The Brief

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

In the days after the Lineage warehouse fire blanketed the Eastside in thick smoke, Althana Ávalos desperately searched for an air purifier for her 9-year-old son with asthma. 

The 33-year-old Los Angeles Unified School District teacher closed the windows and doors of her East L.A. home, and her family wore KN95 masks. But it wasn’t enough. They soon began feeling the effects of the smoke: sore throat, eye and skin irritation, nausea and headaches. 

When she called the office of Councilmember Ysabel Jurado to have an air purifier delivered to her home, she was told she didn’t qualify.

“I’m sorry,” the person on the phone told her, according to Ávalos. “Due to the address that you’re providing, you are on the other side so you don’t qualify … You belong to the county.” 

“Really? This is a disaster,” Ávalos remembers thinking. “My son has asthma. What am I going to do?”

The moment captured what many residents say they experienced for days following the fire: For some seeking help, access to emergency resources often depended less on how close they lived to the fire and more on which side of an invisible border they called home. 

A crisis felt across invisible borders

Ávalos lives on the east side of Indiana Street, in unincorporated East Los Angeles, not the city of L.A. Just across the street, on the west side of Indiana, is Boyle Heights, where the Lineage warehouse is located.

Although the warehouse is in Boyle Heights, it sits near the borders of East L.A. and Commerce, separated by short stretches of roads and industrial blocks. Walking a few feet places residents in a different jurisdiction entirely. 

Those geographic boundaries shaped who distributed supplies, where residents went for help, and, in some cases, who qualified for resources such as air purifiers.

While Boyle Heights residents are represented by Los Angeles city officials, including Jurado, and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, residents in unincorporated East L.A. fall under Los Angeles County and are primarily represented by Supervisor Hilda Solis.

Where do you live?

Boyle Heights, highlighted in blue, is within the city of East L.A. and is represented by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado and Mayor Karen Bass.

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Map created within ArcGIS by Andrew Lopez

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The LA Local

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East Los Angeles, highlighted in orange, is an unincorporated community within LA County. It is represented by Supervisor Hilda Solis.

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Map created within ArcGIS by Andrew Lopez

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The LA Local

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Boyle Heights: Highlighted in blue, Boyle Heights is a neighborhood within the city of Los Angeles. Residents are represented by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado and Mayor Karen Bass.

East Los Angeles: Highlighted in orange, East Los Angeles is an unincorporated community in Los Angeles County. Residents are represented by Supervisor Hilda Solis.

Residents search for relief

When the fire broke out on June 17, elected officials responded and posted updates on social media as firefighters battled the blaze.

And when the flames reignited within the building two days later, officials declared local and statewide emergencies while agencies worked to acquire and distribute air purifiers, pass out masks and open up smoke relief shelters across the Eastside. 

Antonio Chapa, left, director of field operations for Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis, distributes air purifiers on Indiana Street in Boyle Heights on June 22, 2026.

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Isaac Ceja

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Boyle Heights Beat

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But residents say accessing those resources wasn’t always straightforward. 

Some distribution events required proof of residency. On social media, residents asked whether they qualified for assistance if they lived near the fire. Others were clearing up confusion from commenters about whether their addresses were actually within Los Angeles city limits. 

For Ávalos, it was confusing that strict government rules still applied for the neighboring jurisdictions even during a crisis.

“I knew I belonged to the East L.A. area. It didn’t hit me that in, you know, in this case of emergency, or in this situation, they were going to be asking,” said Ávalos.

Community groups filled the gaps

Henry Perez, executive director of InnerCity Struggle, said his organization repeatedly heard about people running into the same issue of being turned away at distribution sites.

“It’s extremely frustrating and infuriating,” Perez said. “To be told that they couldn’t get the air purifier because of where they lived on the dividing line, that is just heartbreaking.”

Henry Perez, executive director of InnerCity Struggle, speaks at a press conference on Thursday, June 25, 2026.

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Steve Saldivar

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The LA Local

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As demand for clean air grew, groups including InnerCity Struggle, Proyecto Pastoral, the East L.A. Walking Club and The Maravilla Community Advisory Committee, as well as individual volunteers, organized their own distributions, regardless of jurisdictions.

Meanwhile, Ávalos’ family continued searching for relief as their conditions worsened.

On Saturday, June 20, they went to the smoke relief shelter at City Terrace Park. During a visit to the shelter, Sen. Durazo stepped inside to talk to families.

After explaining how she was turned away from receiving an air purifier, Durazo, upset by the situation, called on one of her team members to help get one, Ávalos said. A few hours later, the air purifier had been personally delivered to her at the shelter.  

State and local elected officials, including Durazo, Assemblymembers Mark Gonzalez and Jessica Caloza, and U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez, also spent time in the affected neighborhoods sharing updates and connecting residents with resources.

Ávalos wasn’t the only resident who described frustration over jurisdictional divides. 

Martin Ramirez, who owns N&M Auto Repair on the corner of Union Pacific Avenue and Indiana Street, said he tried to get an air purifier for his business from Our Lady of Victory Church in East L.A. but was turned away because his business address put him in Commerce.  

Officials emphasize unity as the response evolves

As the fire continued burning, city and county leaders began appearing side by side at press conferences, stressing that government agencies were working collaboratively.

First District Supervisor Hilda Solis speaks at a press conference at the City Terrace Park Smoke Respite Center and is joined by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Council District 14 Councilmember Ysabel Jurado.

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Photo courtesy of First District Supervisor Hilda Solis

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Later in the response, public messaging also appeared to shift. 

At a press event on Thursday, June 25, Bass pushed back when asked by a local reporter about the miscommunication between county and city departments.

“First of all, I know the two of us here, the three of us here, we’re not going to put up with jurisdictional divide,” Bass said. “People can go to the county for help and if the resources…happen to be on the city side, the bottom line is that if the people of this community need help, we’re going to do everything we can to get it there.”

Around the same time, in a social media post promoting purifier distribution on Friday, June 26, Hilda Solis wrote that aid was “open to adjacent communities.” 

A community resource center that opened up in Boyle Heights over the weekend presented a similar shift, stating services were open to “residents and businesses of Boyle Heights and nearby communities.” 

Still, some residents said the changing guidance added to the confusion. 

In written statements to Boyle Heights Beat, both Jurado and Solis acknowledged the challenges residents faced along the Boyle Heights and East L.A. border. 

“Emergency doesn’t recognize jurisdictional boundaries, but government often does,” Jurado said.

A plume of smoke billows out of a Boyle Heights warehouse on Saturday, June 20.

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Isaiah Murtaugh

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The LA Local

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Jurado said city departments and county agencies are now coordinating around air quality monitoring, debris and food waste removal, traffic and hauling plans, water runoff protections, public health resources, and community outreach.

Solis shared a similar sentiment, stating that although the county stayed in close communication with the city on emergency response from day one, it had become streamlined by day seven.

“By the end of the first week, that included broader resource distributions, expanded health services, planning for the Community Resilience Center, and connecting residents, workers, and small businesses with recovery resources,” Solis said.

What residents want to see change

Perez of InnerCity Struggle said officials should use the Lineage fire as a lesson before the next disaster. 

“This isn’t going to be the last environmental crisis or, just, emergency crisis and they need to recognize that there are certain parts of the city and the county that border one another,” Perez said. “What we want our elected leaders to really learn from this experience is that preparedness is critical.”

One of the biggest lessons Councilmember Jurado said she learned through the process was that environmental emergencies “require neighborhood-level preparedness” before disaster strikes.

“In future emergencies, residents should not have to chase government for information. Government needs to show up where people already are: at their doors, at trusted community organizations, at schools, churches, clinics, recreation centers, and neighborhood gathering places,” Jurado said. 

For residents like Ávalos who live along the city-county lines, the fire reinforced how a divide in resources — from health care and law enforcement to services like trash and public works — can shape access to help. 

“If something like this were to happen again … I don’t think that [where you live] should matter,” Ávalos said.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is preparing for possible “Super El Niño” storms that could damage schools and lead to closures, the district announced in a media release Tuesday.

District staff are clearing drains, trimming trees and checking roofs, windows and doors. LAUSD is also testing emergency equipment, including pumps and emergency lighting systems, and stocking supplies such as flashlights and drinking water.

“Preparing for severe weather starts well before the first raindrop,” Superintendent Andrés Chait said in a statement. “We can’t control the weather, but we can take steps now to protect our students and employees and help our schools stay ready.”

The district will monitor weather patterns using information from the National Weather Service and local emergency officials, it said.

LAUSD encouraged families to update their contact information to ensure they receive district calls, texts and emails. Families should also monitor weather alerts, follow emergency officials’ instructions, avoid flooded roads and review safe routes to and from school, according to the release.

“Preparing for a storm is a shared effort — from the crews maintaining school buildings to the principals reviewing emergency plans and the families making sure they can receive critical updates,” LAUSD said in the release. “By taking these steps before the rain begins, Los Angeles Unified is working to help students and employees stay safe and keep school communities as prepared as possible for the winter ahead.”

Southern California is likely in for a solid dose of rain this week, just days after heat and Santa Ana winds helped fuel several wildfires across the region.

Forecasters expect the bulk of the rain to roll into the Los Angeles basin Wednesday night and continue into Thursday morning, with a small chance of thunderstorms and hail.

The San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and coastal areas across L.A. and Orange counties could get around an inch over the next few days. Hills and mountains could get up to 3 inches.

“We could see some pretty high rain rates,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford. “It's a good storm for this time of year — it's a little stronger than what we would see normally.”

The possibility of significant rain in the mountains raises concerns about flooding in areas recently burned in wildfires, particularly around the Bryson Fire burn scar near Malibu, which is only a few days old. Burn scars can’t absorb heavy rainfall and are susceptible to landslides.

The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for the Santa Monica Mountains and surrounding communities from Wednesday afternoon through Thursday. That means heavy rain there could flood streets, creeks and rivers. The flood watch area includes both the Bryson Fire and Palisades Fire burn scars.

This will also be the first nontropical storm of the season, meaning it’s moving into the region from the north. Most storms that hit Southern California follow a similar path, especially during the winter, unlike the tropical storms that formed off the coast of Mexico and brought muggy weather to the region this summer.

Nontropical storms also bring cold air to the region. On Wednesday and Thursday, forecasters expect highs in the 60s and 70s. High elevations will be even cooler.

The science research institute that would likely receive $4.2 billion in public taxpayer money if voters approve Proposition 38 this November had only three employees as of last month — far fewer than the 51 staffers it planned to have hired by last year.

Public statements and public records CalMatters obtained raise questions about how well prepared the institute is to shepherd so much money if the bond measure passes.

Prop. 38 would allocate up to $8.4 billion in bonds for scientific research on diseases and cures concerning the immune system, with an emphasis on finding treatments for Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease. The ballot language stipulates that a single, unnamed research institute would receive half the bond’s money to conduct research and partner with other researchers if it meets highly specific criteria. Bonds are a type of debt that must be repaid.

Previous reporting by CalMatters found only one institute in California currently meets those criteria: the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy. The institute’s principal funder is billionaire Gary K. Michelson, who wrote Prop. 38 and is by far the largest donor to its political campaign.

Backers of the proposition said state bond money is needed to stabilize research funding after President Donald Trump repeatedly attempted to cut existing and future federal science grants.

The measure’s critics say Prop. 38 is well-intentioned but poorly designed because it overlooks the many established public and nonprofit university and hospital research labs in California. They also say California should not subsidize subsets of scientific research and instead should support research more broadly.

CalMatters obtained documents that included the five-year business plan of the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy. The plan was part of the formal affiliation agreement between UCLA and the institute, which the two parties signed in August 2024. Among other details, the agreement requires the institute to pay UCLA 7.5% of the net revenue of any drugs and technologies developed by the institute’s staff. The institute is one of the founding tenants at a UCLA-owned research park in West Los Angeles, where the institute is leasing 235,000 square feet of research space, the institute says.

Far fewer employees than plan called for

Between summer 2024 and summer 2025, the institute committed to hiring “approximately” 51 employees, including six executives, five “world-class” scientists who can lead research labs, and 40 other employees, such as data scientists, lab technicians, biologists and administrative personnel. Between 2025 and 2027, the institute would hire roughly 90 more workers, including 10 research lab leaders, according to the agreement.

But John Mazziotta, a senior UCLA official who also serves as a board member of the immunology institute, last month said the institute has hired just three employees: a chief operating officer, a general counsel, and a scientific advisor, and “they're well into the search” for a director. Mazziotta, the CEO of UCLA Health and vice chancellor for health sciences at UCLA, made his comments during the Sept. 16 UC Regents meeting.

The Yes on Prop. 38 campaign has repeatedly refused to comment on whether the bond was written specifically for the immunology institute. Claudia Briggs, a spokesperson for the campaign, told CalMatters in July that whichever nonprofit receives the $4.2 billion portion of the bond fund should be a sophisticated one that “is prepared to accelerate lifesaving research immediately while maintaining the highest standards of scientific quality, accountability, and stewardship of public funds.”

At a September press conference, a Yes on Prop. 38 spokesperson appeared to confirm CalMatters’ findings that only one institute currently qualifies to be the one to receive half the bond money. “It is very likely that CIII, which is a research institute affiliated with UCLA, will qualify for half of the funds under the current criteria,” said Robin Swanson. CIII is the initialism for the immunology institute.

According to the five-year plan, the institute was supposed to spend $25 million on personnel between 2024-25 and 2025-26 and $45 million total on operating expenses in that time, including maintenance, utilities and rent. It was also supposed to spend an additional $167 million in that time on capital expenses, such as construction and demolition. However, Mazziotta told UC regents that the institute had so far spent a total of $20 million on “operating expenses, hires” and other expenses.

The Yes on 38 campaign refused CalMatters’ request to interview Michelson for this story, as did Michelson himself in a separate email. A spokesperson for the institute, Becky Warren, sent a written statement that didn't answer CalMatters' questions about employing far fewer people than the five-year plan laid out. Instead, she highlighted the promise of the institute and a few of its milestones, including signing the affiliation agreement with UCLA and clearing a state environmental review of its forthcoming research facility.

The institute won’t get state bond money if it isn’t ready to begin work, “plain and simple,” wrote Swanson, the Yes on 38 spokesperson, in an email. She stressed that though the institute very likely qualifies, the ultimate decision to award half the bond funding is up to the California Department of Public Health.

Institute facility will be built by 2028

The UCLA research park that houses the institute isn’t slated to be fully built until at least late 2028, according to the agenda item of the September UC regents meeting. The research park is a former mall UCLA acquired in late 2023 that’s now undergoing major retrofitting.

But the 2024 affiliation agreement between UCLA and the institute anticipated this. The agreement permitted the institute to use UCLA health research space on another campus property on an interim basis. Mazziotta told regents that research is underway there.

Mazziotta also told the regents the institute's construction costs are not fully funded — it still needs roughly $100 million. He said UCLA was in serious talks with a donor to provide about $50 million to the institute.

If Prop. 38 passes, the bond funding would be provided in increments based on how often the institute requests new money that senior state officials approve. If all the funds are depleted, Californians would repay the bond at a rate of $500 million to $600 million annually for about 20 years.

Institute would be exempt from public records act

CalMatters submitted the public records request to UCLA, which must comply with the California Public Records Act. The institute, as a private nonprofit, does not have to comply. And while Prop. 38 would channel billions of dollars in taxpayer money to the institute, the proposition’s language specifically exempts the nonprofit that will receive the $4.2 billion from state public meetings laws, political reform laws and the public records act. The other half of the funds would go to a council that’ll pick projects led by researchers from a limited pool of universities and nonprofits. The council would generally be governed by the state’s political reform act, which prohibits financial self-dealing.

Briggs defended the institute’s exemption in Prop. 38, writing that applying state transparency laws to existing private organizations would “not fit well with how private entities are organized and operate.” Instead, she noted the selected nonprofit institute would be required to publish annual reports on its research progress and financial plans plus commit to annual state audits, among other disclosures written into the ballot measure.

Still unclear to the UC regents is the relationship between UCLA and the institute on matters of public disclosure. Four senior UCLA officials sit on the institute’s board. So is a document held by those UCLA officials public because it’s related to UCLA affairs or private because it’s related to the institute’s affairs? UC’s general counsel couldn’t explain where that dividing line is after a regent member asked him. The regent member, Michael Cohen, said he wants more clarity when the regents meet again in November.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Democratic Party endorsed Prop. 38, as have dozens of patient and research advocacy groups, plus the state GOP. The union of graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, whose pay often relies on science research funding, has also endorsed the proposition. The union doesn’t represent faculty.

Money raised in support of Prop. 38 now exceeds $66 million, including at least $61.2 million in contributions from Michelson and his policy institute. Roughly $14 million of that includes loans from Michelson. The no camp has raised about $8,800

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