The Brief

Paramount Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains west of Los Angeles served as a backdrop for movies and TV shows for nearly a century, from Klondike Annie starring Mae West in 1936, to the hit sci-fi drama series Westworld, shot around 80 years later.

One of the most famous parts of the Ranch was Western Town. The purpose-built setting for movie and TV production dating back to the 1950s had dirt streets and quaint wooden buildings including a hotel, mercantile and saloon.

"You basically walked in and it was ready to shoot," said Amelia Brooke, a Hollywood art director whose credits include Everything Everywhere All at Once. "You can focus on the story that you're telling, as opposed to all of the money that you're sinking into the surrounding sets."

This 2015 photo shows Paramount Ranch before the Woolsey Fire.

(

John Antczak

/

AP

)

The Woolsey Fire incinerated most of Western Town's flimsy pastel-colored structures in 2018 along with other older buildings related to the Paramount Pictures production era of the 1920s-40s. Now Paramount Ranch, which is part of the National Park Service's Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, is being rebuilt to be functional while being able to withstand the perils of future climate change-driven disasters.

Brooke shared fond memories of working at the ranch on a Wild West-themed episode of the comedy series Adam Ruins Everything. The art director said she particularly appreciated how the public could stop by anytime to watch the TV and filmmaking process in action.

"Everything that we create is for an audience," Brooke said. "So having an audience be able to easily access Western Town was really special."

When Brooke learned Western Town won't be rebuilt she was understandably upset.

"I was like, 'well, we can't go back and do that again,' " Brooke said.

Rebuilding the past for the future

In August, the Biden Administration announced $44 million in funds to prepare and strengthen the country's national park system for climate change. Global warming brought on primarily by the burning of fossil fuels is causing increasing levels of devastation to cultural heritage. The National Park Service, which is charged with caring for these landmarks, is having to make difficult decisions about what to save — and what to let go.

The National Park Service is currently rebuilding parts of Paramount Ranch, with a goal to bring film and TV shoots back to the location by 2025. Earlier this month, construction crews started work at the site.

"We're doing something called rehabilitation," said David Szymanski, park superintendent at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. "We only put things in the same places that they would've been historically, and they should be about the same size and similar appearance — without seeming to be a recreation."

Paramount Ranch, pictured after the wildfire on Nov. 9, 2018.

(

Marcio Jose Sanchez

/

AP

)

Szymanski said the plans include erecting barn-like structures on the footprints of four of the historic buildings from the Paramount era. He said the new buildings will be basic yet flexible, so production companies can adapt them to suit their needs.

Unlike the old, wooden buildings, the new ones will be made out of fire-resilient materials like concrete and cement board. Surrounding vegetation, like trees and grass, will be kept well back to further reduce flammability.

"We're not trying to recreate the 1920s or the 1940s, but one of the best ways to preserve a historic place is to continue doing what was done there historically," said Szymanski. "And for us here, that is film."

Deciding what to save — and what to let go

Efforts to conserve historic landmarks have traditionally focused on keeping them close to what they looked like in the past. That's becoming an increasingly untenable notion, explained Marcy Rockman, a researcher and consultant in Washington DC who works at the intersection of climate change and cultural heritage. "Our whole mandate is we try to keep it unchanging. We try to preserve it exactly as it is," Rockman said. "That is really hard to do under climate change."

A sign at the Paramount Ranch explains the recovery efforts.

(

NPS

)

Rockman, who served as the National Park Service's climate change adaptation coordinator for cultural resources for seven years until 2018, said there are various ways to plan for the future of cultural heritage in the face of human-caused climate change, from moving a landmark out of harm's way to making a deliberate choice to do nothing about it.

"It's not just benign neglect," Rockman said. "But it's saying, 'We have looked at what the vulnerability of this place is. And it would take so many resources to try to hold back whatever forces are happening. We are going to let it go.' "

Other experts question whether it's worth rebuilding anything in a wildfire or flood-prone zone at all.

"Why are we reconstructing things?," said the Sarasota, Fla.-based architect and historic preservationist, Marty Hylton. "Why aren't we focusing on relocating things, or at least documenting them before they're gone?"

Hylton said digitizing or documenting cultural treasures before they disappear in a climate change-related disaster should become a priority for custodians of cultural heritage.

In 2012, Hylton launched the "Envision Heritage" program at the University of Florida, which uses 3D digital imaging tools to document and preserve historic environments.

"We're much more focused on cultural memory and other values today, and perhaps less on material authenticity," Hylton said.

Western Town is not coming back

At Paramount Ranch, superintendent Szymanski said he's had to get comfortable with different outcomes.

"We've been pretty choosy about what we rebuild, and not replacing everything," Szymanski said.

Davis Szymanski is park superintendent at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

(

Chloe Veltman

/

NPR

)

Congress appropriated $22 million worth of disaster relief funds in 2019 for the rehabilitation work at the site. That money only goes so far. Szymanski said the agency has had to make some tough — and even unpopular — decisions, including choosing not to bring Western Town back.

Only two of Western Town's structures survived the Woolsey Fire: the little chapel from Westworld and the train depot built for the 1990s western TV drama Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman.

The National Park Service said it's not planning to rebuild these structures if they get taken out next time there's a fire. But they will live on in the many films and TV shows that were shot at Paramount Ranch.

Topline:

Key topics: The candidates each had about 45 minutes to individually answer questions from Erin Stone, an LAist senior reporter focused on climate and environment.

Here are some of the topics they covered:

• Extreme heat
• Emergency preparedness and recovery
• Protecting communities from pollution
• Water
• Public transit

About the organizers: The event is organized by a coalition of local environmental and environmental justice groups including: Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters, SCOPE-LA, Sierra Club, Clean and Healthy California, Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance and Communities for a Better Environment

LAist will have more coverage and analysis of the conversations Friday morning.

The Trump administration is taking steps to advance a mysterious and unprecedented project to compile state-by-state lists of people it has decided are eligible citizens over the age of 18 who can vote in the upcoming midterm election. But it will no longer meet its own deadline to publish that information on a portal on Friday, which is 60 days before Election Day.

Department of Justice attorneys told opposing counsel in two separate lawsuits that instead of meeting the Sept. 4 deadline, they would give 48-hours notice to plaintiffs' counsel before the state citizenship portal was launched, according to recent court filings.

The U.S. has never attempted to create a comprehensive list of American citizens before this administration. Maintaining voter lists is the responsibility of states, not the federal government, as the Constitution dictates that states control elections. But President Trump has repeatedly taken steps to try to exert executive control over elections.

The basis for the federal government creating state citizenship lists is an executive order Trump signed on March 31. A lower court had blocked implementation of key parts of that executive order in 23 states and Washington, D.C., but the Supreme Court stayed that injunction late last month, opening the door for the plan to be implemented after all.

The March 31 executive order directs U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration to create "State Citizenship Lists" of individuals the agencies believe are citizens in each state, and send those lists to state officials "no fewer than 60 days before each regularly scheduled Federal election."

The next section of the executive order says the U.S. attorney general will prioritize investigating and prosecuting state and local officials who issue federal ballots to anyone not eligible to vote.

"States here have a strong incentive to actually use these lists to try to avoid federal investigation," said Jules Torti, counsel at the nonprofit Protect Democracy, in an interview with NPR. "But we know that these lists are going to be based on really inaccurate data. So the risk of disenfranchisement here is really, really palpable."

The privacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, along with individual voters, filed a motion Thursday asking a federal judge in Maryland to block the administration from creating the citizenship lists and publishing them on a portal. Specifically, they seek to block a June 8 implementation memo authored by USCIS director Joseph Edlow that outlines the plan.

The motion, which was brought by Protect Democracy, along with another nonprofit legal group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, argues the administration's plans to share Americans' personal data between agencies and then disseminate the data to states violates multiple federal laws, including the Privacy Act, the Social Security Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. Under the Privacy Act, federal agencies must give the public 30 days notice and the opportunity to comment before they collect and disseminate Americans' personal data for a new purpose.

The EPIC lawsuit also argues the government does not have access to accurate, up-to-date information on American citizens, especially those who move frequently, have changed their names, or are foreign-born. For example, Social Security's citizenship data often isn't updated when people naturalize, and the SAVE data system, operated by USCIS, frequently doesn't include records for people who became citizens as minors when their parents naturalized.

Torti said it is "deeply concerning" that the administration is still planning to go ahead with the creation of citizenship lists but is no longer going to meet the deadline, since that means the lists will be completed even closer to Election Day.

"It means additional chaos, additional confusion for the state election officials and just for voters," Torti said. "And I think that's the point. The point here is to create chaos in advance of the election."

Neither the Department of Justice, nor the Department of Homeland Security, which is tasked with compiling the citizenship lists, responded to NPR's request for comment.

The June 8 implementation memo stated that the portal for state election officials would be available around June 30 and a second portal where citizens could check their information would be available at a later date – but that deadline passed without further updates.

The federal government has secured a domain for the state citizenship lists portal. While the portal is not currently online, it was briefly live in recent days with a landing page that said "Coming Soon," according to court filings.

Lawyers representing Democratic party groups that had challenged the March 31 executive order in a separate lawsuit filed in April, accused the administration in a recent filing of failing to notify the court or the parties about its plans to move forward with the state citizenship portal. They asked the judge to require the federal government to give immediate updates about their plans to implement the executive order.

This latest legal battle over the administration's plans to compile state citizenship lists comes as the Department of Homeland Security is ramping up its efforts to analyze state voter rolls with the goal of identifying potential noncitizens who are registered to vote. Previous audits have found instances of noncitizens casting ballots to be incredibly rare. 

Additionally, last week, ICE published a request for information on a federal procurement site seeking vendors who can compile public voter rolls and voter history files from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories, "to support Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) fraud detection and data segmentation activities."

NPR's Hansi Lo Wang contributed reporting to this story. 
Copyright 2026 NPR

A group of California lawmakers called on federal officials to halt and reject a proposed land exchange in Yosemite National Park that would allow a private developer to take control of a strip of land in the park for an access road to the park’s main attractions.

The letter to Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Wednesday was signed by a bipartisan group of 61 state legislators led by Assemblymember Greg Wallis, a Republican who represents Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

“Republicans and Democrats from both houses of the Legislature are standing together because some things are bigger than politics,” Wallis said in a statement. “Yosemite is not a subdivision. It is not a bargaining chip. And it is not for sale. Secretary Burgum and the administration should put an end to this proposal.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum (center) visited the Tunnel Tops in San Francisco in 2025 after he and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi toured Alcatraz ahead of their announcement to reopen the former federal prison.

(

Katie DeBenedetti

/

KQED

)

The group argued that the proposed land exchange is counter to the mission of the National Park Service and the founding of Yosemite in 1864, which set aside the start of the park for public use and protection for the first time in the history of the federal government.

“What is being proposed now runs directly against that founding principle, more than a century and a half later,” the letter states.

It continues later: “Our national parks belong equally to every American. They are not the Department’s to trade away, and they are not for sale.”

The proposal was first reported by news outlet NOTUS, which published a story last week alleging that members of the Trump administration were meeting with representatives of Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a private equity group that owns an 83-acre parcel next to the park. In an email to KQED, Kingsbarn’s lawyer Lanny J. Davis confirmed the group is pursuing the land exchange to build a new access road from its property to the park.

Previous owners have pushed for the same deal since the early 2000s and failed in court.

State Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), who signed on to the letter, called the proposal “indefensible,” and said he’s looking at state laws to ensure a similar proposal could never slip through.

“If the Trump administration can’t defend this publicly in broad daylight, then they shouldn’t be doing it,” he said.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Marin) told KQED’s Forum on Wednesday that he’s worried there isn’t enough opposition among his Republican colleagues in Congress to stop the Trump administration’s efforts.

“I have not seen a single Republican colleague willing to stand up to Donald Trump when he decides that he’s just going to do something,” Huffman said. “So that is my concern, that he just plows ahead with this — even if it has dubious legal authority, or even if it’s an open violation of the law. He’s doing stuff like that anyway. And in this Congress, there’s no one here to stop him.”

In a statement to KQED, state Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil (R-Modesto), whose district includes parts of Yosemite, said she will “keep pressing the Department [of the Interior] for a clear answer that this exchange will not proceed.”

Since the news of the deal broke late last week, it has sparked condemnation from a number of Democratic state leaders, including Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, as well as Attorney General Rob Bonta and Bonta’s predecessor, Xavier Becerra, who leads the race for California governor.

“The secretive backroom land-exchange scheme has gotten everyone’s attention,” said Neal Desai, senior Pacific regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association. “I can’t recall another issue — and I’ve been working in the conservation space for over a couple of decades — where the response has been this sharp and so one-sided that this is a terrible idea that should not happen.”

The backlash comes at a turbulent time for National Park Service employees, who have faced layoffs, staffing cuts and fear of retaliation for speaking up against Trump administration policies since the start of the second Trump administration.

Some former employees have also raised concerns about a potential reorganization of the National Park Service, according to a separate letter sent to Burgum’s office Wednesday. According to an email seen by KQED, park superintendents have been asked to attend in-person regional meetings in September — with no clear agenda beyond discussing “agency priorities, our FY 2026 outlook, and other matters important to the work ahead.”

The letter to Burgam, signed by 20 retired parks superintendents warns: “An ill-advised and hastily planned reorganization could dismantle that structure, putting our parks — and those who visit them — at great risk.”

Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, which organized the letter, said the email about regional meetings “raises some alarm bells.”

“The Park Service is already operating from a difficult place, from a place of crisis,” she said. “And any additional cuts, any movements or actions that would further jeopardize the capacity of the folks that are left, that’s concerning. It’s worrying, and it’ll have a devastating impact on the Park Service.”

Among the letter’s signatories is Don Neubacher, retired Yosemite superintendent, who has been a vocal advocate for parks amid the Trump administration’s changes.

Thompson said she’s worried parks leaders will be stretched even further than they already are, and local decision-making over parks could be in jeopardy.

“Morale is low,” Thompson said. “It’s a hard time to be a federal employee. Anything that … contributes to this culture of fear, it’s just not acceptable.”

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

Long Beach is offering up to $1,500 for local business owners and landlords to equip their storefronts with safety measures like cameras, floodlights, alarms and point-of-sale systems.

The grant program is accepting online applications now. You can apply here.

Businesses with storefronts of 1,500 square feet or less may receive grants of up to $750, while businesses between 1,500 and 5,000 square feet are eligible for up to $1,500.

Nonprofit organizations are eligible as well, and landlords can apply on behalf of commercial storefronts that are vacant or occupied. Franchises can also receive the grant.

To qualify, a business must:

• Have an active business license for a storefront within the city
• Be independently owned and operated (franchises are eligible)
• Be currently open and active for business
• Earn no more than $5 million in annual gross revenue
• Hold “active” status with the California Secretary of State for corporations, limited liability companies and limited partnerships

The funds will be provided as a reimbursement after eligible security improvements are installed. Grants will be given out until funds are exhausted.

It’s a great idea, according to Edwin Jara, who manages a pet store in Belmont Heights and was on the receiving end of a break-in earlier this year.

His store had security measures already in place — two cameras and an alarm system — but even that wasn’t enough to deter a masked burglar who grabbed $1,000 cash and a handful of dog treats.

Despite having footage of the burglar, Jara said police haven’t been able to catch the person and that a detective never responded after he filed a police report.

The grant program is being paid for with $350,000 from the city’s Redvelopment Agency along with $50,000 from Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn’s office.

“Our local small businesses are part of the fabric of our neighborhoods, and when business owners feel unsafe, the whole community feels it,” Hahn said in a statement.

In a statement, Mayor Rex Richardson said the program is a “direct investment in the hardworking business owners who make our commercial corridors vibrant and welcoming.”

Jara said he would consider applying for a grant if the city could send someone to help him and the store’s owner fill out the application.

He was offered a separate grant to replace a glass door the burglar smashed, but the store’s owner opted not to fill out the application.

“There was a lot of stuff that we needed to do, and I don’t have a lot of that information,” Jara said.