The Brief

Now that the weather is warmer, Angelenos are looking for ways to get outside and cool off — but conditions in the water can change quickly, and knowing how to stay safe in the water beforehand could make all the difference.

Drowning deaths have been on the rise in recent years — the Center for Disease Control reported this month that drownings are the most common cause of death for children from 1-4 years old, having increased between 2019 and 2022.

One of the most important ways to stay safe is maintaining a close eye on where your loved ones are if they're in or near water. Rob Klusman, president of Sierra Madre Search and Rescue, recommends staying close to trained lifeguards whenever possible.

"Lifeguards can make quite a difference if something should happen, so trying to stay close to lifeguard towers is always the best practice," Klusman said.

Lake safety

Lakes and reservoirs are one of the main places where drownings in Southern California occur: Some lakes have been closed entirely to swimmers, but any large body of water can pose dangers.

If you have plans from to spend time at a lake this summer, here are some tips, courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service:

• Do not dive into the water. Jumping from cliffs or bridges is dangerous due to shallow water, submerged rocks, trees, or other hazards.
• Choose swimming areas carefully and swim only during low water conditions.
• Always swim with a buddy and in supervised areas, preferably ones with a lifeguard on duty.
• Always supervise children closely. Do not read, play cards, talk on the phone, or engage in any other distracting activity while watching children in or around water.
• Avoid drinking alcohol before or during swimming or boating. Avoid drinking alcohol while supervising children around water.
• Learn to swim. Enroll yourself and your children in swimming classes. However, don't consider your children to be “drown-proof” since a child who falls into water unexpectedly may panic and forget learned swimming skills.
• Learn cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Because of the time it might take for emergency services to arrive, your CPR skills can make a difference in saving someone's life.
• Use life jackets that meet U.S. Coast Guard requirements when boating, regardless of distance to be traveled, size of boat, or swimming ability of boaters.
• Do not use air-filled or foam toys, such as water wings, noodles, or inner tubes, in place of life jackets. These are toys and are not designed to keep swimmers safe.
• Know the local weather conditions and forecast before swimming or boating. Strong winds and thunderstorms with lightning strikes are dangerous to swimmers and boaters.

Beach safety

Of course, rip currents and high surf at beaches can also pose life-threatening dangers to swimmers. If you're planning on taking a dip in the Pacific as it warms up for the summer, here's some tips to stay safe:

• Always keep one eye on the water to detect large unexpected waves.
• Face the water when you're very near the waves.
• Check the forecast for high surf advisory before going to the beach.
• Know the tides so rising water doesn't trap you.
• Observe the waves when arriving at the beach. Double the highest wave you see to estimate how high the waves might get during your visit.
• Wear a life jacket when fishing or tide pooling because these activities require you to be very near the surf with your attention diverted.
• Beware of the cold water, it can quickly sap your strength.
• If caught in a rip current, swim parallel to the beach to get out of the current, then swim toward shore.
• Keep a close watch on children even if they are far from the water. They can quickly enter the water and get in trouble when your attention is diverted for only a moment.
• Don't go in the water after someone in trouble. Rescue from shore and get help.

River safety

Even if you're not planning on swimming in them, rivers can still pose threats to your safety while on hikes. Fast-moving water pose a special danger to young children, Klusman said.

"It does not take very much moving water to knock somebody off of their feet," he said. "In fact, as little as six inches of water, if somebody's of small stature and the water's moving fast, they can easily be knocked off of their feet."

And since many California rivers are flowing with increased capacity and at colder temperatures than normal, Klusman recommended exercising extra caution around them now, since cold water can make muscles freeze up.

Another tip from Klusman for crossing fast-moving rivers and streams: If you have a hiking pole or large stick handy, use it to keep you steady in the river.

"Then shuffle your way across the stream without lifting your feet up, so you always maintain at least two points of contact and preferably three points of contact," Klusman said.

The U.S. Forest Service has shared these tips for staying safe in creeks and rivers:

• Avoid rock hopping. Stream polished rocks along the water's edge may be slippery when wet or dry.
• If you choose to cross a stream by going through it, study the area first. Avoid deep and/or swift water.
• When crossing on a natural bridge of rocks or logs, consider where you will land if you fall. Never cross above rapids or falls.
• If you are crossing a stream, unbuckle your pack's waist strap so you can shed it if you fall to prevent being pulled under by its weight. Consider putting on a waterproof backpack, which becomes a floating device to help your head stay above water.
• Do not tie yourself into safety ropes — they can drown you.
• If you fall into fast-moving water, do not try to stand up. The force of the water will push you over and hold you under. Most drownings result from getting a leg or ankle caught in an underwater rock ledge, between boulders or snagged in tree limbs or other debris. Lay on your back with your feet pointing downstream and toes pointing up toward the surface. Always look downstream and be prepared to fend off rocks with your feet.
• If you don't know how to swim, wear a life vest that meets U.S. Coast Guard requirements. 

Are you a Los Angeles County resident? What county programs and services do you find most valuable as the county heads into its fiscal year 2027-2028 budget? 

L.A. County is seeking residents’ input on what services should be prioritized, what programs should be cut and how else officials should be spending money through a series of short online surveys, open now through Saturday, Oct. 31. 

In each of the surveys, residents can weigh in on any of the county’s 39 programs, including the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Public Health and Youth Development, or fill out the countywide questionnaire. 

Survey responses are anonymous, unless respondents choose to share their contact information, and will be reviewed by the departments to inform their budget planning for fiscal year 2027-2028, which starts in July. The county’s 2027-28 budget recommendations will be presented to the Board of Supervisors in April.

“The County’s budget reflects its values. Our overarching goal in building the budget, especially during challenging times, is to ensure that we are maintaining safety net services and meeting the most essential needs of our communities,” L.A. County’s Chief Executive Officer Joseph M. Nicchitta said in a statement. “That includes everything from health and mental health care to making sure elections are secure and transparent, from emergency operations to supporting our justice system. Getting a broad view of how the public thinks about and values these services is an important part of the County’s work.”

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors oversees how the county serves its nearly 10 million residents; it’s one of the largest county governments in the country. Last month, the Board of Supervisors approved its final $54.2 billion budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year to prioritize housing and safety net services, wildfire recovery, emergency preparedness and civic engagement, among other things.

How to weigh in

Take the survey: ceo.lacounty.gov/surveys/

Deadline: Saturday, Oct. 31

The post How should LA County spend its multibillion-dollar budget? Weigh in by Saturday appeared first on LA Local.

A pair of Los Angeles County engineers knocked on my door a couple of weeks ago and handed me a booklet about how to prepare for flooding and mudflows. They also told me they offer free, specific engineering advice for individual properties.

I was definitely interested in this — I live in a neighborhood affected by the Eaton Fire, and the house I rent is tucked right against a steep hillside with vegetation that burned.

A few days later, two engineers, as well as the county’s public information officer, showed up at my door.

Eden Ly, a civil engineer with the county, looked up at the mountainside looming above my house.

“This mountainside is very steep, and that's the scary part,” Ly said.

The more recent the burn scar, the steeper the hillside and the closer your house is to it, the bigger the danger. The good thing, Ly said, is that much of the vegetation looked pretty recovered from the fire, so the roots should hold onto the dirt. And the property has a retaining wall that Ly said looks solid.

L.A. County civil engineer Eden Ly, right, assesses a retaining wall behind the house of reporter Erin Stone in a neighborhood affected by a recent wildfire.

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Kerjon Lee

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L.A. County Department of Public Works

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Before coming to do a scheduled assessment of a resident’s property, Ly said he and his team analyze all kinds of data to understand how water — and thus mud and debris — may flow there.

“This will include a lot of geospatial information, a lot of mapping, such as topography,” Ly said. It also includes, Ly said, historical rain gauge data to understand how intense rain tends to be in different areas, soil types and more.

So far this season, Ly and his team have knocked on the doors of over 700 homes — 233 homeowners have received walk-through assessments of their properties, said Kerjon Lee, a spokesperson for the county’s Public Works Department.

“A lot of this data isn't public,” Ly said. "And even if it was public, how is the average Joe going to be able to understand what's going on? So our job is to try to bridge that gap.”

By Ly’s analysis, the terrain above my place is gravelly and muddy, not big boulders that can tear through a house. So if the hill does slide, we should be spared something like the deadly mudslides Montecito experienced in 2018, after the Thomas Fire.

“It's more of that kind of mud flow, that mud river that is more the concern in this case,” Ly said.

He suggests various areas to strategically place plywood planks and sandbags. I’m a renter, so there’s not much else I can do.

What if I have to leave?

Then Ly pointed to a weak spot that could lead to mud flowing where we park our cars.

“Heavy storm; we will probably recommend you try not to be there,” he said.

In a strong storm like that, I expect my neighborhood will get evacuation warnings — at least.

This winter, warnings or even orders to leave could become common.

Half an inch of rainfall in less than an hour — or more than 3 to 4 inches in a day — can trigger debris flows after a recent wildfire.

But that’s just a rule of thumb. As bare dirt becomes more saturated with back-to-back storms, less intense rainfall can be a trigger. So in addition to the engineering assessment and prep work, paying attention to forecasts and knowing how water flows where you live is key.

“Our best advice is that you try to deflect and guide everything,” Ly said. But “it's Mother Nature; you can't stop it.”

Talk to neighbors

Overall, Ly tells me the swales my landlord built behind the house, and those my neighbors built, look like they’ll direct water and mud to the street, which is generally the goal.

And that’s another piece of advice he gives — talk to my longtime neighbors, who have been through a storm or a few.

Ly tells me his team will email a more detailed report once they dig into a little more data. That’s part of the free service for higher-risk homes.

In addition to the plans I’ve got for our pets, important medications, possessions and other things I'll need if we have to evacuate, the county's assessment left me with valuable advice — and a little less anxiety too.

Genny Richard constantly thinks about her family’s finances.

“The stress level has been immense,” she said. “Because childcare is our largest expense, that's been a big part of the reason.”

Her 5-year-old son is in his third year at a full-time Montessori school in Irvine. It costs her family $2,020 a month — more than their rent. They don’t have family nearby to help with childcare.

“We definitely had to start severely restricting our budget because of that cost,” Richard said. “We hardly eat out … we are part of a community garden, so we grow whatever vegetables we can on our own. … We only have one car.”

They’re also staying put in their two-bedroom apartment, which is offered through UC Irvine, as they expand their family; Richard is due next month. “We’re probably in a smaller apartment than we actually need, especially with a baby on the way,” Richard said.

Still, the bills began to pile up. Expenses like an unexpected trip to urgent care for an ear infection and Richard’s bout of pneumonia forced them to start putting costs onto their credit cards.

“It'd be like, ‘Oh, this thing came up. This medical bill came up. We can't pay that because we have to pay childcare,'” Richard said. “The credit card debt just sort of happened over time.” And they had to deal with high interest rates.

Genny Richard and her husband Fabricio have used credit cards to help pay for expenses because of the cost of their childcare.

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Courtesy Genny Richard

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Richard, who works at a nonprofit, and her husband, a postdoctoral fellow, have accrued tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt over the last several years. They had to pay for their son’s childcare directly from their bank accounts — so they shifted other costs to cards when they could.

Their family is not alone — LAist heard from dozens of Southern California families who have had to go into debt to finance their childcare, or spend down their savings. Childcare can often be one of the largest costs in their monthly budgets, a problem reflected in state and national data:

• In L.A. County, childcare eats up nearly 20% of a median household income, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
• In a 2026 survey by Rocket Mortgage, nearly 60% of respondents said they’ve gone into credit card debt or taken on loans due to child-related expenses. 
• A voter poll conducted this past summer found that 3 in 4 respondents saw the cost of childcare for families with young children as a “crisis” or “major problem.” 

And according to an LAist review of data from the Federal Reserve, the median cost for parents who paid for 20 or more hours of childcare a week went up from $1,100 in 2023 to $1,517 in 2025 — a 38% increase.

How big a problem is childcare debt?

But unlike student loans and other forms of debt, good data on how much consumer debt families have because of childcare isn't available, said Chloe Gibbs, a policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research who studies the childcare market.

She explained that while student loans are specifically financed, families are “shifting” spending and financing other household costs to pay for childcare and housing.

“We can't really observe that in data because we just see the consumer debt, and we don't know the reason, the impetus behind families perhaps shifting to using credit cards to pay for expenses, so it's an area where we don’t know much,” she said. That affects the ability of researchers and policymakers to know how childcare challenges affect a family’s financial circumstances in both the short and long term, she said, and how they contribute to broader concerns about affordability.

“I think it really is just reflective of the very fragmented landscape around early childhood care and that we just haven't made a concerted public effort in this space at all. So we've kind of left families to navigate and figure out these challenges on their own,” she said. “In the same way, we have just kind of let the data float around in no way that we actually sort of systemically measure and collect.”

What is clear, Gibbs said, is that childcare costs have been rising higher than the rate of inflation, and it’s not surprising families are using credit cards to help with other living expenses. Childcare costs are up 6.6% since January 2025 — and up 31.3% since December 2019, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data compiled by the Economic Security Project.

Why are costs rising?

At the same time, childcare providers have been struggling. Childcare providers are among the lowest-paid professionals nationwide. The workforce has also been shrinking, limiting the availability of care, which economists say drives up prices.

A national survey found that early educators are also grappling with the increasing cost of food, insurance and facilities costs in an industry that has already operated on thin margins. As a result, the majority of providers have had to pass along some costs to families by raising tuition, the survey found.

“There's just a fundamental mismatch in this market,” Gibbs said. State and federal childcare subsidies are usually tied to income, Gibbs noted, so families who earn too much to qualify get little help.

“It's insufficient in the current policy landscape because we still see lots of families, well up the income distribution, who face difficulties affording care,” Gibbs said.

What it means to rely on a credit card

Unable to qualify for subsidies, Pamela Arciaga, a mother of a 4-year-old in Glendale, accrued about $20,000 in credit card debt because of her son’s preschool costs. As the sole earner for her household, she couldn’t afford a full-time preschool program, so her son attended three days a week at $1,000 a month. Her parents would help her watch her son on the days he wasn’t in school, driving all the way from Riverside and back.

“What I relied on essentially was just my credit cards to pay for household groceries, sometimes to pay the water bill and power bill, because the preschool that he goes to, it's not as if I could have been on a payment plan, right? It was a monthly invoice that I had to pay so that he can stay in the program,” she said.

Pamela Arciaga and her son Finn. Arciaga has acquired about $20,000 in credit card debt because of childcare costs.

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Courtesy A Golden State for Kids

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Daniel Contreras and his wife were spending about $3,000 a month a young when their children were both in childcare. They didn't use credit cards, but had to forgo savings.

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Courtesy Daniel Contreras

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Arciaga works in early childhood advocacy, and said she also knew the value of preschool education for kindergarten readiness. She saw it as a short-term sacrifice. “It was an investment for me to actually enroll him in preschool,” she said. But the cost is that she’s blown through her emergency savings and is working to pay her debt off now that her son started transitional kindergarten. She pays about $300 a month for after-school care now.

“For emergencies, or anything like that, I still have to rely on the only credit card that I still have [with] a lot of credit on at this point or don't have a balance on,” she said.

She said she wishes that elected officials paid more attention to the issue of childcare costs.

“We have to work to keep the economy going,” Arciaga said. “However, we don't have any support, so it feels like we're paying double on, on top of taxes for not getting a lot of benefits.”

How childcare costs affect families’ futures

For Daniel Contreras and his wife, the cost of childcare has made them reimagine having a large family.

 “The reality sinks in pretty quickly when, you know, child number one comes in, and you're seeing your savings dissipate,” he said.

When Contreras’ children, who are now 7 and 10, were in childcare full-time in Whittier, the family was paying about $3,000 a month. “It was a fourth of our checks, and we had a mortgage still to pay. We had other items, just to keep the lights on.”

They couldn’t afford to save, and scaled back on buying new clothes for their kids. He said they avoided using credit cards to avoid falling into debt. His children are now older and in public school, but he said childcare still eats a large part of their monthly budget. After-school care costs $1,000 a month.

 “So we're still paycheck to paycheck,” Contreras said. “It's like a heavy weight that's being pushed down at this moment.” At times, he’d had to negotiate with his rental's management to avoid a late fee when behind on rent.

He said he recently watched the gubernatorial debate and was disappointed not to hear very much about childcare.

“I don't see anybody really pushing the envelope and supporting the workforce,” he said. “Because the workforce needs help.”

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The Los Angeles Police Department has become a major issue in the race for L.A. mayor, with the fate of Chief Jim McDonnell at the center of the debate between the candidates.

Councilmember Nithya Raman, who is challenging incumbent Mayor Karen Bass, has called for the chief’s removal, saying his department was too cooperative with federal immigration agents during last year’s protests over raids.

“I believe he’s lost the trust of Angelenos, especially in light of the ICE raids,” Raman said at a debate earlier this month.

Bass has backed McDonnell, whom she appointed in 2024, saying removing a chief so close to the 2028 Olympics would send the department into "disarray." She also points out crime is down across the city, mirroring crime trends nationwide.

"I don’t think you have any idea what it takes to remove a police chief," Bass said to Raman during the debate.

So what does it take to remove a police chief?

Here’s a closer look at L.A.’s famously contentious history with police leadership in the past and how that has resurfaced in the lead up to the current election.

Mayoral power to remove a chief

The police chief is among the most visible and powerful figures in city government, overseeing 8,500 officers and a budget of more than $3.5 billion dollars — a figure that amounts to more than half the city’s general fund.

Technically, a mayor can’t unilaterally oust a police chief. Only the Police Commission can do that. But the mayor appoints the five-member panel and therefore has a great deal of influence on that decision.

Mayors can always appoint commissioners who bend to their will.

An ousted chief may appeal to the City Council, but would need the support of two-thirds of its members to be reinstated.

Raphe Sonenshein, executive director of the Haynes Foundation, a group dedicated to effective governance in L.A., said it used to be nearly impossible to remove a police chief in the city of Los Angeles.

L.A.’s police chief once enjoyed civil service protection, a strong shield against termination, and was practically the most powerful political figure in the city, Sonenshein said. Removal “was almost a forbidden topic.”

“The police chief stayed as long as the police chief wanted to stay,” Sonenshein said.

Several major events in the 1990s changed that, including the 1991 beating of Rodney King, which followed years of complaints by Black and Latino residents of police abuse.

After the King beating, then-Mayor Tom Bradley called for then-Police Chief Daryl Gates to step down, but Gates refused to do so. Four police officers seen in video of the King beating were charged with felony assault and other charges, but were later acquitted on nearly all counts.

In the wake of the verdict and the riots that followed, voters approved Proposition F, stripping police chiefs of civil service protection and creating a five-year term limit, subject to one five-year extension.

The 1992 riots prompted liberal L.A. to elect a Richard Riordan, a conservative millionaire businessman, as mayor the following year.

Daryl Gates controversy

Earlier this month, Raman praised Gates for his policy of prohibiting officers from asking people about their immigration status. She called it the “gold standard” on police not cooperating with federal immigration agents

Bass said the comment showed Raman was out of touch with the history of L.A. and the role of Gates, a polarizing figure whose department often brutalized Black and brown communities.

Raman has since apologized. “I apologize for talking about an issue that I know causes real pain to Angelenos,” said Raman on the Yesi Ortiz podcast. She also apologized on CNN.

McDonnell has defended his officers’ response to ICE protests, saying demonstrators threw rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails at them, necessitating the use of tear gas. He has called his officers’ actions “heroic.”

Robb Korinke, who runs the political consultancy group GrassrootsLab, said opposing McDonnell fits in with an "anti-establishment"-bent in this election.

“I don't think anyone is safe, whether you're an incumbent, elected or figurehead of a major city department,” he said.

On Monday, as the mayoral debate heated up, billionaire developer Rick Caruso said that he’s voting for Bass for mayor. Caruso, who lost to Bass four years ago by 10 percentage points, said he believed Bass had learned from her mistakes and that she had grown into the job.

Caruso also said he had "serious concerns" about Raman, particularly her desire to remove McDonnell. 

Caruso said this is no time to turn the LAPD "into a laboratory for risking experimentation" by the Democratic Socialists of America, which has endorsed Raman.

Politics of policing have changed

Proposition F changed police politics in Los Angeles. But there were other factors as well, including a change in the election schedule.

L.A.’s switch from holding elections during off-years to during presidential and midterm years dramatically increased the number of voters who participated in city elections.

The electorate is much bigger, younger and more liberal, Korinke said.

“Until a few years ago, the city of Los Angeles held elections in odd years, meaning there was extremely low voter turnout, sometimes as low as in the high teens,” he said, adding that races were decided by more suburban parts of the city with mostly white voters.

“The politics of policing specifically have changed a lot from an environment that was very favorable to policing historically,” Korinke said.

He also explained that progressive voters have taken a greater interest in local issues in recent years, and police reform has become a big focus.

"The voting populace is just a little bit more skeptical of the expense that goes along with policing,” he said.

It's one reason police union spending on political races has become less potent in recent years.

Together with the firefighters union, the police union spent more than $1 million in an effort to defeat Raman’s reelection bid to the City Council two years ago. Raman narrowly won the race.

This year, the union is spending nearly $2.8 million to defeat Raman and elect Bass as mayor.

Bass approved big pay raises for officers in 2023. Raman voted against them, saying the money should be spent in other areas like parks and streetlight repair.

Follow the money