The Brief

Rancho Palos Verdes life is mostly idyllic and insular. Clifftop ocean views, scenic hiking trails and a thriving equine community mean residents rarely have to go “down the hill.”

But in recent years, multi-million-dollar homes perched atop oceanside bluffs in the Portuguese Bend area have started to succumb to geological forces that — despite millions of dollars and years of efforts — cannot be stopped.

In fact, those forces were accelerated by heavy rains in 2023 and 2024, pulling apart structures, cutting gas and power lines and severing roads. NASA imagery shows that land was sliding at a rate of 4 inches a week during a four-week period last year.

Portuguese Bend is clearly on borrowed time.

Land movement made a section of Narcissa Drive impassable in September.

(

Brian Feinzimer

/

LAist

)

An aerial view of landslide damage at the corner of Dauntless Drive and Exultant Drive in the Seaview neighborhood of Rancho Palos Verdes in September.

(

Brian Feinzimer

/

LAist

)

But people are adaptable, especially when there’s this much to lose. Residents have set up solar panels and generators. The iconic Wayfarers Chapel was meticulously disassembled so it can be moved to more stable ground. The city has increased efforts to pump groundwater away from the slide zone and will use more than $40 million in federal disaster funds to buy properties.

So how did this slow-moving disaster get to this point? Who’s responsible? And where does Rancho Palos Verdes go from here?

Workers dismantle the historic Wayfares Chapel in May after landslides shifted the terrain.

(

Brian Feinzimer

/

LAist

)

Wayfarers Chapel was closed to the public after land movement, clearly visible on the road below the church, that followed heavy rains.

(

Patrick T. Fallon

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

What set off the movement 

According to research from Cal State Dominguez Hills, the Portuguese Bend landslide has been moving for more than 250,000 years. But the more aggressive movement started after World War II, when the peninsula experienced a housing boom.

“Sliding increased as ground water levels rose, the latter due to homeowner irrigation, and installation of pools and septic tanks,” Brendan McNulty, the professor behind the research paper, wrote. “Almost all of these houses have since been destroyed by landslide activity.”

McNulty has since retired and is not available for interviews, a spokesperson for the university told LAist.

The Portuguese Bend area seen from the air in 1955 before many houses were built.

(

Howard D. Kelly

/

Kelly-Holiday Mid-Century Aerial Collection / Los Angeles Public Library

)

Frank Vanderlip, a banker based in New York, purchased the peninsula in 1913 with a vision of turning it into an artists colony, said Palos Verdes Historical Society President Dana Graham. But the Great Depression derailed those plans. Japanese American farmers were forcibly moved off the peninsula when President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 incarcerated thousands of Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans. When service members began returning from World War II, the peninsula became an attractive option since Vanderlip envisioned more than 50% of the area as parkland.

At the time, Graham said, the roads were mostly dirt and to build a home on the peninsula, you had to pave your own.

But in 1956, Graham said, the fragile geology keeping the bluffs relatively intact took a hit when L.A. County expanded Crenshaw Boulevard.

“ The theory was that the blasting and the digging and the movement of dirt and all that had disturbed an ancient slide that had been at equilibrium,” Graham said.

According to historical documents posted by the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, land moved roughly 22 feet from September 1956 to April 1957.

What happened next

In a report to city officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, geologists said a particularly wet winter in 1978 accelerated land movement, at one point up to 40 feet a year in the early 1980s. The city was later able to reduce that movement to 1 foot a year by installing dewatering wells, which pump water out of the ground, but the bluffs never recovered.

Drainage systems in Rancho Palos Verdes were installed in the 1980s as part of a stabilization plan.

(

City of Rancho Palos Verdes

)

In the geologists’ report, they said that since the landslide was reactivated in the 1950s more than 5.8 million cubic yards of sediment — or enough to fill over 200,000 football fields — had been deposited in the ocean since the land started moving in the 1950s.

Residents sue the city to develop land

When the land movement started accelerating in 1978, city officials banned new construction in the Portuguese Bend area, saying they had to “conduct extensive geological studies to determine the stability of the land.” For years, the development moratorium held, until 15 property owners sued the city in 2002, arguing that development had become too restrictive over the years.

The city’s position, city manager Ara Mihranian told LAist, was to allow improvements on homes built prior to the city’s incorporation.

Sliding land damaged homes in Rancho Palos Verdes, like this one seen in 1984, before the stabilization plan went into effect.

(

City of Rancho Palos Verdes

)

A trial followed, and the judge ruled in favor of the city, claiming the development moratorium was justified. But the property owners won on appeal, with the ruling stating that the moratorium was an “unconstitutional taking of property” and the city had to either allow the plaintiffs to build on their vacant lots or buy them at fair market value. This paved the way for the development now being slowly crippled and rendered uninhabitable for the landslide movement

Mihranian said three of the homes built as a result of the court ruling are now red tagged.

Where things stand today

Today, unstable land movement has left hundreds of residents without power or gas after above average rainfall over the last two winters accelerated movement in the landslide complex rendered dozens of homes unliveable, according to officials. At one point last year, land was moving up to 1 foot a week in some areas. That has since slowed with around-the-clock dewatering wells, but experts say it can’t be totally stopped.

NASA’s UAVSAR airborne radar instrument captured data in fall 2024 showing the motion of landslides on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Darker red indicates faster motion.

(

NASA Earth Observatory

)

Which leads to the current conundrum.

Mihranian told LAist that the long term plan is for the city to look at opportunities through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant program to buy back homes in the landslide complex.

Land movement caused a water main to break in the Portuguese Bend area last year.

(

Brian Feinzimer

/

LAist

)

Portuguese Bend resident Gordon Leon shows where he has installed a generator at his home due to electrical service being cut off.

(

Brian Feinzimer

/

LAist

)

As property owners wait for funding for the buyouts, others are trying the real estate market. On Zillow, a home on Vanderlip Drive is listed for more than $2 million with a note that states: “The home is offered for a fraction of its pre-movement value...and will offer a buyer a unique blend of elegance, comfort and breathtaking beauty, making it a true treasure to be loved by the next family lucky enough to call it home.”

According to the listing, the homeowners have “fought back” against the land movement by installing helical piers, or foundations screwed into the ground.

The listing agent, Charlie Raine, told LAist there's been interest in the place for its character and history. But in general, he said news of the landslides hasn't helped in generating prospects.

" We've had people who have mentioned the fact that, you know, how close is it to the landslide? And these are houses that are nowhere near the landslides," he said. "It's something that's on buyers' minds, and it certainly must have a negative effect on some people that maybe won't look in the area."

Landslide damage at the corner of Dauntless Drive and Exultant Drive in the Seaview neighborhood of Rancho Palos Verdes in September.

(

Brian Feinzimer

/

LAist

)

Another listing for a million-dollar home in the Seaview area states: “Don’t miss this opportunity to own a slice of coastal paradise in one of Southern California’s most desirable neighborhoods. Schedule your private showing today and experience the allure of seaside living at its finest. Property located in the neighborhood impacted by LAND MOVEMENT and affected by it.”

Mihranian said the city can’t step in to halt those sales since they are privately owned parcels.

Other property owners have filed lawsuits against the city. Two filed last year allege the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills, L.A. County, CalWater and the Klondike Canyon Landslide Abatement District failed to properly manage the landslide or take adequate precautionary measures ahead of wet winter seasons. The lawsuits also allege that improperly maintained water and sewer lines contributed to the recent acceleration in movement.

A California Senate committee just gutted one of the state’s most substantial DUI reform bills in years, despite widespread support from other lawmakers and families of drunk driving victims.

The bill would have required in-car breathalyzers for anyone convicted of a DUI, bringing California in line with most states. State law currently only requires the devices, called ignition interlock devices, after repeat offenses or injury crashes.

Sabrina Cervantes, a Democrat from the Inland Empire and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, provided a hint of changes last week when she said there were amendments to the bill that had been approved unanimously by the committee. This week, an updated version of the legislation emerged, and it effectively killed a key provision to start requiring the devices for thousands of first-time offenders. Such changes are commonly referred to as “hostile amendments” because they are made without the involvement or support of the bill’s author.

Cervantes was arrested for a DUI in a high-profile incident in Sacramento in May 2025. The District Attorney’s Office did not prosecute her after a blood test showed no drugs or alcohol in her system. Cervantes then sued the city of Sacramento and several of its police officers, alleging that that police fabricated evidence and falsely arrested her. Cervantes’s sister, state Assembly candidate Clarissa Cervantes, has herself been convicted of two DUIs in Southern California, according to media reports.

Sabrina Cervantes did not respond to our request for comment for this story. We will update it if she does.

As news of the bill’s gutting spread this week, Kellie Montalvo was left wondering if there’d been some sort of horrible mistake. Montalvo, whose 21-year-old son Benjamin was killed by an impaired driver in Cervantes’s district in 2020, said she was just in Sacramento two weeks ago lobbying lawmakers – including Cervantes – on a slate of dangerous driving bills. Many of those bills have already failed.

“It’s heartbreaking, and I try to tell myself not to lose hope,” Montalvo said. “I mean, California has got to do something. Our numbers are horrific.”

Alcohol-related roadway deaths in California spiked more than 50% in a decade — an increase more than twice as steep as the rest of the country, federal data shows. More than 1,300 people die each year statewide in drunken collisions.

Over the last two years, a CalMatters investigation has shown how state officials have allowed dangerous drivers to stay on the road and kill, and how elected leaders have looked away even as the death toll skyrocketed.

For years, lawmakers have tried and failed to require in-car breathalyzers for all DUI offenders. Progressive justice reform groups and the DMV have opposed similar bills in the past, citing fears about unfairly penalizing poor DUI offenders, high costs and the DMV’s aging technology.

Montalvo and other advocates thought this year might be different. The DMV has actively participated in state hearings and, she and others said, provided technical advice to make sure the bill was realistic. Gov. Gavin Newsom also instructed lawmakers last year to continue to work on the state’s breathalyzer laws and develop “a lasting program that strengthens public safety.”

It’s unclear why this year’s bill was gutted at the 11th hour. Public records show that Senate Appropriations committee staff recently expressed concern about costs.

The amendment process is opaque even to Sacramento insiders.

“Honestly it’s sometimes a bit of a black box even for us as legislators,” said the bill’s author, Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, an Orange County Democrat. “I am still trying myself to get to the bottom of it.”

Petrie-Norris, who has spent the past three years trying to pass a version of this bill, said she does not believe Cervantes’ personal experience played a role in the decision to amend the bill. She added that she is still working to re-amend the measure after “unintended consequences” that she says would make the policy unworkable for the DMV and hurt California’s eligibility for federal funding.

Asked for an interview to explain the changes to the bill, Senate President Pro Tem Monique Límon’s office referred questions to Cervantes. Diana Crofts-Pelayo, Newsom’s chief deputy director of communications, also declined to answer questions about the breathalyzer bill, saying the office does not typically comment on pending legislation.

While the bill heads into the final days of negotiations, Montalvo and other victims’ families are grappling with deja vu. It was just about a year ago that they were standing in the Capitol with photos of their loved ones and told the bill was doomed.

She stays busy checking in with the parole officer for the Riverside County driver who killed her son. Last she heard, the driver was trying to get her license back after being released early from prison.

Long Beach streets got deadlier last year than they’ve been in a decade. Now the city wants to build a whole new division bent on reversing that, powered by the $5 million it expects to get annually by ticketing people with new speed cameras.

As part of Long Beach’s budget, city leaders are proposing a new traffic safety division, which consolidates two Public Works teams and adds more than a dozen staff who will administer a state pilot program for 18 automated speed cameras around the city.

A proposed traffic safety division

It comes after the city saw a record number of fatal traffic collisions in 2025 — 53 last year, the most in more than 10 years — that includes 32 pedestrians, cyclists and e-scooter riders killed. That eclipsed the number of people murdered in the city that year.

High rates of traffic deaths and collisions coincide with a record number of public requests to overhaul dangerous arterial streets, calibrate traffic lights and add traffic calming measures to neighborhoods known for dangerous driving. Long Beach currently sits on a backlog of more than 1,400 open traffic requests.

Many delays are tied to the 4% completion rate of traffic investigations. Officials explained many of those unresolved cases involve arterial streets the city already knows need expensive, yearslong overhauls. Neighborhood traffic calming requests have also spiked, from about 35 in the second half of last fiscal year to 306 in the first half of this one.

Councilmember Joni Ricks-Oddie said the shift reflects years of pressure from residents.

She added that the old system wasn’t built for the volume of requests coming in now.

“I think we all recognize that the old ways of managing these requests simply just wasn’t working for the volume that we are seeing come into Public Works,” she said.

Public Works Director Josh Hickman put it more bluntly: “We’re barely keeping up,” citing data that requests have risen swiftly this year compared to late last year.

He explained the current model only adds unnecessary delays, even on simple fixes.

“In order to do street sweeping and in order to enforce parking control, you need to have signs,” he said as an example. “Those require our engineers to review and approve the signs, which are in a different bureau. Once it gets approved, well, then it requires another bureau to go and install those signs.”

The new division could streamline the city's traffic system

This division would alleviate that, he said, by folding the city’s existing traffic engineering and traffic operations divisions into one unit under the Transportation Services Bureau.

The new division will be powered by citation revenue generated from the city’s automated speed enforcement program, a state pilot that will bring 18 cameras to handpicked streets and intersections later this fall, with warnings starting in October and citations beginning in December.

Officials say the cameras will rake in about $5 million a year, half of which will go toward operating costs with the other half restricted to funding traffic-calming projects.

Hickman called that estimate “quite conservative,” in hopes that the cameras will discourage drivers afraid of paying for tickets — which start at $50 for those driving 11 mph over the limit.

New speed cameras

It’s a program that has seen success in other California cities.

In San Francisco, the program’s 56 cameras led to 163,906 citations and brought in $7.2 million in its first year, according to the city’s transit agency. About 65% of drivers who got a warning or ticket didn’t reoffend, and 82% were cited no more than once or twice over the year.

Madhu Unnikrishnan, a spokesman for SFMTA, said that has led to $3 million in street improvements across San Francisco, while the rate of drivers going 10 mph or more over the limit has fallen by 80% in the enforcement areas.

By state law, that money has to cover operating costs first, and anything left over must go toward traffic calming — such as crosswalk upgrades, no-turn-on-red signs, speed humps — within three years. It can’t be spent on anything else, even to help close a city’s budget gap.

Jonathon Bolin, a Public Works bureau manager, emphasized that the point of the cameras is to change driver behavior and discourage speeding, not “bankroll revenue.”

Long Beach’s 2027 budget would add seven new traffic and five new customer service positions to the division. Hickman said the department plans to fill the new positions “as quickly as possible.”

Seperately, the city is also proposing $37.3 million for roadway improvements, curb and sidewalk improvements and traffic safety projects funded by the Measure A sales tax.

An additional effort by state Sen. Lena Gonzalez is looking to place more speed cameras along Pacific Coast Highway.

Reading, writing, and drilling down on the craft — that’s the focus this weekend at the 2nd Annual Los Feliz Writers Festival. Various free workshops are happening at multiple venues across the neighborhood such as Barnsdall Art Park, Fred 62, and the Vermont Triangle.

A tradition of writers

Festival founder Sammy Ginsberg has a passion for small literary festivals. She fell in love with them while studying abroad in the United Kingdom, and once she moved back to Los Angeles, her love continued.

Sammy Ginsberg (right) poses for a picture at a Los Feliz Writers with L.A. Poet Laureate Brian-Sonia Wallace (left).

(

Sammy Ginsberg

/

Sammy Ginsberg

)

Last year she set about hosting one in her own neighborhood, Los Feliz.

“There's a tradition of writers and artists being in Los Feliz. Joan Didion lived in Los Feliz for a bit. Charles Bukowski went to Jumbo's [Clown Room],” Ginsberg said.

Last year’s inaugural festival had six events and about 100 people. This year, there are 1,000 RSVPs for its 13 events.

Local Feliz

Writers living in Los Feliz are leading all of the workshops. Like William J. Meyer, who’s published his fantasy and sci-fi writing as podcasts. His workshop is at the diner Fred 62 this afternoon, focused on how to write with audio in mind.

Attendees at a Los Feliz Writers Festival event.

(

Sammy Ginsberg

/

Sammy Ginsberg

)

“It's about taking that writing and making it fun for an audio recording. Tone, voice, and things like that,” said Ginsberg.

Willa Lane is a writer and tarot reader. She’ll perform tarot readings today at her workshop in Barnsdall Art Park, using the cards and their symbolism as writing prompts.

Willa Lane sits in front of a table with her tarot cards.

(

Willa Lane

/

Willa Lane

)

“Sylvia Plath had a deck of tarot cards that she used. So a lot of artists and creatives have been using tarot to inform their work at some level,” Lane said.

Today’s events culminate in a live reading of a zine put together by Los Feliz Writers for the festival. The Barnsdall Art Park event will feature a mix of short stories, a screenplay, an audio play, and more.

“ I wanted to represent different voices in the neighborhood and different backgrounds and I really think that this does,” Ginsberg said.

A literary event for every neighborhood

The festival continues through tomorrow with an open mic at the Vermont Triangle, a panel and performances from writers of color, and a mixer for activists and writers.

Ginsberg wants to continue the literary tradition in Los Feliz — for all kinds of writers, emerging or established.

“Live, work, or play. It's L.A., that's the energy. Like, we want you to be part of this,” Ginsberg said.

She said the wider vision is to help and inspire other neighborhoods to build their own literary events.

"There’s 99 neighborhood councils in Los Angeles. That’s like 99 writers' festivals and 99 poet laureates," Ginsberg said. "That is magical."

Bellflower isn’t exactly known for its stand-up comedy culture. But that may be changing.

Since 2021, comedians like Tisha Campbell, Frankie Quiñones and Jo Koy have taken the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in downtown Bellflower.

“We knew that the Downeys, the Cerritos, the Lakewoods, the Long Beaches, the Norwalks, and Compton and Paramount would come,” said general manager and co-owner John Giries. “That was our bet, and it's been working.”

Jo Koy (left) and Finesse Mitchell (right) take the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Courtesy The Stand Up Comedy Club

)

From a comedy magazine to a comedy club

Giries, a former stand-up comedian himself, grew up in Bellflower. He co-created and helped run The Stand Up Comedy Magazine in the mid-aughts, along with his late friend and fellow comedian Julian Vazquez. Names such as Maz Jobrani, Sebastian Maniscalco and Rachel Feinstein all graced its cover.

After Vazquez’s passing in 2020, Giries decided to put the magazine on hold indefinitely and launch a comedy club.

The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Giries’ family was an investor in Hambone’s BBQ Smokehouse on Belmont Street, next door to the Bellflower Theatre, downtown. He recalled seeing that theater for the first time and how it felt like something out of a movie…

“It was one of those moments like "Field of Dreams" where Kevin Costner saw the baseball diamond being built in the cornfield,” Giries said. “And I kind of looked at it and said, ‘you know, I can see it.’”

Tisha Campbell takes the stage at The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Courtesy The Stand Up Comedy Club

)

After doing gut renovations and waiting through the first year of the pandemic, Giries and his wife and co-owner, Scarlett, opened the club in June 2021.

The roughly 2,400-square-foot space space seats 140 and has a full bar with a steakhouse feel. Photos and memorabilia of Robin Williams, Richard Pryor and Phyllis Diller pay tribute to some of comedy’s legends.

Why Bellflower, not Hollywood

Giries had always planned to have famous comedians perform here. He chose Bellflower because it didn’t have the competition of legacy clubs such as the Improv, The Comedy Store or the Laugh Factory. It was also a closer alternative for locals who didn’t want to brave Hollywood traffic and pay for valet parking.

Interior of The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

Interior and stage of The Stand Up Comedy Club in Bellflower.

(

Audrey Ngo

/

LAist

)

“[Bellflower] fit the criteria of what we wanted to do. It's not in the desert. You're not by the beach and it's easy to get to if you live in a five to 10 mile radius,” Giries said.

“So never L.A. Never thought about it once.”

Landing the headliners

For the first three years of opening the club, Giries focused on getting big-name acts. He had already made connections with notable performers through his magazine, and was able to enlist help from talent bookers including Richard Barrett, who was the entertainment director for The Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. Giries credits Barrett as “one of the best bookers in L.A.”

Since then, Deon Cole, Sheryl Underwood, Paul Reiser, Billy Gardell, Chaunté Wayans and others have taken the stage.

That list is growing.

Stormy Daniels visited the club in July on her "Unicorns in the Kitchen" storytelling and comedy tour. Last week, Jamie Foxx produced and hosted a comedy special featuring Donald Ray “Speedy” Caldwell. All four shows were sold out.

Giries recognizes that the club is still young, but is proud of what they’ve accomplished since opening five years ago.

“No one remembers, ‘Hey, they've been here for 30 years,'" Giries said. “They just remember, ‘Man, that club was kind of cool. They really took care of us. That was really funny stuff there.’”