The Brief

Los Angeles’s trees are in increasingly dire health, according to one measure, weakened by climate, poor planning and a city stretched too thin to adequately care for them.

The number of “tree emergencies” reported to the city’s MyLA311 service has been climbing steadily, reaching 1,844 in December, the highest level recorded since the city began releasing data last April. A tree emergency, by the city’s own classification, typically means a tree has fallen or is at imminent risk of doing so. A Crosstown analysis shows that the increase is not isolated to just some parts of the city, but is more or less consistent across all neighborhoods.

The sudden rise — propelled by recent rains — is an illustration of what arborists have been warning about for some time: Los Angeles is failing to properly care for its urban tree canopy, pushing once healthy trees to the point of failure. They expect conditions to get worse, exacerbated by a lack of regular maintenance and increasing stresses brought on by hotter temperatures and intense storms.

The various city agencies in charge of maintaining trees are so underfunded that they “are not able to walk and chew gum at the same time,” says Aaron Thomas, the urban forestry director at North East Trees, an environmental advocacy organization. The lack of adequate care only accelerates that decline. “It’s a vicious cycle, young trees that need structural pruning that will prevent issues in the future don’t get care. Trees that are just not healthy because they are not being cared for become hazardous.”

Workers respond to a tree emergency on Venice Blvd.

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Gabriel Kahn

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Crosstown

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Once every 17 years

There are approximately 660,000 trees that make up the city of Los Angeles’s urban tree canopy, one of the largest in the nation. Keeping them healthy requires attention at every stage. A young tree that does not receive early pruning grows unevenly and eventually becomes a hazard. Without that investment, the city ends up spending more money later on bigger, more dangerous trees.

A representative for the city’s Bureau of Street Services, which houses the Urban Forestry Division, said that despite the city’s recent budget woes, staffing has remained more or less consistent, with about 220 workers. That allows the division to operate on a 17-year maintenance cycle.

That 17-year interval is far longer than what arborists recommend, according to Esther Margulies, a landscape architect and urban planning professor at the University of Southern California. “The more you defer maintenance, the more expensive and difficult it becomes,” she said, “because you’re dealing with bigger trees and more structural problems.”

Recent patterns of intense rainfall followed by high winds have made conditions worse, and have likely pushed up the number of tree emergency calls. Saturated soil loses its grip, and trees that might have held come down.

Margulies described the situation as an infrastructure problem. Trees provide shade, stormwater absorption, and cooling in a city that faces more extreme heat every year. “None of that happens for free,” she said, “just like other infrastructure in our city.”

New trees needed for a new climate

Bryan Vejar is the associate director of community forestry at TreePeople, an organization that helps maintain the local tree canopy, among other things. The city’s Urban Forestry Division is “so undercapacity, their priorities are responding to tree mortality and hazards, not planting.”

Part of what is occurring now is the consequence of bad decisions made years earlier. Trees planted across the city were chosen for their looks rather than their ability to survive in Los Angeles’s evolving climate. Only 10-15% of them are native to Southern California, says Vejar. Species selected for fall color or flowering, popular in wetter climates, were never suited for prolonged drought or rising heat. Many are now approaching the end of their lifespans. Vejar noted that Los Angeles street trees survive on average between eight and 25 years, even though many of the species planted are capable of living hundreds of years under the right conditions.

Simply planting more trees won’t fix the problem. “Once you plant it, as a minimum, you have to care, water for three years,” says Vejar. “We can’t plant ourselves out of tree mortality.”

Trees need to be capable of surviving in compacted soil that is often poor quality. “These different pressures winnow down the inherent tree palette. Climate change makes it harder,” says Vejar. He added that in some cases, even native tree species are no longer adequate. “Sometimes, we have to plant for a climate that is hotter, drier. We can’t plant native trees, but ones that can survive in that new climate.”

How we did it: We analyzed 10 months of MyLA311 data for tree-related services requests and also broke down the data by neighborhood.

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.