The Brief

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has unanimously voted to develop a coastal resiliency strategy as sea levels continue to rise worldwide.

The initiative aims to preserve L.A.’s beaches in the decades to come, especially as they’re affected by adverse weather events like coastal storms and flooding.

Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Lindsey Horvath authored the motion, which highlighted two ways of protecting local beaches: transporting sediment from the mountains to the beaches and reintroducing native plants to act as anchors to keep sand from being swept away.

While the plan aims to protect L.A.’s beaches for future generations, some coastal areas are already seeing the effects of erosion. Zuma Beach and Redondo Beach are narrowing as their iconic white sand gets swept into the sea. In 2021, an access road near Point Dume collapsed into the ocean.

“Our 18 county-operated beaches from Malibu to Redondo Beach to San Pedro are a critical resource for all Angelenos as our region gets hotter,” Horvath said at the supervisors meeting Tuesday. “If we don’t act soon, the public may lose access to these beaches forever, or they’ll become resources only for the privileged few who live near the coast.”

According to county officials, L.A.’s beaches see 70 million annual visitors from near and far, contributing an estimated $2.2 billion to the local economy.

The county's strategy is under development and will require the input of county departments, experts and nonprofits, but officials hope to use a variety of tactics to combat beach erosion in the decades to come, as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects sea levels will rise by 10 to 12 inches by 2050.

“Something that might work really well in a part of Zuma may not be the right solution for, say, Redondo Beach,” said Carol Baker, deputy director at L.A. County Beaches and Harbors. “So we've been getting grounded with each beach and working with coastal engineers and experts on coastal restoration and dune building to come up with the best opportunities possible.”

The county's beach-saving proposals

The motion calls for further creation of special zones filled with native plants that anchor the beaches and keep sand from being swept away, often called “living shorelines.”

Nonprofit agency the Bay Foundation is one of many organizations partnering with the county on its plan. They’ve developed living shorelines from Malibu to Manhattan Beach, including a current call for proposals on a living shoreline and dune restoration project in Santa Monica.

“We are using a very nature-intensive, affordable, and largely hands-off approach to getting this done,” Bay Foundation chief operating officer Tom Ford said.

As part of the motion, the county will look into the possibility of hauling sediment from reservoirs and flood control channels upstream. Since most rivers in the region have been directed into concrete channels, they don’t pick up the kind of sediment they would running their natural course, which then lessens the supply of sand and sediment on beaches.

“The entire coastline of Santa Monica Bay is sediment starved,” Ford said. “With all of the infrastructure that this city has required over the past call it a century, we've stopped the mountains from crumbling into the sea. We've contained the sediment that would move down through our rivers and creeks and streams from making it to the coast.”

L.A. County's existing preservation efforts

These protective measures will combine with existing beach preservation efforts, like dredging Marina del Rey Harbor for sand and the creation of dunes at beaches like Dockweiler and Venice.

“This fits right into what we've had to focus on in recent years, but now the urgency is greater,” Baker said. “Those wide swaths of beach that we think of when we think of Southern California, they didn't all just pop up naturally. A lot of investment was made in building that infrastructure in many cases. And in order to preserve it, we're going to have to reinvest again.”

County officials and their partners hope that this will help ensure L.A. residents can enjoy the beaches for as long as they can.

“In 100 years, I'd say that everything's vulnerable, and that there's nothing along our coastline that escapes a hundred year sea level rise projection without us actively trying to change the physical structure of the coast,” Ford said.

Raul Malo, the leader of the country band The Mavericks and one of the most recognizable voices in roots music, died Monday night, according to a representative of the band. The guitarist and singer had been battling cancer.

He was hospitalized last week, forcing him to miss tribute shows staged in his honor at the Ryman Auditorium over the weekend. He was 60 years old.

"No one embodied life and love, joy and passion, family, friends, music and adventure the way our beloved Raul did," read a statement released by his family.

Malo's group, The Mavericks, mourned the loss of their leader in a social post.

"Anyone with the pleasure of being in Raul's orbit knew that he was a force of human nature, with an infectious energy," the statement read. "Over a career of more than three decades entertaining millions around the globe, his towering creative contributions and unrivaled, generational talent created the kind of multicultural American music reaching far beyond America itself."

Over a career that lasted four decades, The Mavericks lived up to the band's name, challenging expectations and following a roadmap crafted by Malo's expansive musical upbringing as the son of Cuban immigrants in Miami.

"I grew up in a very musical household. There was all kinds of music around always," he told WHYY's Fresh Air in 1995. "We listened to everything from Hank Williams to Celia Cruz to Sam Cooke to Bobby Darin. It didn't matter."

In 1992, Malo told NPR that his widespread influences weren't always understood or appreciated in his South Florida hometown, but he said that his struggle to fit in taught him to trust his instincts. Malo had become the guitarist and lead singer for The Mavericks in 1989, alongside co-founders Robert Reynolds and Paul Deakin, and his roaring, sentimental voice defined the band's sound and remained its constant as the group's catalog moved from slow, tender ballads to full-throttle rock songs. In 1995, the band released its biggest hit with "All You Ever Do Is Bring Me Down," a swinging country song featuring an assist from Tex-Mex accordion legend Flaco Jimenez.

As the band grew in members and devoted listeners, The Mavericks continued to push the boundaries of American music, weaving a richly layered tapestry of textures and stories. With more than a dozen studio albums, The Mavericks collected praise and recognition from the Academy of Country Music, the Country Music Association and the Recording Academy. Although they took a hiatus for several years, Malo never stopped making music — and returned to his bandmates with renewed inspiration.

Following its 30th anniversary, the group released its first full-length Spanish album in 2020, aptly titled En Español. The record reimagined Latin standards and folklore-tinged popular tunes; it also made an implicit political statement about Latin music's contributions to American culture.

"In our own little way, if we could get somebody that perhaps is on the fence on issues and hears us singing in Spanish and perhaps reminds them of the beautiful cultures that make up what this country is trying to be and what it should be, so be it," Malo told NPR at the time. "Yeah, I'm OK with that."

The following year, the Americana Music Association recognized The Mavericks with the Trailblazer Award. In 2024, the band released its last studio album, Moon & Stars. The release coincided with news of Malo's cancer diagnosis, which he discussed openly with NPR's Ayesha Rascoe.

Before being hospitalized last week, Malo had been scheduled to perform with The Mavericks at a pair of tribute concerts held this past weekend at the legendary Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Over 30 artists, including Patty Griffin, Jim Lauderdale and Steve Earle, still gathered to pay tribute to Malo, with some of the proceeds of the night going to the cancer prevention organization Stand Up To Cancer.

According to his spokesperson, though Malo was too ill to attend, the concert was streamed to his hospital room Friday night.

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The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has mostly blocked efforts to investigate misconduct within its ranks, according to the county inspector general, who announced his retirement Tuesday after 12 years on the job.

In an open letter, Max Huntsman cited examples of how the county has thwarted his efforts to watchdog the department, which in the past has been plagued with accusations that deputies use excessive force and lie on the job.

Huntsman said one example is former Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s misuse of criminal enforcement powers to discredit critics, such as opening an investigation into former County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl.

Villanueva was sheriff from 2018 to 2022.

“My requests for investigation were rejected,” Huntsman’s letter reads. “Even after receiving an official subpoena, the Sheriff’s Department has failed to turn over records regarding the improper surveillance.”

He added: “Sometimes members of the public wonder if frightening new surveillance techniques will be used for improper purposes under the guise of criminal investigation. Sadly, the answer is yes.”

Before becoming inspector general in 2013, Huntsman, 60, was a deputy district attorney who specialized in public corruption. He told LAist on Tuesday that the inspector general job wasn’t something he wanted initially.

“I didn’t want to go work for politicians,” he said. “But the need to provide some kind of independent reporting and analysis was significant.”

The Sheriff’s Department issued a statement saying it valued the Office of the Inspector General and all county oversight bodies and that it wished Huntsman and his family well in his retirement.

The department said it “continues to make great strides in advancing the department in a transparent manner.”

LAist also reached out to the county CEO and county counsel for comment, but they declined.

After George Floyd

In the letter, Huntsman says the state of California has come a long way in strengthening the power of local law enforcement oversight bodies, in part because of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

After widespread protests — and lobbying by Huntsman — the state provided authority to inspectors general to enforce subpoenas requiring law enforcement agencies to hand over documents and authorized external investigation of police misconduct, including deputy gang conduct.

The Sheriff’s Department — backed by county lawyers — has resisted.

“Los Angeles County may not follow those laws, but it will not be able to avoid them forever,” Huntsman wrote. “The county refuses to require the photographing of suspected gang tattoos in secretive groups that the undersheriff has identified as violating state law.”

“Just a few weeks ago, we requested some information regarding an investigation, and a pair of commanders refused to give it to us,” Huntsman said in an interview with LAist.

Origin of the office 

The Inspector General’s Office was created by the county Board of Supervisors in 2013 in response to a scandal that included former Sheriff Lee Baca covering up the abuses of jail inmates.

Baca went to federal prison.

Since then, the office has issued dozens of reports with recommendations for improving living conditions inside jails that some have described as “filthy,” stopping abuses of juveniles inside juvenile halls and providing shower privacy for inmates as part of the requirements under the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

“All of these abuses were reported by the Office of Inspector General and recommendations were ignored,” Huntsman wrote. Often, it took court orders to enact change.

“When we first blew the whistle on the torturous chaining of mentally ill prisoners to benches for 36 hours at a time, it was only a court order that ended the practice,” he wrote. “Time and time again, this pattern repeated itself.”

Huntsman wrote the county has permitted the Sheriff’s Department to block oversight and defunded the Office of Inspector General by removing a third of its staff.

“It's not surprising the county has driven out two successive chairs of the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission,” he wrote.

“Government always claims to value transparency and accountability, but shooting the messenger is still the most common response to criticism,” Huntsman wrote.

Despite setbacks, Huntsman values work 

Huntsman told LAist on Tuesday that he was proud of his career as a public servant.

“I’ve really enjoyed the work and I’m sad to have it end,” he said.

It’s a sentiment he echoed in his letter, adding that despite the setbacks and roadblocks, he was proud of the people with whom he shared the office.

“It has been my honor to work with a talented, brave and tireless group of public servants to ensure that the public knows what its government is doing,” he wrote.

He noted the inspector general’s reports are fact-checked by the office and public.

“When government abuses occur, they are sometimes kept secret, but that is no longer the case for much of what is happening in Los Angeles County,” Huntsman wrote. “What you do about it is up to you.,”

Huntsman’s last day is Friday.

Topline:

The backstory: Last month, the council's Transportation Committee voted to bring a proposal forward to implement a policy change that allows the city to impound and immediately destroy abandoned or inoperable RVs worth less than $4,000. The change is inspired by new state law AB 630, which was created to prevent previously impounded RVs from ending back up on the street.

The motion, authored by Councilmember Traci Park, reports that abandoned RVs pose as public and safety hazards.

What's next: Councilmember Nithya Raman requested that an implementation plan be presented to the council's public safety and housing and homelessness committees.

Go deeper: L.A. pushes policy to make it easier to remove RVs from city streets.