The Brief

Outside her home in Riverside County, near the north shore of the Salton Sea, Sara Renteria is struggling to breathe. She has to speak in short sentences, and pauses often to take a breath.

When she was diagnosed with asthma as an adult about five years ago, Renteria said her doctor gave her a choice: Leave her home in the Coachella Valley or take an array of medications to treat her condition. It was the air, he told her, that worsened her asthma.

Although by now Renteria is no stranger to this desert region’s poor air quality, she has noticed this year that dust storms kicking up clouds of particles have been increasing. She points to the horizon — it’s often so hazy that she can’t clearly see the desert mountains nearby.

Some the nation's unhealthiest air

People in the Coachella Valley, especially in Renteria’s low-income, Mexican American community, breathe some of the nation’s unhealthiest concentrations of a pollutant known as PM10 — particles of dust small enough to inhale. The particles exceed federal health limits, mostly when they are stirred up on windy days, and come from a variety of sources, including unpaved roads, construction sites, fallow farm fields and the dried-up Salton Sea.

Renteria’s impression that the pollution has been severe in her community recently is backed up by the data: So far this year, 24 health warnings for windblown dust pollution have been issued in the region, each lasting several days. The latest was this week, along with odor and wildfire smoke warnings that added to the Coachella Valley’s pollution woes.

Unhealthy peak levels of PM10 around Renteria’s community have been recorded on five days so far this year, based on preliminary South Coast Air Quality Management District data. Last year, five days exceeded the health standard and 10 days in 2022; in the decade before that, violations were rare.

During the past two years, some Coachella Valley residents breathed maximum concentrations — usually recorded on high-wind days — two to three times higher than the amount deemed safe. Those are often the days when people, especially those with asthma or allergies, feel sick.

Famous for two music festivals — Coachella and Stagecoach — the region draws hundreds of thousands of people each spring, when winds often stir up dust. Festival-goers and workers breathed high levels of particle pollution for several hours on the two days before the Stagecoach festival, and on its first day, April 26.

Local leaders and residents say more dust is covering cars and driveways, and even surfaces inside their homes. A brown-gray haze lingers after high winds — so bad that it can cause car accidents. Hotels, restaurants and other businesses have expressed concerns that the dust is driving away tourists and raised their cleanup costs.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that the air quality has been worse than I’ve certainly ever experienced it in my 28 yrs in the Coachella Valley,” said Tom Kirk, executive director of the Coachella Valley Association of Governments, which represents the area’s cities and tribes.

Officials say the bad air quality isn't “out of the ordinary”

But South Coast air district officials say the data doesn’t indicate there’s anything “out of the ordinary” this year.

“We think dust levels are within the typical year-to-year variation we’d expect to see,” said Scott Epstein, the agency’s planning and rules manager who oversees air quality assessment. “It’s very unsatisfying for us because we want to confirm what the community is saying. But the science says things are within the realm of what we’ve seen in the past.”

But South Coast air district officials say the data doesn’t indicate there’s anything “out of the ordinary” this year.

“We think dust levels are within the typical year-to-year variation we’d expect to see,” said Scott Epstein, the agency’s planning and rules manager who oversees air quality assessment. “It’s very unsatisfying for us because we want to confirm what the community is saying. But the science says things are within the realm of what we’ve seen in the past.”

Desert dust is usually coarse and packed into the ground. But when storm Hilary hit the area last August, the torrent of rain disturbed the dust and brought mud from mountains that turned into a fine, loose silt that raised PM10 levels.

But Epstein said much of the dust that people are now seeing isn’t actually PM10 — it’s larger particles that do not pose a major health threat because they cannot be inhaled.

What people living there are experiencing

Some local leaders and residents disagree, based on the physical symptoms they feel and the fine dust they see.

“Despite assertions to the contrary, air quality has not shown significant improvement,” state Assembly members Greg Wallis and Eduardo Garcia wrote in a letter to the air district. “The spring season, characterized by windy conditions, has exacerbated the issue by stirring up dust and clay deposits left behind in the wake of Tropical Storm Hilary.”

Air pollution, particularly from dust-blown particles, has been a problem in the Coachella Valley for decades. The region was declared a federal PM10 “serious nonattainment” area back in 1993 — making it one of the nation’s worst areas for the pollutant.

Since then, air quality and local officials have been struggling to figure out how to reduce the pollution, and residents have long pushed for more action.

A state plan, mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, outlines state and local efforts to require certain sources, including farms and construction businesses, to control dust. Local leaders already have a decades-old street-sweeping program to collect dust before it’s ground into finer particles, and other local rules have required dust control at construction sites and farm fields.

Despite these efforts, over the past 20 years, PM10 remains a “serious” health problem in the region, according to the EPA. Average annual concentrations have improved in some areas, particularly in Indio, but not enough to meet health standards, air district data shows. The town of Mecca, on the north shore of the Salton Sea, has the worst problem.

“The biggest driver of changes in PM10 is the wind,” said William Porter, an atmospheric physicist at UC Riverside who studies the air pollutant. “We get these big winds that blow very strong from the east. Whenever we have those conditions we see big increases in blow dust.” He added that the pollution also can worsen with “changes in the surface properties of the land.”

The desert, of course, is dusty, with little rainfall and not much vegetation to hold soil in place. But there are human sources, too, that officials are struggling to control. The region is a transportation corridor, with exhaust spewed by trucks, trains and cars driving from Los Angeles. Dust on roadways is ground up into finer pieces that can be picked up and distributed throughout the air. Particles also flies off farm fields and construction sites.

And the receding playa of the Salton Sea generates small particles that are picked up by winds. Created by Colorado River flooding, the shallow, salty lake now is made up mostly of contaminated runoff from Imperial Valley farms that have been draining its water supply.

At risk: Elderly, children and those with lung disease

PM10 — particles that are 10 microns or smaller, a fraction of the diameter of a human hair — is considered a health threat because the particles are small enough to be inhaled. They are larger than another pollutant, PM2.5 or fine particles of soot, which can travel farther into the respiratory system and enter the bloodstream, triggering heart attacks. PM10 is more likely to be trapped in the upper respiratory system — the nose and throat.

Geoffrey Leung, Riverside County’s public health officer, said when PM10 is inhaled, it can worsen symptoms for people with asthma and lung diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Symptoms can range from moderate to severe, from coughing, wheezing and eye irritation to asthma attacks. 

People with lung and heart diseases, the elderly, pregnant people and children are most vulnerable, Leung said. Leung advises people with those conditions to stay indoors and limit physical activity on days with poor air quality.

In the Riverside County portion of the Coachella Valley, about 41,422 adults and 10,675 children have been diagnosed with asthma, according to county data. That’s about 12% of the population, compared with the national average of about 7%.

The Salton Sea is part of the reason that pollutant levels are so dangerous in the region. Porter’s unpublished research indicates that particles blown from the direction of the Salton Sea is linked to a larger increase in hospitalizations for respiratory or cardiovascular problems compared to when wind blows from other directions. The explanation could be the content of its dust, since it picks up metals, pesticides and other hazardous substances.

Many residents living near the Salton Sea know to stay indoors to avoid the dust if winds are blowing from that direction. On two days earlier this week, odor advisories were issued when noxious sulfur fumes, which can cause headaches and nausea, blew in from the inland lake.

“When it’s coming from the sea, we definitely don’t go outside. When it’s coming from L.A. it’s less worrisome,” said Conchita Pozar, who lives just about a mile from the shore of the Salton Sea.

Asthma attacks, allergies and headaches

On a recent evening at her home in North Shore — a tiny desert community of about 2,600 people, 97% of them Hispanic, next to the Salton Sea — Renteria recalled a scary asthma attack she had just a few weeks earlier. On the drive home from visiting her siblings, she started hyperventilating, seemingly out of the blue.

“I felt like there was a rock on my chest,” Renteria said, mimicking the short, quick breaths she felt that day. “And like needle pricks all over my skin.”

She spent a night in the hospital before her breathing stabilized.

Renteria, a farmworker, has to carry her inhaler with her at all times, especially when she’s active and working in date fields part of the year. At home, she has a nebulizer, which is a machine with a mask that delivers medicine to her airways, and vials of medications.

Pozar, recruited by UC Riverside researchers, is one of a handful of “promotoras” or community workers who interview their neighbors about their symptoms. Many report bloody noses, allergies and eye irritation. Some children don’t have an asthma diagnosis but struggle with similar symptoms and are instructed to use inhalers.

Pozar’s teenage daughter suffers from allergies that give her eye irritation so severe that she often keeps her home from school. On windy days with poor air quality, Pozar keeps her daughters home and they wear masks when they go outside.

“Her allergies are so bad that we sometimes can’t turn on the lights or go outside because it irritates her eyes,” Pozar said. “A specialist told me that it was because of the dust that surrounds her.”

Many people have already moved out — North Shore’s population has dropped almost 13% in just one year. But moving isn’t an option for Pozar. She’s lived in the Coachella Valley half of her life after immigrating from Michoacan, Mexico. She wants to stay connected to her indigenous Purepecha friends, neighbors and family members who live there, and she and her husband have made their livelihoods here.

“We’ve adapted, and with housing prices so high, I don’t think we’d be able to find a home that we’d be comfortable in somewhere else,” she said.“The government should make an effort to resolve the problems here.”

Alianza Coachella Valley, a nonprofit that focuses on improving the health of the valley’s vulnerable communities, has trained Renteria and other community members to use air monitors in their homes to provide localized data and help protect themselves from the pollution, said Silvia Paz, the organization’s executive director.

The group has educated residents about air quality, especially in the eastern Coachella Valley where the towns of Mecca, Thermal and North Shore are separated by miles of open desert and farm fields.

“These communities are mostly rural and they’re lacking in infrastructure,” said Silvia Paz, the organization’s executive director. “We have less parks, we have less trees, we have less roads. We can experience the difference in exposure because we have less elements to keep dust down or protect us from the dust blowing.”

In 2017, Alianza deployed air monitors throughout the eastern Coachella Valley that tracked real-time data. This provided evidence that the region should be included in a state program to reduce pollution in communities with the poorest air quality, Paz said.

The program, mandated by a 2017 law, holds meetings with community members and has recently set aside $4.6 million to pave public and private roads in the eastern Coachella Valley, as well as $2.8 million to provide household air filters in communities statewide.

Sweeping streets: Local efforts to fix the problem

The South Coast air district monitors 24-hour average PM10 levels at three stations in Indo, Mecca and Palm Springs, and tracks when levels exceed the federal health standard, which is 150 micrograms of particles per cubic meter of air, as well as a state standard of 50.

Emily Nelson, an environmental consultant for Coachella Valley Association of Governments, was part of a district working group that studied PM10 in the 1990s to develop ways to solve the problem.

In 2003, the agency approved its plan to reach PM10 standards. Under the plan, cities implemented ordinances that directed certain industries, such as construction and agricultural businesses, to reduce dust. That includes such practices as spraying soil stabilizers and nonpotable water on construction sites and implementing certain methods when mowing golf courses.

“There were a lot of implemented appropriate meaningful strategies that in the end saved many of these industries money and made them better neighbors,” Nelson said.

In 2010, the state Air Resources Board and South Coast district asked the U.S. EPA to redesignate the area as in attainment with the health standard based on 2005-2007 data. The request was denied “and we started exceeding it again,” Nelson said.

The Coachella Valley Association of Government spends more than $760,000 a year on street sweeping as part of the state’s plan for cleaning up PM10, according to a 2022 contract effective through 2025. Street sweepers clean 896 miles of roads at least on a biweekly basis.

Kirk, executive director of the association, said street sweepers have recently picked up more dust than they have in the past.

He said the cities need more funding from the South Coast air district and that agency officials should spend time in the Coachella Valley to see the problem themselves.

“We rely on the district’s expertise to not just understand the air quality problem but solve it,” Kirk said. “The air district isn’t in the problem-solving mode because they don’t see there’s a problem.”

In response to community concerns, South Coast air district officials say they are trying to get a better picture of the pollution by deploying a temporary monitor in Indio that can measure total suspended particulates and one in Whitewater Wash. The agency is also analyzing satellite data in collaboration with Colorado State University researchers.

Even if the recent pollution concentrations are mostly larger particles, not smaller, inhalable ones, Nelson said she worries about how it affects the region’s welfare. More research is needed to see how they affect visibility, crops and other industries, like tourism.

“The wind will stop and the valley still looks like we’re in a soup of dust,” Nelson said. “Everything is coated with this very fine dust. I mean the car washes have been doing the best business ever.”

What you can do to protect yourself

Our colleagues at NPR recently had these tips for protecting yourself:

• Check the Air Quality Index at AirNow.gov or PurpleAir.com.
  
  • If the AQI is above 100, avoid outdoor exercise.
  • If it’s above 150, wear a tight-fitting N95 mask when you’re outside.
  • Run your air conditioner with a high-efficiency filter installed — the EPA recommends MERV 13 or above — or use a portable HEPA air purifier. (The EPA provides instructions for making your own HEPA air cleaner with a box fan, here.)Check the Air Quality Index at AirNow.gov or PurpleAir.com to see what the current AQI (air quality index) is near you.

Get more tips on how to cope with poor air quality due to wildfires and other factors:

• How to protect yourself

John Osborn D’Agostino, CalMatters’ data and interactives editor, contributed to the reporting on this article.

California’s Board of Equalization is a coveted spot once again for state lawmakers looking for a new gig almost a decade after then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law gutting the organization of any serious governing responsibility.

This year, three current state lawmakers are competing for seats on the nation’s only elected tax board. They’re among some two dozen candidates on the ballot for its four elected positions, which are divided by geographic districts.

The board has long been a launching pad to higher offices in California politics — Fiona Ma served on it before becoming state treasurer, as did Betty Yee and Malia Cohen before each being elected state controller.

The agency itself is a throwback to the 19th Century. It’s rooted in an 1879 constitutional amendment that created it and charged it with “equalizing” county property tax assessments statewide.

From that narrow mandate, it swelled to become a juggernaut that collected a third of the state’s tax revenue and provided a venue for people and businesses to contest their tax bills in front of the elected board. It survived numerous efforts by governors to kill it outright, including attempts by Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That is until 2017, when a cascade of allegations about board members misusing the office to promote themselves led to an authoritative state audit that lawmakers could not ignore.

Brown signed a law stripping the agency of any powers beyond what voters gave it in 1879 and created two new departments that report to the governor instead of the elected board: one to collect sales and use taxes and another to hear taxpayer appeals.

After that, Board of Equalization elections tended to be lower profile contests. Ted Gaines, a former Republican state lawmaker from the Sacramento area, won a seat. Former Democratic Assemblymember Sally Lieber is up for reelection on the board this year. The other members had experience in local politics instead of inside the Capitol.

“We’re lean but we’re not mean,” said Lieber, the incumbent for District 2, which includes 19 counties centered on the Bay Area. “I think the Board of Equalization is the right size in the system right now…I do really believe that the board has a role to play in being a forum for taxpayers to come forward to.”

This year voters will see more contentious elections for the tax board:

• In District 1 representing inland California, Republican state Sen. Shannon Grove of Bakersfield has more than $900,000 in a campaign account and name recognition from her representing the San Joaquin Valley in the Legislature since 2010. Democrats are putting up a fight for the district. Fresno City Councilmember Nelson Esparza is running with the party’s support.
• In District 2 representing coastal California north of Los Angeles, incumbent Lieber faces San Mateo Community College District Trustee John Pimentel. Lieber has the Democratic Party’s endorsement, but a number of Bay Area Democratic leaders are backing Pimentel, including state Treasurer Ma and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
• In District 3 representing the Los Angeles area, former Monterey Park City Councilmember Yvonne Yiu put up $760,000 of her own money and has about $1 million on hand. The race has another heavyweight in Assemblymember Mike Gipson, a Democrat from Gardena who has served in the Legislature since 2014. 
• District 4 representing the San Diego area has an especially crowded race with Democratic state Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana, San Ysidro school board member Martín Arias, San Diego Unified School District board member Cody Peterson, and Denis Bilodeau, a Republican supported by San Diego Assemblymember Carl DeMaio’s Reform California organization.

A forum for California taxpayers

The board was always popular among taxpayer advocacy groups, who liked that it provided a forum to focus on tax issues in a capital where debates often center on labor and business.

“It’s a very useful elected body that answers to the voters,” said Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Some of this year’s candidates are thinking of ways to make the most of the agency.

Arias believes the board could do more to assist homeowners and potential homeowners. As a taxpayer advocate in the San Diego County Assessor’s Office, he says he works with the Board of Equalization every day and has a front seat to how the system works.

“I think there’s a bigger opportunity here to make the Board of Equalization the constitutional office that it is — that it should be,” he said. “There’s a clear opportunity here for us to start advocating at the state level for all of our taxpayers, including those that don’t speak English.”

Umberg said he’d like the board to have more investigative power and resources. Citing instances in which San Bernardino and Los Angeles assessors have been arrested on felony charges, he said he’s most interested in the board’s oversight of property tax assessors.

“Although it’s not a high-profile job, it’s a critically important job, especially when we’ve got so many revenue challenges in California,” Umberg said in an interview with CalMatters.

Questioning BOE’s relevance

Advocating for the board’s expansion has drawn criticism from former board members and employees. Yee, a board member from 2004 to 2014, has been vocal about abolishing the board entirely because she believes that its limited responsibilities could be easily transferred to another department or agency.

“I just really do question how this board continues to have relevance,” she told CalMatters. “I sometimes feel like the board is really doing a lot of work in search of finding problems to solve. …I know with each of the board members, they feel very strongly about being a taxpayer advocate. But frankly, every public official should be a taxpayer advocate. ”

Democrats stopped short of killing the agency entirely because they would have had to put that question to voters.

“They should have just chopped the head of the snake off and done away with the Board of Equalization altogether,” said Mark DeSio, a former communications director for the board. “They didn’t do that. They left enough of the cancer to grow back.”

He cooperated with the audit that revealed misspending at the agency that appeared intended to promote its elected members as well as another that showed widespread nepotism in its hiring practices. He then lost his job in the reorganization and filed a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit against the state.

DeSio believes lawmakers want seats on the Board of Equalization because it allows them to maintain a high profile until they can run for office again.

“That was the recipe for disaster a few years back,” he said. “Somebody better watch these guys. They’re not there for the policy. It’s for the exposure.”

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

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

Even as gas prices continued to rise across the United States, sales of electric vehicles fell in April. That is in contrast to strong growth elsewhere in the world, such as Europe. But American drivers are gravitating toward at least one more efficient powertrain: hybrids.

Sales of new EVs fell roughly 18 percent from March to April, according to the latest data from Edmunds, an auto research firm. Another company, Cox Automotive, pegged the drop at closer to 6 percent. Either way, experts said it’s clear that high gas prices aren’t leading to a significant shift toward EVs.

“There was a lot of window shopping,” said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds, noting that searches for electrified vehicles on the company’s site were strong. “It did not translate to tire-kicking and purchases.”

Price remains the steepest barrier for most people, said Drury. While electric vehicles can be less expensive to operate over the long-term — especially when gas prices are high — the upfront costs remain significant. The average transaction price for an EV in April was $6,214 higher than for vehicles with internal combustion engines, Cox reported.

“It’s still a cost hurdle,” said Stephanie Brinley, a principal automotive analyst at S&P Global Mobility. “You don’t know how long it’s going to take to get that back.”

At Thursday’s average gas price of $4.56 per gallon, an EV buyer would have to drive more than 40,000 miles to make up the difference with a car that gets 30 mpg. Savings on maintenance, like oil changes, could accelerate that timeline, but factors such as higher insurance prices and having to install a home charger could make the payback period even longer. If fuel prices fall, the advantage of an EV also shrinks.

“It’s very difficult for people to wrap their head around, ‘Hey, if I spend this $55,000, I might over time save’,” said Drury. “It requires a bit more math than most people want to go through.”

The calculus is much simpler for hybrid vehicles, which utilize batteries that can improve fuel economy by 25 to 45 percent without needing to plug in. A Honda CR-V, for example, gets around 29 mpg while the hybrid version gets 37. More and more popular models are only available as hybrids, a strategy that Toyota has perhaps embraced most notably. Last year, it ditched the gas-only version of the Camry sedan. The 2026 RAV4 followed suit.

Overall, Edmunds data shows that sales of hybrids are up 20 percent year-over-year and nearly 50 percent since February, when the U.S.-Iran conflict began. Sales of gas-powered gas are up about 11 percent over those same two months.

“I think this is going to be a hybrid moment,” said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive. “There are a lot of options.”

Used EVs provided another somewhat bright spot, she said. The segment saw a 3 percent increase in sales from March to April and a price premium of only $1,096 over used internal combustion vehicles. Used EVs also sold faster than their used gas-powered counterparts. “They’re really selling efficiently,” said Valdez Streaty, who added that there should be a glut of EVs available throughout the year as leases end. “I don’t think the inventory will be an issue.”

With Iran maintaining its hold over the Strait of Hormuz and summer travel season looming, gas prices appear set to keep climbing — which would only make an EV more appealing. Other parts of the world have seen significant jumps in sales since the conflict began, with Europe experiencing a surge and China setting an export record in April, according to BloombergNEF.

In the United States, though, it seems that only people already in the market for EVs are making the leap. “Edge-case people,” as Brinley called them. Dramatic pump readings “might nudge them because they were already in that direction,” she said. “But what we’re unlikely to see is a shift in current [internal combustion car] owners just fundamentally making that change simply because of gas prices.”

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/solutions/why-hybrids-not-evs-are-winning-over-u-s-consumers/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

James L. Jones Jr., 69, a self-described “community pastor” and a tireless advocate for Black communities in Los Angeles, was an enthusiastic supporter of Karen Bass’ mayoral bid in 2022, when she made history as the first woman, and first Black woman, to be elected L.A. mayor.

As Bass seeks reelection, Jones is supporting her again. Despite the political turmoil and criticism she has faced during her first term, Jones, known as Reverend JJ, believes she has a plan for Black progress that may not be evident, but is long range and strategic.

“I believe that in my heart of hearts, Karen’s not one of those people who follows polls,” said Jones. “In the end she’ll do what’s right for the people.”

When Angelenos elected Bass four years ago, she seemed like the right person to bridge the ideals of the post-George Floyd era and whatever moment was coming next. She was a seasoned politician — a former state legislator, congresswoman and native Angeleno with a history of grassroots organizing and coalition building in a city that was leaning more progressive.

But in 2022, there was trouble on the horizon. The nation’s Floyd-inspired reexamination of racial equity was losing ground to a growing MAGA backlash that had helped kill a major federal bill to reform policing, among other initiatives. Big blue cities like Los Angeles that had seen big protests for racial justice were being cast as chaotic and ungovernable.

Four years later, the ideals that propelled Bass’ election have taken a beating. Trump’s return to the White House has elevated long-simmering anti-“wokeness” and white resentment into federal policy. And the administration has focused special ire on California and Los Angeles, where Bass is in charge of the nation’s largest city currently led by a Black mayor.

Bass is taking a beating too. As she seeks reelection in the June 2 primary, the mayor is weathering criticism from many sides that she’s done too little about everything, from the homelessness and housing crisis that she made a signature issue to her response to the epic January 2025 wildfire that destroyed thousands of homes in Pacific Palisades, one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods.

Despite facing more voter uncertainty this time around, Bass is leading in the polls, with 30% support among likely voters, according to the latest survey by Emerson College Polling/Inside California Politics. While Bass’ support has jumped 10 points since March, she would have to get more than 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff with the other top vote-getter in November.

Her most formidable challengers in the crowded primary are Councilwoman Nithya Raman, a Democratic socialist to Bass’ left who is campaigning on housing affordability and a host of other progressive causes, and Spencer Pratt, a former reality show star with no political experience who skews conservative and touts cleaning up crime and homelessness. A former Bass ally, Raman pledges to do better than the mayor on reducing homelessness and increasing new housing production; Pratt decries corrupt leadership and talks chiefly about making L.A. great again, a la MAGA. Pratt and Raman are polling at 22% and 19%, respectively.

Missing from all the criticism of how Bass has fallen short is how or whether her election has benefited L.A.’s Black community. It’s a population that is rapidly continuing to dwindle — to roughly 8% today from a peak of 18% in 1970 — besieged by gentrification, stratospheric housing costs, underemployment and shrinking political representation, all of it aggravated by the racial hostility emanating from Washington. That norm-shattering phenomenon has tended to eclipse discussion of racial crises happening locally, with good reason. But politics are still local, and many Angelenos who supported Bass in 2022 hoped that electing the second Black mayor in the city’s history would help move the needle on longstanding Black problems dating back to 1992 that have reached yet another inflection point.

But public assessments of Bass by Black leaders the last four years, including this election cycle, have been muted to nonexistent. The exception is Black Lives Matter Grassroots L.A., which has routinely taken her to task for increasing police funding instead of allocating more resources to social and other services — a core part of the post-George Floyd reforms. Observers say the reticence among Black leaders is partly due to the fact that Bass has been so inundated with crises, some not of her making — especially the Palisades fire. The view that Bass committed a fatal mistake by being on a diplomatic trip to Ghana when the fires broke out has more or less defined her politically since.

That’s unfair, said Michael Guynn, a veteran social worker and community activist who lives near Florence and Normandie avenues, a famous site of the 1992 racial unrest.

“I don’t give a damn if she was out of the country — she got back when she could,” Guynn said. “They blamed her for what the fire department was responsible for.”

Then there’s the racism that dogs Black elected officials, women in particular. Pratt, who lost his home in the Palisades fire last year, has invoked Donald Trump-like rhetoric to belittle L.A.’s first Black woman mayor. That includes an official campaign poster that depicts Bass stuffed in a trash can and says “throw out Karen Basura,” the Spanish word for trash, echoing Trump’s disparaging of Somali immigrants — a demographic that includes Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — as “garbage.”

But the takedown isn’t only coming from the MAGA right, said Genethia Hudley-Hayes, former president of L.A.’s civilian Fire Commission and a Bass appointee who stepped down in March.

“There’s always the bigotry of, ‘We rallied around this Black woman and she hasn’t performed,’” said Hudley-Hayes. “She’s not a superwoman. That’s part of the ‘I’m mad’ vote in L.A.”

Another hurdle for Bass, Guynn said, is the unrealistic expectation that she would dramatically reduce or even eliminate homelessness.

“She couldn’t get a fair break because of that,” he said, adding that “everybody hates homelessness and wants it to go away, but nobody wants to do the work.”

Homelessness certainly qualifies as a Black concern: 32% of unhoused people in the city are African American, according to the city’s latest count. Bass’ signature program Inside Safe, which seeks to get people off the street and into temporary housing, has made inroads. But the mayor’s efforts have been hampered by what City Hall observers say is a larger problem of messaging, management and oversight. The scandal involving a subcontractor accused of defrauding the city’s homeless services authority of $23 million is a painful reminder of that.

Hudley-Hayes says that it points to the need for the mayor of L.A. to be a skilled executive, a skill that Bass doesn’t have, at least not yet.

“You need collaboration, which is different from coalition building, different from the activism of Community Coalition,” she said, referring to the grassroots South L.A. organization co-founded by Bass.

Deep understanding of the roles of not just the 41 city departments but of bigger entities like the county is essential not just for running the city but for effecting racial justice as well.

“Homelessness is important, but you have to ask, what are the structures that create homelessness? It’s not just a city problem but a regional problem,” said Hudley-Hayes. “Inside Safe is a program, not a strategy.”

But being a better executive wouldn’t automatically guarantee improvements for Black people. Tom Bradley, who was mayor from 1973 to 1993, is venerated both as a coalition builder and astute manager who improved many parts of the city. But he didn’t do enough for L.A.’s Black populace. While the Black middle class flourished during the Bradley years, in part because Black municipal employment flourished, the larger working class and poor in South L.A. did not.

Hudley-Hayes argues the mayor’s lack of accountability to L.A.’s Black population as a whole is longstanding, and not unique to elected officials like Bradley or Bass. Local branches of civil rights groups like the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference — which Hudley-Hayes once led — also play a part in accountability, though they have declined notably over the years. But Hudley-Hayes notes that accountability works two ways.

“Black people have individual agency, but we have to exercise it together,” she said. “We have to pool our experience. It means nothing if we don’t demand what we want.”

Even — especially — in these trying times, and in a city with as much possibility as L.A., problems notwithstanding — those demands should still matter.

Copyright Capital & Main 2026

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Walmart will likely put its tariff refunds toward lowering store prices, executives said on Thursday, as they described shoppers who are increasingly anxious about the rising cost of fuel.

In recent weeks, visitors to Walmart's gas stations have begun to fill up with fewer than ten gallons for the first time since 2022, Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey told investors on an earnings call.

"That's an indication of stress," he said.

"We see with our customers that the high-income customer is spending with confidence," Rainey added later, "while the lower-income consumer is more budget-conscious and perhaps navigating financial distress."

The U.S. government last week began refunding tariffs payments to importers that paid higher customs fees imposed by President Trump last year before the Supreme Court struck down most of them. Walmart is now the largest retailer to suggest that it will put those refunds toward potential price cuts.

"We think that the single best return that we can have on a dollar of capital right now is to investment in the customer, invest in price," Rainey said, noting that Walmart's stores and gas stations have been drawing more shoppers looking for deals. U.S. sales grew 4.1% from February through April.

Shoppers' slightly bigger tax refunds this year seem to be offsetting some of the budget pain so far. That's according to rival retailers Home Depot, Target and Lowe's, which also held earnings calls this week. Sales at all three companies grew in the latest quarter.

The latest federal data shows spending at retail stores and online grew 5.2% in April compared to a year earlier, surpassing inflation. That means people may have spent more because of higher prices, but also because they bought more things. At gas stations, spending surged a whopping 21%, driven by higher gas prices.

Walmart executives warned that persistently high gas costs would eventually drive up the prices shoppers see at stores.

The U.S. war with Iran has snarled tanker passage through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital corridor for shipments of both fuel and fertilizer needed to grow food. U.S. inflation already jumped to its highest level in three years in April, with energy prices being a big driver. The average U.S. price of regular gas on Thursday was $4.56 per gallon, according to AAA. That's up $1.38 from a year ago.

So far, major retailers have been absorbing their growing transportation and shipping costs. Walmart on Thursday reported a notable hit to its income from higher fuel expenses. Home Depot executives told investors on Tuesday that the company might use its own tariff refunds to offset its mounting fuel costs.
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