery funds. The request to the state is less about a specific dollar amount and more about creating a recovery process with this population in mind, said Hagar Dickman, director of long-term services and support advocacy at Justice in Aging.

Advocates and caregivers also want more resources and centralized planning to prepare for the next disaster. As climate change fuels more frequent and more devastating events, prompt action is key, they say.

County officials are still assessing the effect of the fires on people with disabilities and the elderly, said Laura Trejo, director of the Los Angeles County Aging and Disabilities department. Part of that work, she said, is checking in with nursing homes and assisted living facilities on their relocation and reentry efforts; it also involves calling and checking in on people who live at home and receive county services or participate in a county program, such as in-home help or transportation service.

The biggest challenge has been the scale of it all, Trejo said. “In over 35 years of doing this work in Los Angeles County, I have never had that many facilities evacuated at the same time," he said. "That was unprecedented.”

The January fires prompted some 2,500 people to be evacuated from nursing homes alone, according to Trejo’s department’s latest counts. Nursing home and assisted living residents were temporarily sent to emergency shelters, and later relocated to facilities where they could stay more long-term.

It is unknown exactly how many people with a disability or limited mobility who were living at home were displaced by the fires because there isn’t one centralized way to track them.

The governor’s office referred questions about resources and plans specific to this population to the California Office of Emergency Services. The office did not reply to questions from CalMatters. In a news release from last month, the governor’s office listed a number of efforts that state agencies are participating in, including wellness checks on people with developmental disabilities and facility inspections on nursing homes and assisted living centers to ensure a safe reentry.

Tailoring emergency response for unique needs

People with physical and cognitive disabilities have needs that aren’t usually met with traditional emergency response. Many cannot drive. Some may not fully understand the risk they face.

“The thing for people with disabilities is that the ability to, at the last minute, throw something together and get out of harm’s way, you cannot rely on that,” said Silvia Yee, policy director at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. “That won’t happen. So the planning has to be there.”

In a 2019 report, the state auditor said that California was not adequately prepared to protect and respond to vulnerable populations during a natural disaster. A look at three counties — Butte, Sonoma and Ventura — showed deficiencies in wildfire evacuation warnings. It also found that none of the counties had done assessments of their respective populations’ needs or pre-arranged for evacuation assistance. “Inadequate preparation likely hindered the counties’ responses to the 2018 Camp Fire, the 2017 Sonoma Complex fires, and the 2017 Thomas Fire,” the report said.

The issues that people with disabilities face in emergency situations have been widely known for some time, but the urgency to improve plans seems to come and go, Yee said.

“Periodically, something happens,” Yee said. “People are appalled. Advances are made, and then we just fall back. We don’t advance in terms of implementation and enforcement.”

County officials and advocates have a number of improvements they’d like to see.

Dickman at Justice in Aging said one of her concerns during the January fires was the seeming lack of preparation in evacuation centers to accommodate disabled and older adults. When nursing home residents were taken to the Pasadena Convention Center, for example, news reports showed a shortage of cots and basic supplies, such as respirators and incontinence products.

“These are individuals who need a significant amount of support and durable medical equipment,” she said. “Shelters or emergency centers need to be prepared to receive individuals from all kinds of areas with all kinds of needs.”

Trejo, with the Los Angeles County’s Aging and Disabilities Department — a fairly new agency — said she’d like to expand emergency education efforts and take the “vial of life” protocol to scale. A vial of life refers to a packet that includes all of a person’s medical information. The state’s Department of Aging has an emergency preparedness guide that includes a vial of life that people can print and fill out. Ideally every home would have one, Trejo said.

She’d also like to create a tool for people who want to self-identify as having unique needs. That way local agencies know where these people live even if they’re not enrolled in a county program or service. Some disasters, such as earthquakes, hit without warning, but fires may allow for more thought-out evacuations.

“If we’re pre-evacuating an area, then we would know ‘in this area we have 25 people that live alone who are mobility challenged and who we need to assist earlier,’” Trejo said.

Janie Whiteford, president of the California In-Home Supportive Services Consumer Alliance, is 80 years old and a quadriplegic. In the past she has relied on her local fire department in Los Gatos to help her or her husband.

“I think it is super important that your local fire department knows who you are,” Whiteford said. “Our guys know me well because I’ve fallen out of my wheelchair a couple of times and I’ve called them when I can’t get back up. I’ve said ‘Put me on your list. If we have an earthquake and it’s a bad one, I want you guys to call me or come and check on me.’”

Whiteford imagines a system where first responders or a separate local agency can immediately call people with disabilities to check in. “In a perfect world, you would have an organization that would have vehicles that could go out to help these people, or would know exactly who to contact,” she said. “Some type of rapid response taxis.”

In large events, first responders may not be able to check in on individuals right away. For that reason it is also important for people and their caregivers to build their own response team of nearby family and friends or neighbors who know about people’s limitations, said Yee at the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.

“You have to build the community around you to survive this kind of situation,” Yee said, “Because it’s not always going to be the police or the fire department riding to the rescue.”

Training caregivers for the next disaster

Hollis didn’t have an evacuation plan in place as the Eaton fire approached, but more than 30 years of experience as a caregiver both in California and in her home state of North Carolina prepared her to think quickly and keep calm in the face of the Eaton Fire.

Her original plan was to get Busacca in the car and drive to a hotel. But as she packed, she and the second caregiver flagged down a police officer who was ordering residents to evacuate. The officer called for Emergency Medical Services to pick up Busacca. After about a 30-minute wait, Busacca was taken to the hospital for evaluation, Hollis said.

Caregiver Michelle Hollis stands in front of her patient Nancy Busacca’s home in Pasadena, on Feb. 3, 2025. Hollis and another caregiver helped Busacca evacuate during the Eaton Fire that reached her neighborhood.

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Zaydee Sanchez

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CalMatters

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Hollis feels grateful they were able to get out safely. Busacca died of cancer on Jan. 31; she was able to come home for her final days.

While difficult to plan a smooth evacuation, Hollis believes emergency training for caregivers could be of significant value in thinking through different scenarios.

In many ways, caregivers are also first responders, but emergency training for them is often overlooked. Some training courses for caregivers exist, although the availability of these can vary by county and depend on funding.

The Center for Caregiver Advancement creates and provides training programs for caregivers, including those who work in nursing homes and those who provide care at home. One of its courses focuses on climate change and emergency planning.

The organization is currently offering its emergency planning course to workers of the In-Home Supportive Services program in San Bernardino County as part of a partnership with the labor union SEIU, which represents caregivers. Corinne Eldridge, the chief executive at Center for Caregiver Advancement, said her organization has so far provided the emergency planning course to about 4,000 In-Home Supportive Services workers across the state since 2021 — that’s out of approximately 600,000 caregivers in this workforce.

Stories of the victims in the L.A. fires show that more preparedness is needed, said Nairi Issagholian, an instructor with the center. The emergency course she teaches gets providers to assess their skills, abilities and communication plans. It helps them go over scenarios they may come across in an emergency, such as losing electricity and with that access to an elevator or ventilators.

The course also teaches providers how to recognize the signs of trauma following an emergency. The idea is to help caregivers feel more prepared and self-assured before, during and after, Issagholian said.

“When the emergency happens, just that sense of a little control can make you feel like ‘I’m prepared. I know what I’m doing,'’’ she said. “It can give you that confidence.”

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

Days after the polls closed in Los Angeles County, Measure ER — a proposed half-percent local sales tax increase aimed at generating healthcare funds to offset massive federal cuts — appears to be losing.

If that happens, it will be the first time in more than a decade that county voters said no to a sales tax measure.

“It’s been almost like any tax measure will pass," said Fernando Guerra, Loyola Marymount University political science professor.

Not anymore. Experts say affordability concerns may be eroding support even among L.A. County's traditionally tax-friendly voters.

“Number one, we're spent,” Guerra said. "Number two, we don't trust the general decision-making. Number three, when we've given you specific dollars for specific issues, you haven't done it.”

The votes are still being counted, but as of Friday evening Measure ER was losing 48.5% to 51.5%.

It requires a simple majority to pass.

Measure ER would raise county sales tax from 9.75% to 10.25% for five years, generating an estimated $1 billion a year for the county’s general fund. County supervisors approved a spending plan directing those dollars to offset cuts to Medi-Cal under the Trump administration's One Big Beautiful Bill.

But that plan is not legally binding — a detail that critics of Measure ER hammered throughout the campaign.

The Yes on ER campaign committee, called Restore Healthcare for Angelenos, was backed largely by nonprofit health clinics and led by St. John's Community Health, a nonprofit that operates a large network of health clinics in Southern California. The campaign raised nearly $10 million to spread its message in TV ads that told voters, “Trump’s cuts are threatening hospitals and ERs,” and in mailers that urged them to raise the tax a “temporary half a penny to save healthcare access.”

The No on ER campaign committee, No Blank Checks LA County, was led by the L.A. County Taxpayers Association. It raised less than $10,000, according to L.A. County campaign finance filings. Aidan Chao, chairman of the taxpayers group, said he’s confident the No campaign’s narrow lead will hold.

“LA County voters are sending a clear message,” Chao told LAist. “They reject another bait and switch sales tax increase on top of the cost-of-living pressures families are already shouldering.”

As of Friday, Measure ER was behind by about 44,000 votes. L.A. County has processed and counted more than 1.6 million ballots, according to election officials who estimate more than 540,000 ballots are yet to be counted.

Measure ER has been able to narrow its deficit since initial Election Day results, as later mail ballots tend to skew toward Democratic voters, according to poll-watchers.

“If that trend continues, it's possible that ER could pass,” said Zev Yaroslavsky,  director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Tax fatigue?

Guerra said he figured L.A. County voters would have approved Measure ER by a margin of 5 percentage points or more.

"So I am a little taken aback,” he said. “It shows that there is something that's going on with a very progressive voter in L.A. about, ‘OK, maybe enough taxes.’”

The No on ER campaign said it heard the same thing from voters.

“We knew there was an abnormal aversion to taxation right now, which is completely off from the precedent,” Chao told LAist. “Voters were frustrated with taxes in general. They were frustrated with the way counties spend the money.”

L.A. County residents already pay some of the highest sales tax rates in the country. The county’s base sales tax rate is 9.75%, while the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale have sales tax rates above 11%.

In 2017, about 69% of county voters approved Measure H, a temporary quarter-percent special sales tax to fund services for homeless people.

Then in 2024, a narrower 57% voted to double the homelessness sales tax and make it permanent though Measure A, which now generates an estimated $1 billion a year for L.A. County’s homeless services and affordable housing efforts.

Yaroslavsky, a former L.A. County supervisor, said L.A. County voters are feeling the pinch of inflation and cost of living increases. In a UCLA survey he oversees, the number of people concerned about taxes as part of their cost of living ticked up this year, according to Yarovslavsky

"The less you earn, the more painful it is," he said. “And that's why I think this is gonna be closer than the measures that were passed with 70%. This one is not gonna get much more than 51% or 52%, if it passes.”

The coalition against Measure ER included dozens of representatives from cities that argued another sales tax increase was the wrong answer to the county’s budget problems.

The tax measure’s most prominent opponent was Kathryn Barger. She was the sole L.A. County Supervisor to vote against putting the measure before voters, while the other four backed it.

Barger appeared in a video ad for the No on ER campaign urging voters to reject it. The ad was recorded on the supervisor’s personal time, her office told LAist.

“We all support quality healthcare, but Sacramento should step up before asking taxpayers to pay more,” Barger says in the video. “And despite what supporters claim, the money goes straight into the county’s general fund with no guarantee where it will end up.”

Supervisor Holly Mitchell and Measure ER backers at rally for supporters.

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Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who backed putting the bill on the primary ballot, has said a sales tax increase wasn’t ideal, but she was out of options.

“As the county government, we are required by statute to be the safety net level provider of last resort for healthcare services, and yet the federal government pulled the funding rug out from under us,” Mitchell told LAist.

Yarovslavsky said he understands why the County Supervisors put the measure on the ballot. L.A. County is looking to save crucial healthcare programs.

“This is not a transit program or bikeways — things you can live with or live without,” he said. “This is a matter of life and death.”

What’s next?

A spokesperson for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a statewide anti-tax group, told LAist the organization is hopeful a movement against higher taxes is gaining momentum throughout California.

“It's clear from the election results in Los Angeles and statewide that voters are frustrated and even angry that the taxes they already pay are apparently disappearing, while every urgent need, from firefighting to hospitals, somehow can't be funded without more tax increases,” Susan Shelley, a Howard Jarvis spokesperson, told LAist.

Voters in Palos Verdes Estates are poised to defeat a parcel tax. San Diego shot down a tax on vacant homes. Contra Costa County voters rejected a sales tax increase.

In the city of Los Angeles, voters appear to be on track to reject Measure TT, a hotel bed tax increase. And, yet, several tax measures are expected to land on the November ballot.

Firefighters with the Los Angeles Fire Department have gathered enough signatures to qualify a proposal for another half-percent sales tax to provide additional funding for the department. A committee backing the measure has raised more than $1.4 million, with major funding from the firefighters’ union, the California Community Foundation, a personal injury law firm representing firefighters, Airbnb and Rick Caruso.

Meanwhile, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has collected enough signatures to qualify a statewide ballot measure in California that, if passed, would effectively repeal the city of L.A.’s so-called “mansion tax” and make it harder for voters to pass local tax increases like Measure A or Measure ER in the future.

It would change the law to require a two-thirds supermajority of voter support to approve tax increases that land on the ballot through citizens’ initiatives — instead of a simple majority.

“We're confident that voters will approve it,” Shelley said. “We think this trend will continue in the November election.”

And the so-called “billionaire’s tax” is on California’s November ballot. The proposed one-time 5% tax on Californians worth over $1 billion aims to fund Medi-Cal programs.

Guerra says any proposed sales tax measures will face scrutiny in November.

"I think they're gonna have a little bit tougher time, and the strategy has to be much better developed,” he said.

The campaigns for and against Measure ER told LAist Friday it’s still too early to know which side won.

L.A. County election officials said they plan to release new vote count results every day until June 12, followed by regular updates until June 26.

They are required to complete and certify the county’s final official results by July 2.

Los Angeles is known for its bustling city landscape and even the beaches, but don’t miss out on what our coast has to offer. Here are a few ways to enjoy what’s beyond the sand.

Whale watching

Set sail to see whales, dolphins and more on a whale watching cruise. Harbor Breeze Cruises is just off the coast of Long Beach and the Los Angeles Harbor. Tours run throughout the day and start at $30 or $45 per person. Another option, Newport Whales, is further south in Orange County. Prices for those tours range from $38 to $84.50 per person. Good news, whale watching season never ends, so there’s always something to see.

People wanting to get out on the ocean can give sportsfishing a try

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Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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Sports fishing 

For a little more action, give sports fishing a try. Marina del Rey Sportsfishing offers 4.5-hour and 7-hour fishing trips every day. You can rent a tackle kit, which includes a rod and reel. Valid fishing licenses are required for people ages 15 and up. You can get one at most local sports stores.

Learning to surf at one of L.A.'s beaches is a great way to enjoy the ocean.

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Getty Images North America

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Surfing lessons

If you’ve been meaning to take up a new hobby or sport, why not give surfing a chance? L.A. has no shortage of surf spots, meaning it also has no shortage of surf schools. Down at Santa Monica Surf Tours, $185 per adult or $165 per child gets you a 5.5-hour lesson that includes gear and lunch. Malibu Makos has “Surf Saturdays” where for $99 a person, you can get a 4-hour surf instruction with gear included.

As you drive up the high peaks of Catalina Island’s rural communities, endless views of the Pacific Ocean can be seen.

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Zaydee Sanchez

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Catalina Island 

From snorkeling to submarine tours, Catalina Island has excursions for everyone to enjoy. One-way tickets from Long Beach or San Pedro to Avalon cost about $45. Once you land, there’s no shortage of daytime adventures, including kayaking and fly fishing. You can find more information on activities here.

The Point Vicente Lighthouse trail in Rancho Palos Verdes is a breezy 1.6 miles and a great stop for ocean views.

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Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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Los Angeles Times

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Beach Hikes 

Beach hikes might not count as an ocean exploration, but they can give you some of the best views of the Pacific. Here are a few (of many) coastal hikes for every skill level:

• Point Mugu Scenic and Overlook Trails Loop in Malibu - 2.6 miles
• Solstice Canyon Trail in Malibu - 2.9 miles
• Los Leones Trail in the Pacific Palisades - 4.2 miles

This story was originally published by CalMatters.

Democrat Xavier Becerra will advance to the November general election in the race for California governor, capping a sudden and dramatic ascent for a career politician who is running on his experience and his willingness to take on President Donald Trump.

Becerra, the former state attorney general, has secured nearly 27% of the vote in the June 2 primary, with about two-thirds of votes counted as of Friday afternoon. If elected in November, he would be the first Latino to serve as California governor in more than a century.

It’s still unclear who his opponent will be: Returns so far show Republican Steve Hilton most likely to advance with more than 26% of votes counted, though the trailing Democrat Tom Steyer has not conceded and could make up ground in the nearly three million votes that remain to be counted.

California uses a top-two primary system; the two candidates with the most votes advance to the November ballot regardless of party.

The November race could differ dramatically depending on the opponent. If it’s Hilton, Becerra would be heavily favored to win: Democrats in California outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one, and Hilton is endorsed by Trump, whom Californians disapprove of in high numbers.

If it’s Steyer, California can expect an all-out slugfest between opposing wings of the Democratic Party, supercharged by the hundreds of millions of dollars Steyer has spent from his personal fortune on the primary alone.

While the hedge fund manager-turned-Democratic donor and climate activist has run a progressive campaign and garnered the support of Bernie Sanders surrogates, Becerra is favored by more of the Democratic establishment.

Becerra, who had lingered in the single-digits in polling, surged in popularity following the political implosion of former frontrunner Eric Swalwell, with establishment Democrats favoring the former Health and Human Services secretary and former state attorney general over former Rep. Katie Porter and the outsider Steyer.

It was a surprising and swift ascent for the mild-mannered career politician who was previously part of a crop of lower-polling Democratic candidates that party chair Rusty Hicks was publicly pressuring to drop out of the race.

“Guess what? The underdog stayed in the fight,” Becerra said at an election night rally Tuesday in Los Angeles, calling his near-victory “the everyday miracle of living in a state that regularly makes the improbable seem inevitable.”

The decision comes at a particularly consequential time for California. Residents face a crushing cost of living, nation-topping gas prices made worse by the war in Iran, wildfire risks that have driven insurance companies out of state, an unstable state budget, impending federal cuts to the state’s expansive health system and an economy dampened by immigration enforcement.

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

Nearly three months ago, the Los Angeles City Council voted to fund homelessness prevention programs to the tune of $177 million. Despite approval by Mayor Karen Bass, the funding still has not been cleared by City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto.

Now, city leaders want answers about the delay.

A motion introduced earlier this week by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado said the “contracts remain unexecuted without explanation.” The motion goes on to say the setback has caused “$17 million ... in emergency rental assistance to sit unused” and has put “services for those at risk of homelessness in jeopardy.”

If passed by the council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee and later approved by the full council, Jurado’s motion would call on Feldstein Soto to report back to the council within 30 days about the reasons for the delay.

Representatives with the City Attorney’s Office did not respond to LAist’s repeated requests for comment.

Tenant aid providers said they’ve entered their third month without funding from the city. They said without an executed contract, legal aid organizations may soon have to lay off staff and stop taking eviction cases.

“The people who are providing the services are all in nonprofit organizations that don't have a great deal of extra funding to cover this contract that isn't being paid,” said Barbara Schultz, housing director at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

How we got here

Feldstein Soto has held up the tenant aid funding since April 2025, when she refused to sign a previously approved five-year funding deal with the Legal Aid Foundation. At the time, she argued the contract should have gone through a competitive bidding process.

City officials responded by putting out a request for proposals. They ultimately selected the Legal Aid Foundation, along with several other tenant rights groups, to receive funding set aside for rent relief, tenant education, enforcement of the city’s tenant anti-harassment ordinance and programs that provide free attorneys to tenants facing eviction.

Much of the funding for these homelessness prevention programs comes from the city’s Measure ULA, also known as the L.A. “Mansion Tax.” That tax is now facing potential elimination from a statewide November ballot measure from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

The city attorney’s tenant rights track record 

Feldstein Soto has frequently clashed with tenant rights advocates.

She previously attempted to remove the word “right” from the city’s “Right To Counsel” ordinance, which supplies free eviction defense attorneys to qualified tenants.

Feldstein Soto also has faced criticism for not prosecuting more landlords accused of rent gouging in the wake of the 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires.

She also was accused of failing to defend the rights of tenants at the high-rise apartment complex Barrington Plaza, who went to court to successfully fight wrongful evictions from landlord company Douglas Emmett, which donated to a campaign opposing Feldstein Soto’s opponent in the 2022 election.

Feldstein Soto launched an audit of the Legal Aid Foundation last year. So far, no findings have been released.

Schultz said the organization has provided all the financial and administrative documentation requested by the L.A. Housing Department related to the contracts.

Why it matters for renters

The Legal Aid Foundation is the lead contractor for the city’s eviction defense funding, but the money is shared with other legal aid organizations as well.

Elena Popp, who leads the Eviction Defense Network, said her small team of lawyers can’t continue to take on tenant cases until funding is approved.

“We're contemplating layoffs effective June 15 unless we can raise the part of the money that is our budget from the city,” Popp said. “If we lay people off, then tenants won't be served.”

Anna Urena, a paralegal with the Eviction Defense Network, says her organization would normally do intake for about 300 tenants per month.

“We're not taking on new cases. We're not representing new people right now because we don't know what's going to happen,” she said. “We really cannot leave our tenants behind.”

What’s next?

Jurado’s motion has not yet been scheduled for a vote in the council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee.

Based on her third-place showing so far in the June primary election results, it appears Feldstein Soto will not be L.A.’s city attorney much longer. Popp said Feldstein Soto’s lame duck status doesn’t bode well for the contract getting signed soon.

“She now has no incentive to sign, and pressure on her will not get her to sign,” Popp said. “If that happens and the City Council doesn't take charge of this, maybe hire outside counsel to get the approval, then we won't see any money until the new city attorney comes in.”