The Brief

The day after the fire broke out in Tustin, some students at Heritage Elementary were given plastic bags to collect and bring home charred pieces of the historic hangar that had floated onto school property, according to several parents.

One parent, who asked to remain anonymous in order to protect her family's privacy, told LAist that on Nov. 8 her fifth-grade daughter brought home a Ziploc bag with a small piece of black debris from the fire.

Her daughter told her she had picked it up with her bare hands. The parent said "the teacher was fully aware."

That same day, air quality authorities reported that debris from the fire contained up to 37% asbestos. The school sits less than a mile from the 7-acre hangar that was destroyed by flames.

The parent said she immediately threw the bag with the fire debris away. The material her daughter had collected, she said, was "paper-light" and easily breakable. Asbestos is most dangerous when the individual fibers are released into the air and can be inhaled and get trapped in the lungs.

A second parent posted a photo on social media of a plastic bag full of large black and gray pieces of debris, according to a screenshot shared with LAist by another parent of a Heritage student. The parent who posted the photo wrote in the post that their son had brought the bag home from Heritage.

In response to an interview request, Heritage principal Courtney Smith referred LAist to district communications officer Rina Lucchese. Lucchese and other Tustin Unified officials have not responded to repeated requests for an interview.

Tustin Unified board member Allyson Muñiz Damikolas told LAist she didn’t have a response to reports from parents about the incident and added that district leaders responded to public health warnings and "reacted to the information as soon as we received it."

The fire debris incident is one of what parents describe as several missteps taken by Tustin Unified School District during its early response to the fire. And this week, as hundreds of students return to Heritage and Legacy Magnet Academy — the two schools closest to the fire that had been closed for testing and cleaning — private test results in adjacent neighborhoods are raising new concerns about toxic fallout from the fire. The findings are heightening concerns among some parents about whether the newly reopened schools are truly safe from potentially toxic fire debris.

The historic hangar in Tustin caught fire in the early hours of Nov. 7. The massive World War II-era wooden hangar was built to house military blimps based in Southern California.

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What happened at Heritage Elementary after the fire

Classes continued as normal at Heritage for two days after the fire began.

A photo shared with LAist by a parent shows Heritage students sitting on the blacktop on campus. It was taken at 8 a.m. on Nov. 8, according to the metadata. Meanwhile, Heritage principal Courtney Smith told parents in emails reviewed by LAist that were sent on Nov. 7 and Nov. 8 that students would remain indoors during recess and lunch. The email on Nov. 8, stated that school leaders continued "to minimize student and staff time outdoors."

In the same Nov. 8 email, she told parents that "the minimal debris that has been found on campus has been safely removed by our custodial staff."

Later that evening, Tustin Unified officials announced that all school campuses would be closed following testing by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) that found asbestos in fire debris.

In the days after the fire broke out, asbestos-laden debris was detected at Tustin schools as far away as Hicks Canyon Elementary, which is about three miles from the burn site, and at Tustin High School, which is two miles from the site, according to the county's initial report of the incident to state authorities.

Most schools in the district were reopened by Nov. 15 after receiving clearance from the district-contracted asbestos consultant. Students at Heritage and Legacy were dispersed at schools across the district by grade level until this week.

Tustin school board member Jonathan Abelove, whose district includes Heritage and Legacy, did not respond to an email request for comment. LAist was unable to reach him at several listed phone numbers.

For one parent, regrets and worries

The parent whose daughter brought home fire debris said she regrets sending her two children to Heritage on the two days after the fire broke out. "That's eating us alive to this day," she told LAist in a phone interview.

She said she and her daughter developed a bad cough a week after the fire broke out. The family ended up leaving their Tustin home for a week to stay in Newport Beach in order to limit their exposure to potential toxins while the fire was still heavily burning.

The fire was finally declared extinguished by Orange County fire officials on Dec. 1.

"The saddest part," the parent told LAist, is how distraught her fifth-grader became when she found out that she had been exposed to a potentially dangerous material, asbestos. "She was asking, 'Am I going to get cancer?'" the parent added.

Cranes were needed to safely lower the entrance doors to the hanger, which remained after the rest of the structure went up in flames.

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What did school officials know?

It's unclear whether school officials were initially aware of the likelihood of asbestos and other chemicals present in the massive blimp hangar that burned to the ground. But some parents said the district should have erred on the side of caution considering the circumstances.

Building fires are generally more toxic than wildfires because of the widespread, and often unknown, presence of toxic materials in homes and businesses. The hangar was widely touted as one of the largest wooden structures in the world — 180-ft. tall, three football fields long and one football field wide.

It was built in 1942, when asbestos and lead paint were widely used in construction.

Documents on the city of Tustin's website note the extensive use of asbestos-containing materials and lead paint in the building's construction.

According to a 2000 report commissioned by the Navy, asbestos was present in roofing materials, wall panels, pipe insulation and floor tiles. Some of this asbestos was "friable," meaning it breaks or crumbles easily and therefore poses a greater risk of being inhaled, which can cause long-term health consequences.

A 2020 report from the Orange County Grand Jury also noted that hazardous materials, including "asbestos, lead, biological contaminants, and groundwater contaminates," had been identified in the hangar's nearly identical twin hangar, which also sits on the 84-acre former military base in Tustin.

According to Chris Dunne, a Navy spokesperson, samples of treated wood from the hangar had been analyzed in the past and found to contain "detectable concentrations of aluminum, arsenic, boron, barium, calcium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, sodium, nickel, phosphorus, lead, silicon, and zinc."

Dunne told LAist the Navy had not communicated directly with the school district about potential public health concerns after the fire broke out. "The city of Tustin is the lead agency for cleanup efforts, interagency coordination, and public communication," Dunne wrote in an email.

Tustin Mayor Austin Lumbard, who has three children at Heritage, told LAist that he didn't know "in an official capacity" that there was asbestos and other toxins in the hangar building until he was alerted to the test results by the South Coast Air Quality Management District on Nov. 8. Still, "we all knew there was something in there," he said.

"I think the community that lives out here was aware that these were constructed in the ‘40s and that there was material used in that construction that potentially is not used now," Lumbard said.

The mayor also said people had wandered onto the property for years. In 2019 firefighters had to rescue a teenager who had climbed onto the roof of the hangar.

Asked whether he was concerned about the school district's initial handling of the fire response, Lumbard said: "I know the school district is taking this very seriously and they're leaning on and relying on information that they're getting from the Navy and from the Orange County Health Care Agency."

Regina Chinsio-Kwong, who heads the county health care agency, told LAist she first learned there could be toxic materials in the burning hangar that could pose a health risk when a consultant for AQMD called her on the evening on Nov. 7.

"I didn't have a full report, it was more of a verbal concern," she said.

Chinsio-Kwong said she had a call with AQMD staff the following morning to better understand the concerns. AQMD issued a smoke advisory on Nov. 7. It wasn't until Nov. 8 that they issued an advisory noting the presence of asbestos in testing results of ash and debris from public areas near the hangar fire.

Jeff Lawrence, whose daughter attends Heritage, emailed district and city officials twice on the morning the fire broke out, urging them to immediately start testing the air and soil for toxins.

The hangar building contains "all sorts of potential hazardous materials raining ash all over our neighborhood," he wrote. In one of the emails, he also excoriated school officials for keeping Heritage open "when you have literally zero idea if it is at all safe."

In an interview with LAist earlier this month, Lawrence said "the county and everyone had these reports,” referring to the Orange County Grand Jury report and documents on the city's website.

“From a logical perspective, as soon as you knew that that thing was burning, [toxic material] was going all over the place," he added.

Lawrence was livid that kids were outside while the fire burned, and that the school allowed kids to touch and take home debris from the fire. He said he blames the school district for not ensuring that students were kept inside and away from potentially toxic material.

"Ultimately, the buck stops with them," he said. "They made the decision to keep these schools open. They did not insist that the principal at [Heritage] keep all the kids inside."

Lawrence said he wished the district had immediately closed Heritage and offered distance learning instead. At nearby Legacy, school officials canceled in-person school when the fire broke out on Nov. 7 and instead held virtual classes.

Public health experts weigh in

LAist reached out to public health experts to better understand the risks associated with asbestos. Richard Castriotta, a pulmonologist at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, said reports of children handling asbestos and potentially bringing it into their classrooms or homes were "concerning."

"We don't really know what a safe level [of asbestos] is," he said.

But, he added, "in order to be dangerous, the asbestos has to be in a form that people can inhale." He said large chunks of asbestos-containing material, if disposed of properly, are less dangerous.

Tustin Unified recently released the results of surface and air testing done in November at Heritage and Legacy that showed no asbestos was detected on either campus. The testing was done in high-traffic areas including the main office and gym at Legacy and the administrative office and several kindergarten classrooms at Heritage.

Orange County Public Health Officer Regina Chinsio-Kwong said her office had also tested for lead at Legacy and Heritage on the heaviest days of smoke and did not detect elevated levels. She said as a whole, the official results from air quality and surface testing in the community nearest to the fire had been "reassuring." (Private testing has shown otherwise, as we explain below.)

In a Dec. 13 letter to Lumbard, the Tustin mayor, and the rest of the city council, Chinsio-Kwong said testing by multiple agencies, including the EPA, "suggests that the main concern for asbestos exposure was from bulk debris while asbestos fibers in the air played a limited role."

Chinsio-Kwong also wrote that environmental experts on the fire's emergency response team had concluded that testing indoor spaces "is not necessary, thanks to reassuring test results from nearby facilities," including public schools, local parks and community centers.

Nevertheless, Tustin officials announced Wednesday evening that they plan to sample soil and interior spaces for toxins from the fire.

"The City appreciates [the O.C. Health Care Agency]’s scientific conclusion that interior residential testing is unnecessary based on the extensive available data," Lumbard said in a news release. "However, in a collective effort to go above and beyond what is required to address lingering community concerns, the City is moving forward with performing exterior soil and interior air/dust sampling for asbestos and lead.”

He said the timing and location of sampling was being developed in consultation with the EPA and would be shared in the coming days.

More than 600 disaster remediation workers have been dispatched to clean up fire debris tainted with asbestos on the former military base and in surrounding neighborhoods.

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John Balmes, an air pollution expert and physician member of the California Air Resources Board, echoed Chinsio-Kwong, saying the reported results from air and surface tests at Tustin schools were "pretty reassuring."

"If they tested several classrooms a week after the fire started when smoke was the highest concentration, that's probably good enough in terms of the schools," he said.

Balmes said the people most likely to be exposed to dangerous, airborne asbestos fibers were the firefighters who responded to the fire, not children attending a nearby school weeks after the fire burnt out.

Disaster experts contracted by the city of Tustin have sealed in place the dust and debris immediately around the former hangar site with an adhesive substance.

Work to take down the hangar doors and adjacent structures — which Chinsio-Kwong had recommended be completed before schools reopened — was finished on Monday, according to the city's latest update.

The Navy announced this week that it had finalized a $6 million contract with a remediation company to clean up and dispose of debris from the fire. But Navy officials said they don’t know when the work will actually start.

“Before we can take action, debris removal plans must be reviewed and approved by state and federal regulatory agencies to ensure the safety of both the community and the environment,” said Gregory Preston, who directs the Navy's base closure program, in a news release.

What happened as students returned to Heritage this week

In an email last week to parents announcing the reopening of Heritage and Legacy, school district officials said both schools would undergo extra cleaning, including of ducts, carpets and rugs, "out of an abundance of caution and in response to potential concerns within our community."

Tuesday was Heritage students’ first day back on campus following a more than month-long closure due to the fire.

During afternoon pick-up, Heritage students streamed out of the school gates carrying handmade ornaments and construction paper Santa Claus cutouts. Ravi Chilakapati, who was picking up his kindergartener and third grader, said he had had some concerns about the school reopening but felt good about the information he had received via school emails detailing extra cleaning that would take place before students returned.

"At least for now, we are happy to be back," he said, adding that the past weeks of dropping off and picking up his kids from far-away school sites was "kind of horrible."

Still, he said he wished school leaders had closed Heritage as soon as the fire broke out. "We would have zero concerns if that had happened," he added.

Peter Thok, who also has two kids at Heritage, said he was "really happy" that the school had reopened and he no longer has to drive his kids to alternative campuses. He said he was satisfied with the school's asbestos testing and cleaning protocols.

"They took extra precautions, which is good," he said.

But he echoed Chilakapati in saying he thought the school should have been closed during the first two days of the fire.

"That's when the fire was raging the most," he said. "That's when it felt like we had the most debris in our house so for sure, it should have been closed."

Heritage students returned to campus on Dec. 19, more than a month after a fire broke out and consumed a massive World War II-era hangar less than a mile away.

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Thok and Chilakapati were both unaware that students at Heritage were allowed to bring home debris from the fire until they were asked about it by LAist.

Thok said, across the board, communication and direction from local authorities has been poor throughout the fire response.

"You could've had guidance that let the teachers know and the parents know what not to do and what we can do," he said.

Nearby homes test positive for asbestos and lead

Sean Storm, who has a child at Legacy and another at Heritage, told LAist he was concerned that authorities hadn't done enough testing at the schools and hadn't tested for a full range of heavy metals. He also said he and other parents would like to see the results of the lead testing Chinsio-Kwong said her department had done at the schools in November. "I just want to know it's safe," he said.

On Wednesday, Storm shared with LAist and school and district officials the results of testing done earlier this month in his neighborhood, which is across from the hangar burn site and about a mile from Heritage. The tests, conducted by AQS Environmental Services and paid for by a local homeowners association, found asbestos and lead in all 20 samples of suspected fire debris collected from buildings throughout the community.

Federal public health officials say even low levels of exposure to lead can damage children's health and development.

Storm also shared testing ordered by his insurance company and conducted on the inside and exterior of his home that showed lead levels in soot on his windowsills exceeded the EPA’s lead hazard levels in dust by at least 14 times.

The testing also found elevated levels of arsenic and barium. The report recommended that the family move out "until all cleaning is completed."

The EPA is monitoring air quality around the perimeter of the former military base and in multiple locations in the surrounding community.

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The test results left Storm uneasy. If his home less than a mile from the burn site wasn’t safe to occupy, he wondered how the school could be safe for kids.

"Were the tables power washed and clean?" he asked. "There are gazebos that cover the picnic tables [students] eat off of. Was that cleaned? I just want to know …is the school truly, actually clean?"

Tustin’s fire clean up costs over $45 million so far

Balmes, the air pollution expert, said public health officials could do additional testing of outside areas on local school campuses for arsenic and lead, the two heavy metals initially detected in smoke plumes from the fire, to "assuage parents' fears." "That's not unreasonable," he said.

Balmes added that the rain this week should wash away much of the remaining ash and soot from the fire in the community, significantly reducing people's likelihood of exposure.

According to the latest update from Tustin officials, work to remove potential asbestos-containing fire debris from homes near the former hangar is about 85% complete. In a news release earlier this week, city spokesperson Stephanie Najera said Tustin’s clean up costs for the fire total over $45 million.

The Navy owns the property where the fire took place and has committed $11 million to the clean-up thus far.

Najera said the total cost of recovering from the disaster could exceed $100 million.

Topline:

Key topics: The candidates each had about 45 minutes to individually answer questions from Erin Stone, an LAist senior reporter focused on climate and environment.

Here are some of the topics they covered:

• Extreme heat
• Emergency preparedness and recovery
• Protecting communities from pollution
• Water
• Public transit

About the organizers: The event is organized by a coalition of local environmental and environmental justice groups including: Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters, SCOPE-LA, Sierra Club, Clean and Healthy California, Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance and Communities for a Better Environment

LAist will have more coverage and analysis of the conversations Friday morning.

The Trump administration is taking steps to advance a mysterious and unprecedented project to compile state-by-state lists of people it has decided are eligible citizens over the age of 18 who can vote in the upcoming midterm election. But it will no longer meet its own deadline to publish that information on a portal on Friday, which is 60 days before Election Day.

Department of Justice attorneys told opposing counsel in two separate lawsuits that instead of meeting the Sept. 4 deadline, they would give 48-hours notice to plaintiffs' counsel before the state citizenship portal was launched, according to recent court filings.

The U.S. has never attempted to create a comprehensive list of American citizens before this administration. Maintaining voter lists is the responsibility of states, not the federal government, as the Constitution dictates that states control elections. But President Trump has repeatedly taken steps to try to exert executive control over elections.

The basis for the federal government creating state citizenship lists is an executive order Trump signed on March 31. A lower court had blocked implementation of key parts of that executive order in 23 states and Washington, D.C., but the Supreme Court stayed that injunction late last month, opening the door for the plan to be implemented after all.

The March 31 executive order directs U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration to create "State Citizenship Lists" of individuals the agencies believe are citizens in each state, and send those lists to state officials "no fewer than 60 days before each regularly scheduled Federal election."

The next section of the executive order says the U.S. attorney general will prioritize investigating and prosecuting state and local officials who issue federal ballots to anyone not eligible to vote.

"States here have a strong incentive to actually use these lists to try to avoid federal investigation," said Jules Torti, counsel at the nonprofit Protect Democracy, in an interview with NPR. "But we know that these lists are going to be based on really inaccurate data. So the risk of disenfranchisement here is really, really palpable."

The privacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, along with individual voters, filed a motion Thursday asking a federal judge in Maryland to block the administration from creating the citizenship lists and publishing them on a portal. Specifically, they seek to block a June 8 implementation memo authored by USCIS director Joseph Edlow that outlines the plan.

The motion, which was brought by Protect Democracy, along with another nonprofit legal group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, argues the administration's plans to share Americans' personal data between agencies and then disseminate the data to states violates multiple federal laws, including the Privacy Act, the Social Security Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. Under the Privacy Act, federal agencies must give the public 30 days notice and the opportunity to comment before they collect and disseminate Americans' personal data for a new purpose.

The EPIC lawsuit also argues the government does not have access to accurate, up-to-date information on American citizens, especially those who move frequently, have changed their names, or are foreign-born. For example, Social Security's citizenship data often isn't updated when people naturalize, and the SAVE data system, operated by USCIS, frequently doesn't include records for people who became citizens as minors when their parents naturalized.

Torti said it is "deeply concerning" that the administration is still planning to go ahead with the creation of citizenship lists but is no longer going to meet the deadline, since that means the lists will be completed even closer to Election Day.

"It means additional chaos, additional confusion for the state election officials and just for voters," Torti said. "And I think that's the point. The point here is to create chaos in advance of the election."

Neither the Department of Justice, nor the Department of Homeland Security, which is tasked with compiling the citizenship lists, responded to NPR's request for comment.

The June 8 implementation memo stated that the portal for state election officials would be available around June 30 and a second portal where citizens could check their information would be available at a later date – but that deadline passed without further updates.

The federal government has secured a domain for the state citizenship lists portal. While the portal is not currently online, it was briefly live in recent days with a landing page that said "Coming Soon," according to court filings.

Lawyers representing Democratic party groups that had challenged the March 31 executive order in a separate lawsuit filed in April, accused the administration in a recent filing of failing to notify the court or the parties about its plans to move forward with the state citizenship portal. They asked the judge to require the federal government to give immediate updates about their plans to implement the executive order.

This latest legal battle over the administration's plans to compile state citizenship lists comes as the Department of Homeland Security is ramping up its efforts to analyze state voter rolls with the goal of identifying potential noncitizens who are registered to vote. Previous audits have found instances of noncitizens casting ballots to be incredibly rare. 

Additionally, last week, ICE published a request for information on a federal procurement site seeking vendors who can compile public voter rolls and voter history files from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories, "to support Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) fraud detection and data segmentation activities."

NPR's Hansi Lo Wang contributed reporting to this story. 
Copyright 2026 NPR

A group of California lawmakers called on federal officials to halt and reject a proposed land exchange in Yosemite National Park that would allow a private developer to take control of a strip of land in the park for an access road to the park’s main attractions.

The letter to Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Wednesday was signed by a bipartisan group of 61 state legislators led by Assemblymember Greg Wallis, a Republican who represents Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

“Republicans and Democrats from both houses of the Legislature are standing together because some things are bigger than politics,” Wallis said in a statement. “Yosemite is not a subdivision. It is not a bargaining chip. And it is not for sale. Secretary Burgum and the administration should put an end to this proposal.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum (center) visited the Tunnel Tops in San Francisco in 2025 after he and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi toured Alcatraz ahead of their announcement to reopen the former federal prison.

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The group argued that the proposed land exchange is counter to the mission of the National Park Service and the founding of Yosemite in 1864, which set aside the start of the park for public use and protection for the first time in the history of the federal government.

“What is being proposed now runs directly against that founding principle, more than a century and a half later,” the letter states.

It continues later: “Our national parks belong equally to every American. They are not the Department’s to trade away, and they are not for sale.”

The proposal was first reported by news outlet NOTUS, which published a story last week alleging that members of the Trump administration were meeting with representatives of Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a private equity group that owns an 83-acre parcel next to the park. In an email to KQED, Kingsbarn’s lawyer Lanny J. Davis confirmed the group is pursuing the land exchange to build a new access road from its property to the park.

Previous owners have pushed for the same deal since the early 2000s and failed in court.

State Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), who signed on to the letter, called the proposal “indefensible,” and said he’s looking at state laws to ensure a similar proposal could never slip through.

“If the Trump administration can’t defend this publicly in broad daylight, then they shouldn’t be doing it,” he said.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Marin) told KQED’s Forum on Wednesday that he’s worried there isn’t enough opposition among his Republican colleagues in Congress to stop the Trump administration’s efforts.

“I have not seen a single Republican colleague willing to stand up to Donald Trump when he decides that he’s just going to do something,” Huffman said. “So that is my concern, that he just plows ahead with this — even if it has dubious legal authority, or even if it’s an open violation of the law. He’s doing stuff like that anyway. And in this Congress, there’s no one here to stop him.”

In a statement to KQED, state Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil (R-Modesto), whose district includes parts of Yosemite, said she will “keep pressing the Department [of the Interior] for a clear answer that this exchange will not proceed.”

Since the news of the deal broke late last week, it has sparked condemnation from a number of Democratic state leaders, including Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, as well as Attorney General Rob Bonta and Bonta’s predecessor, Xavier Becerra, who leads the race for California governor.

“The secretive backroom land-exchange scheme has gotten everyone’s attention,” said Neal Desai, senior Pacific regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association. “I can’t recall another issue — and I’ve been working in the conservation space for over a couple of decades — where the response has been this sharp and so one-sided that this is a terrible idea that should not happen.”

The backlash comes at a turbulent time for National Park Service employees, who have faced layoffs, staffing cuts and fear of retaliation for speaking up against Trump administration policies since the start of the second Trump administration.

Some former employees have also raised concerns about a potential reorganization of the National Park Service, according to a separate letter sent to Burgum’s office Wednesday. According to an email seen by KQED, park superintendents have been asked to attend in-person regional meetings in September — with no clear agenda beyond discussing “agency priorities, our FY 2026 outlook, and other matters important to the work ahead.”

The letter to Burgam, signed by 20 retired parks superintendents warns: “An ill-advised and hastily planned reorganization could dismantle that structure, putting our parks — and those who visit them — at great risk.”

Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, which organized the letter, said the email about regional meetings “raises some alarm bells.”

“The Park Service is already operating from a difficult place, from a place of crisis,” she said. “And any additional cuts, any movements or actions that would further jeopardize the capacity of the folks that are left, that’s concerning. It’s worrying, and it’ll have a devastating impact on the Park Service.”

Among the letter’s signatories is Don Neubacher, retired Yosemite superintendent, who has been a vocal advocate for parks amid the Trump administration’s changes.

Thompson said she’s worried parks leaders will be stretched even further than they already are, and local decision-making over parks could be in jeopardy.

“Morale is low,” Thompson said. “It’s a hard time to be a federal employee. Anything that … contributes to this culture of fear, it’s just not acceptable.”

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

Long Beach is offering up to $1,500 for local business owners and landlords to equip their storefronts with safety measures like cameras, floodlights, alarms and point-of-sale systems.

The grant program is accepting online applications now. You can apply here.

Businesses with storefronts of 1,500 square feet or less may receive grants of up to $750, while businesses between 1,500 and 5,000 square feet are eligible for up to $1,500.

Nonprofit organizations are eligible as well, and landlords can apply on behalf of commercial storefronts that are vacant or occupied. Franchises can also receive the grant.

To qualify, a business must:

• Have an active business license for a storefront within the city
• Be independently owned and operated (franchises are eligible)
• Be currently open and active for business
• Earn no more than $5 million in annual gross revenue
• Hold “active” status with the California Secretary of State for corporations, limited liability companies and limited partnerships

The funds will be provided as a reimbursement after eligible security improvements are installed. Grants will be given out until funds are exhausted.

It’s a great idea, according to Edwin Jara, who manages a pet store in Belmont Heights and was on the receiving end of a break-in earlier this year.

His store had security measures already in place — two cameras and an alarm system — but even that wasn’t enough to deter a masked burglar who grabbed $1,000 cash and a handful of dog treats.

Despite having footage of the burglar, Jara said police haven’t been able to catch the person and that a detective never responded after he filed a police report.

The grant program is being paid for with $350,000 from the city’s Redvelopment Agency along with $50,000 from Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn’s office.

“Our local small businesses are part of the fabric of our neighborhoods, and when business owners feel unsafe, the whole community feels it,” Hahn said in a statement.

In a statement, Mayor Rex Richardson said the program is a “direct investment in the hardworking business owners who make our commercial corridors vibrant and welcoming.”

Jara said he would consider applying for a grant if the city could send someone to help him and the store’s owner fill out the application.

He was offered a separate grant to replace a glass door the burglar smashed, but the store’s owner opted not to fill out the application.

“There was a lot of stuff that we needed to do, and I don’t have a lot of that information,” Jara said.