The Brief

Morgan Whirledge, a musician and recently minted Altadena Town Council member, lived with his wife and two small children on a culdesac at the top of Lake Avenue, nestled at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains.

“We spent nearly every day out in our front yard,” Whirledge said. “Neighbors would walk by, walk their dogs. We knew everybody in the whole community.”

Like most of Altadena, Whirledge’s neighborhood had its own special charm and piece of history. In the early 1900s, this neighborhood was a wellness retreat named after Hygeia, the Greek goddess of health.

“It kind of goes right along with the wild spirit of Altadena, and the connection to nature and the connection to wellness,” Whirledge said.

A century later, Whirledge, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley, and his wife, a painter, were drawn to this area for many of the same reasons as the health-seekers before them. But about three years after buying their dream home, the Eaton Fire reduced it and all 29 houses in the neighborhood to ash.

Now, not only is Whirledge trying to rebuild, but he’s also facing a challenge left over from last century: his house used a cesspool for its sewage. All of his neighbors used cesspools or septic tanks too — meaning they aren’t connected to the pipes of the county sewer system.

Morgan Whirledge stands at the edge of his property. All of the houses in his neighborhood burned in the Eaton Fire.

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Erin Stone

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LAist

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From the cost of undergrounding power lines to upgrading water and, now, some sewer systems, rebuilding with better infrastructure after a disaster is proving to be a complex and expensive challenge, with the costs largely borne by people who lost their homes, are underinsured or not insured at all, and simply trying to put their lives back together.

In turn, some residents, including Whirledge, are being forced to become experts in infrastructure they once rarely gave thought to.

A particularly foul problem

On a recent drizzly morning, Whirledge pointed to a small, unassuming black cap sticking out of the dirt on the lot where his home stood.

“Underneath that, there's like a five foot diameter hole that goes down 16 feet, and that's essentially our waste system for this property,” he explained, describing his home’s cesspool.

Whirledge has spent countless hours figuring out ways to rebuild with a sewer system instead of an outdated cesspool.

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Erin Stone

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LAist

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Six-hundred properties in Altadena rely on outdated cesspools or septic systems, and more than 60% of those residents lost their homes, according to the L.A. County Public Works Department.

California no longer allows cesspools in new construction and has strict rules for septic systems. That’s because they can pollute groundwater with raw sewage. But renovating sewer systems is not cheap or simple, with upgrades potentially costing tens of thousands of dollars.

In response to cost concerns from residents, the county is allowing fire survivors to keep their existing systems, as long as they pass health and safety evaluations by the Department of Public Health.

Such required testing has cost Whirledge about $5,000, he said. It’s another unexpected cost beyond rebuilding the house itself.

“The real hurdle here is that no one really knows how much money it's going to take to rebuild their house, and you kind of discover that as you go along,” Whirledge said.

He hopes his lawsuit against Southern California Edison, which has acknowledged publicly their equipment may have sparked the Eaton Fire, and an SBA disaster loan will help recoup such additional costs.

Cesspools aren't allowed in new construction in California, but in Eaton Fire burn zones, old systems that pass safety evaluations can remain.

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Erin Stone

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LAist

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'Chicken and egg'

To Whirledge, the fire presented an opportunity to build back his community without old cesspools and septic systems.

“Is it better to put in these systems that are functional, but outdated? Or is it better to try and modernize our community and put in a sewer?” he said.

His work to answer that question has made Whirledge a de facto sewer expert — “the guru of doo doo” has become his new nickname.

To hook up to the modern sewer system in L.A. County, residents have two options.

They can hire an engineer to design the project, then get a permit from the county to build it. That’s the more expensive option.

Otherwise, they can petition the county to become what’s called a “county improvement district.” In that case, the county designs and builds the sewer system, funding it through municipal bonds that are paid back by the property owners via tax assessments over 30 years.

Whirledge has become known as the "guru of doo doo."

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Erin Stone

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LAist

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Whirledge and his neighbors went with the latter. So have 11 other Altadena neighborhoods representing about 300 properties that aren’t connected to the municipal sewer. The projects range from connecting 4 houses to more than 20, each with their own unique geographies and needs, said Yonah Halpern, an assistant deputy director at the county Public Works Department.

The problem is, this process can be a long one, though Halpern said the county is working to expedite it.

Time is of the essence: Whirledge and his neighbors are largely underinsured and trying to rebuild quickly in the face of dwindling temporary housing insurance and mortgage assistance.

“ It's kind of like a chicken and egg scenario,” Whirledge said.

A funding challenge

The county allocated a little over $1 million, plus another $1 million in federal funding has been approved, to complete initial plans for all of the Altadena sewer petition projects, Halpern said. Now they have to find a way to actually do the work.

“Those funds from both the county and from this federal earmark are really just to do the preliminary engineering,” he said.

Much of the infrastructure rebuild requires blocks of neighbors to coordinate. Whirledge, who is also a block captain for his street, said the system and friendships forged before the fire has helped facilitate much of that.

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Erin Stone

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LAist

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With the tax base largely wiped out, there’s little funding to go around. The county’s recently established Altadena Wildfire Recovery Infrastructure Financing District will help rebuild sewer and other infrastructure in the longer term, as will the county improvement district designation.

Meanwhile, Halpern said, the county has sought grants from the state and federal government, but he said they’ve been told those are largely geared toward designated disadvantaged communities, which Altadena is not. Privately-owned sewer upgrades are also not eligible for certain federal funds. The state water board told LAist that the county could be eligible for low-interest loans through its revolving funds.

And the federal government has still not released some $34 billion in disaster aid, first requested by Gov. Gavin Newsom a month after the fires last year, to help finance these long-term aspects of rebuilding.

For Whirledge's rebuild, he's decided to reconnect to the cesspool but also leave open the option to connect to a future modern sewer system.

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Erin Stone

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LAist

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Whirledge and the rest of the Altadena Town Council sent a letter to their federal representatives urging dedicated funding for Altadena sewer projects. In response, Rep. Judy Chu has requested $2.4 million to go toward a sewer system for 11 of Whirledge's neighbors for fiscal year 2027.

Whirledge also hopes the county can get creative. He pointed to Sonoma County. After the 2017 Tubbs Fire, it offered one neighborhood of homes that burned and were connected to septic tanks low-interest loans and a 10-year interest-free payment grace period. Sonoma County is structured differently, so it's not exactly a one-to-one comparison, but Whirledge suggested it could be something of a model.

“We're sitting here with an opportunity to build a community that's more resilient and environmentally sound,” Whirledge said. “We just don't have the funding mechanisms to do it.”

So the reluctant "guru of doo doo" is moving ahead with plans to connect his new home to the old cesspool — and make the connections needed for a potential future sewer.

“We have to … hope that by the time we're finished with our build that we can find the financing to give us the opportunity to bring sewer in,” he said.

Southern California was built on radio.

"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote  Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”

Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.

The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.

Radio, a daily ritual

The construction of KNX

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Herman J. Schultheis

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Michael Jackson, a well-known KNX, personality

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.

“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”

Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:

A love for radio, then and now  

A pilot of KMPC's traffic alert helicopter pictured with his daughter and grandson.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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A 1963 picture of Valley State College (now Los Angeles Valley College) preparing to launch KVCM

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Larry Leach

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Los Angeles Public Library

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“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said  Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.

 Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”

 Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."

"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said  Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."

"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations —  Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said  Carrie in Desert Edge.

“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”

The question remains…

An 11-year-old winning a car in a KMPC contest in 1963.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.

As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.

Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…

“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.

After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.

According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.

The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.

Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.

"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.

But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.

But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.

" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.

The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.