The Brief

Weeks into an ambitious plan to disassemble the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes, officials are peeling the building apart like an onion as the land movement that spawned the work continues to accelerate.

City officials say the land where the chapel is located has been moving around 7 inches a week for the past few months. That’s compared to the period of October 2021 to October 2022, when the land moved at a rate of around 0.08 inches a week.

That acceleration has fueled a sense of earnestness regarding the disassembly and storage of the iconic building, which is beloved by thousands, many of whom have personal connections to the property.

When Arnold V. Strong was courting his now wife, she asked him to turn into the Wayfarers Chapel one day on the way to work. When he asked her why this particular place, she replied, “I just figured if anyone ever wanted to marry me, they'd marry me here.”

The couple got married at the chapel five years ago.

“It does make you feel very crestfallen, very heartbroken,” Strong said of the building’s deterioration from the shifting land.

Workers dismantle the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes on on May 17, 2024.

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The process of disassembling the chapel 

When the land movement forced the closure of the chapel in February, Megan Turner, project manager with S. L. Leonard & Associates, said the team looked at disassembly as a way to preserve the chapel’s National Historic Landmark status. As each element is carefully removed, they’re cataloged before being stored at an undisclosed location in Rancho Palos Verdes. The painstaking process will allow the Wayfarers Chapel to be reassembled to much of its former glory.

Workers dismantle the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes on on May 17, 2024.

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“It's really going in reverse order of how this thing was originally constructed and just making sure that each component is removed in the appropriate order so that all the pieces behind it are in the best condition possible,” Turner said.

The process began around two weeks ago with the exterior wood doors, the gold leaf-plated glass and original hardware removed and salvaged. The blue tile roof at the colonnade has also been disassembled and crated.

Workers have also started removing the uncracked glass panes by hand.

Workers dismantle the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes on on May 17, 2024.

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Next week, workers will begin assembling custom built cradles to support the wood vents in an upright position. Turner said the 16 arches that make up the vertical archway system that supports the chapel and creates “that incredible tree chapel feeling” will be moved off site by mid-June. The vents will be inspected on a quarterly basis to make sure the material does not become brittle.

Despite the land movement and the chapel’s proximity to the ocean, Turner said there’s no historical element of the chapel that can’t be salvaged because of the upkeep church officials have maintained over the years.

The redwood grove around the chapel

Some of the trees in the redwood grove that surrounds Wayfarers Chapel had to be removed to accommodate the disassembly.

The trees that had to be cut down, Turner said, will be used to create objects and sculptures that will be sold off to support the disassembly and reconstruction process.

Workers dismantle the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes on on May 17, 2024.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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Disassembly is estimated to cost around $500,000 for now, with some of the funds coming from a GoFundMe started by church officials. Other funding is coming from money put aside by church officials for restoration work. Turner said that figure could go up because of the offsite storage fees the chapel is incurring.

Next steps and reconstruction 

Rebuilding the chapel is set to cost around $20 million, Turner said.

After disassembly is complete, crews will assess the grounds to see if the church can be reconstructed on the original site. But with the speed at which the ground is moving, the odds aren’t good.

Workers dismantle the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes on on May 17, 2024.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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“We are currently looking at a number of sites and working with the city of Rancho Palos Verdes to find locations,” Turner said. “Nothing is ever going to compare to our current location, but we are finding some that are as closely comparable as possible to be able to create, to recreate the same feeling.”

Spiritual connections 

Reverend David Brown, the lead chapel minister at Wayfarers Chapel, is holding out hope for “the healing of the land, the healing of the entire landslide complex, the healing of our planet.”

The chapel, he said, has transcended its denomination of the Swedenborgian Church and Christianity and has served as a place of meditation and reflection for people from all walks of life. But, he said, the land movement is forcing another realization.

Workers dismantle the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes on on May 17, 2024.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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“We're re-realizing what's truly important, which is the church individual, which is each body temple ... is still tended for and we're still together as a community and that part remains intact and is incredibly valuable for the local community that has been gathering for so long at Wayfarers Chapel,” Brown said.

At Signature Post in Burbank, Mariella Abaunza, the post-production company’s executive vice president for business development, shows off a photo of her talking to Gov. Gavin Newsom at the recent signing of AB 2319 at the Television Academy in North Hollywood.

Marielle Abaunza holds a photo of her and Gov. Gavin Newsom at the signing ceremony for California's new stand-alone post-production tax credit.

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She was there with the coalition that lobbied for the creation of a new stand-alone tax credit for post-production work done in California.

“It definitely restored my faith in government. ... Advocacy works,” she said.

It was a sizable coalition. Abaunza is president of the California Post Alliance, the post-production industry’s trade group. Leaders of the Motion Picture Association and the Editors Guild were there too.

The post-production tax credit is aimed at stopping the flight of TV and film work to other states and countries, attracted by generous tax incentives.

While there are existing tax credits for filming in California, under the new law, productions qualify for a 35% to 50% tax credit if post-production work such as editing, color correction, scoring and sound mixing is done in California, even if the filming was done outside the state.

But industry advocates acknowledge there’s a weakness in the law: Proponents initially asked lawmakers to set aside $100 million for the post-production tax breaks. By the time Newsom signed the bill into law, that amount had been drastically reduced to $10 million.

“That's going to get used up in a couple days. … It's not hard to allocate $10 million in post-production in California,” said Stephen Weizenecker, an entertainment lawyer based in Atlanta who advises TV and film productions on how to take advantage of tax credits in U.S. states and overseas.

But he said that regardless of the much lower cap, the credits will make California more competitive.

Abaunza hopes it will be a boost for Signature Post. The 6-year-old post-production company, which mixed sound for films and shows like  "Everything Everywhere All at Once," "American Fiction," and "Lessons in Chemistry," has been experiencing a slowdown, like many others.

“We're still ahead of the game, and we still have the largest concentration of post-production talent of anywhere in the world,” Abaunza said of Southern California.

But she said that post-production advantage has been eroded by new facilities and worker talent in the U.K. and Canada, among other countries.

Monica Levinson, executive producer of FX’s "Love Story," "Say Nothing," and many other TV and film projects, points out that those countries have another advantage: a lot more government social services.

She compared that to the U.S. “The one thing that this country has are unions, and it has health insurance, and it has pension plans, and the things that need to be put into the budgets of productions,” she said.

Weizenecker also noted that as much as producers might want to keep production in California or the U.S., they may not be the ones making the decisions about where work is done.

“ If Netflix only gives you so much to spend on the production, including post,” he said, “you're gonna go where it's the most cost-effective.”

Federal game changer

While the California tax credit is a step in the direction of keeping productions in the state, a much bigger tax credit is now making its way through the federal legislative process that may be even more transformative.

It’s called the Motion Picture, Television and Entertainment Revitalization Act and was co-authored by U.S. Sens. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, and Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina. President Donald Trump has also said he supports it.

If the bipartisan birth and early life of the bill isn’t enough to raise eyebrows, what it promises may be: a 20% federal, labor-based tax credit to U.S. TV and film productions where 75% of the days spent on principal photography happen in this country.

The bill would also favor post-production work and extend benefits to productions in some rural areas and places affected by disasters.

Marielle Abaunza is executive vice president of business development for Signature Post in Burbank.

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“These things could be real game changers to bring back the work here,” Levinson said. She’s the co-chair of the legislative committee for Producers United, a 3-year-old group that advocates for established TV and film producers. That position led her to join the coalition of groups working to get the federal bill passed.

TV and film production and post-production used to be dominated by California, and L.A. County in particular. But Hollywood, as it refers to what you see on the big and small screen, is a national business now.

“Everybody in this country is behind this federal incentive. And therefore, that's why it's become such a bipartisan effort because there's production in every state right now,” Levinson said.

Supporters have not said how much less money would go to public coffers if this federal tax credit passes.

A long-running court battle between California veterans and the Trump administration will continue, as federal officials consider asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s order to build more housing for unhoused L.A. veterans.

A federal appeals court on Thursday agreed to temporarily pause the order to construct more than 2,500 new housing units on the Veterans Affairs campus in West L.A.

Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney with Public Counsel representing the plaintiffs, told LAist the delay could spell life or death for unhoused veterans, especially as the region braces for strong El Niño-driven storms.

“These are veterans who risked their lives and suffered both the visible and invisible wounds of war,” Rosenbaum said. “What the government is saying to them is, you're supposed to stay on the street."

VA officials did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

Veterans' lawyers in a court filing called a possible appeal to the Supreme Court a “hopeless shot.”

“The government has lost every time they have taken this to court. No court has ruled for them on any of these matters,” Rosenbaum told LAist. “This is part of the administration’s war on its own veterans, and it’s time for that war to come to an end.”

Could long-running case end up at the Supreme Court?

The litigation was initiated in 2023 by L.A. veterans struggling with homelessness. The case has centered on the 400-acre V.A. campus, which U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has ruled should offer more housing to the approximately 2,250 veterans experiencing homelessness in L.A. County.

In 2024, Carter ordered officials to add thousands of temporary and permanent homes, and end leases with UCLA, a private K-12 school and an oil drilling company, which he said did not serve the needs of veterans.

An appeals court last month blocked the federal government’s efforts to halt the housing construction. But veteran advocates knew that federal officials could ask for further delays as the case winds through the courts.

VA officials now have until Dec. 10 to decide whether to appeal their fight to the Supreme Court. Judges with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals told lawyers for the federal government that if they do not decide to appeal by Dec. 10, “the stay will be lifted immediately.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District shortened the application window for specialized academic programs this year, and will no longer accept paper forms.

Applications for the district’s magnet, dual language and affiliated charter schools for the next academic year opened Oct. 1 and are due Nov. 6, 2026.

How does it work?

If you want your child to attend their neighborhood school, enrollment is fairly straightforward. There’s a separate process for the district’s specialized programs called Choices.

There are two windows to apply — on-time and late. The latter consists of all the spaces left after families who applied on time accept their offers.

Here’s the timeline for the 2027-28 school year:

• Sept. 2026: School fairs start.
• Oct. 1, 2026: Choices application opens.
• Nov. 6, 2026:  Deadline to apply online.
• Dec. 1, 2026:  Late applications begin. 
• February 2027: On-time applicant results sent. 
• March 5, 2027: Deadline to accept or decline school offers for on-time applicants. School assignments for late applications follow the processing of on-time applications. Students may be offered a spot through the start of the spring semester. 
• Aug. 12, 2027: The school year begins.

LAUSD will no longer accept paper Choices applications. If families do not have a computer, they can use a smartphone to complete an application. LAUSD will also allow families to use computers at school parent centers.

How to prepare

Every child within LAUSD boundaries is assigned a school — find yours through the district’s “resident school identifier.”

But there are also hundreds of other programs available through the Choices process.

Those include:

• Magnets: Programs on a specific theme, such as science, math, language, advanced studies or art. These programs were originally established to integrate segregated schools and have a unique “points” system to prioritize applications. 
• Dual language or immersion: Students learn in English and in a second language such as Spanish, Mandarin, Korean or Armenian. 
• Affiliated charter schools: District-run schools with more freedom to try different types of teaching or other programs. 

No one type of school is inherently better than another, and no one metric defines a great school — there are many factors beyond test scores to consider, and we go over some of those here.

By far the most frequent piece of advice we’ve heard is to go on an in-person school tour if possible.

“The very best thing that people can do is go to the school and try to watch the way that educators interact with students, the way that students interact with each other, and the way that families are included or not in the life of a school,” said Jack Schneider, a University of Massachusetts, Amherst, education researcher and parent. “Once you do that, you really get a sense of what kind of place kids are going to school.”

Some schools post tour information online, but you may need to call for details.

LAUSD also hosts fairs, organized by geographic region, where multiple schools table and share information about their programs, through mid-October.

The Justice Department found Thursday that the law school at the University of California, Los Angeles, illegally considered race in admissions.

The announcement follows a similar finding against the university’s medical school and comes as President Donald Trump’s administration ramps up scrutiny of colleges’ processes for selecting students. The administration also has accused the UC Berkeley Law School and the medical school at the University of California, San Diego, of illegally discriminating against white and Asian applicants.

The UCLA School of Law said in a statement that it was committed to making admissions decisions in compliance with all applicable laws.

“Students are admitted through a comprehensive, merit-based review process that considers each applicant’s achievements and experiences,” the statement said. “We are confident in our process.”

Affirmative action in college admissions has been illegal since a 2023 Supreme Court ruling forbade it. The same ruling said colleges could continue to assess how applicants’ backgrounds might speak to broader characteristics, but Trump has accused colleges of using applicants’ personal statements and other proxies to consider race in admissions — which conservatives view as illegal discrimination.

The Justice Department’s investigation found UCLA’s law school discriminated against white and Asian American students by favoring Black and Hispanic applicants in its 2023, 2024 and 2025 incoming classes. Its analysis found the mean LSAT score was lower for admitted Black applicants than for admitted white applicants.

The department also said admissions staff at the law school instructed applicants during recruitment efforts, including one called the “Diversity Admissions Open House,” how to reveal their race in essays.

“Like many of its peer institutions, UCLA Law School runs a two-tiered admissions system whose academic bar for acceptance shifts up or down depending on the color of your skin,” said Harmeet Dhillon, head of the department’s Civil Rights Division, in a news release.

California voters ended affirmative action in college admissions in a 1997 ballot measure. In a brief filed in the Supreme Court case, the UC system said the change led to a precipitous drop in underrepresented minorities, especially at the system’s most selective campuses. The brief said UC went on to implement a range of race-neutral measures to increase diversity.

The Trump administration also has sued over the main UCLA campus’s response to allegations of antisemitic harassment. The administration’s latest finding sets the stage for a voluntary resolution to bring UCLA into compliance with the Justice Department’s legal interpretation or, if none can be reached, potential legal action.

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