The Brief

It’s been nearly three years since L.A. County received a plan to close the aging downtown Men’s Central Jail. The 145-page proposal called the facility "unsafe, crowded and crumbling."

Now, the county is looking at a possible five-year timeline that community activists say isn’t fast enough.

The five-year timeline presented at this week's board of supervisors meeting calls for 1,200 new mental health and supportive housing beds per year and for the courts to find a way to safely release an additional 7,000 people a year, among other provisions.

Songhai Armstead, executive director of L.A. County’s Justice, Care and Opportunities Department and a retired Superior Court judge, presented the timeline to supervisors.

“I believe personally that the conditions of the Men’s Central Jail are uninhabitable, they are not OK,” Armstead said.

In the past, the county has said it could not safely close the jail without first ensuring that community-based care is in place. For years, groups including Justice LA and Dignity and Power Now have been pushing elected leaders to do just that.

“There is a real roadmap for the county, they just have refused to actually implement it. And they spent years asking for more and more reports and roadmaps,” Janet Asante, of Dignity and Power Now, told LAist.

While Asante is not satisfied with the five-year timeline, she said supervisors’ apparent frustration at the progress on jail closure does give her hope.

Board chair Lindsey Horvath said at the supervisors’ meeting that she wants to see the county move toward a clearer plan on how to close the more than 60-year-old facility.

“In many cases it’s not safe for inmates to be housed there nor our staff to work there as has been stated many times,” Horvath said. “Closing Men’s Central Jail is complex and we have to do it thoughtfully, but we have to do it.”

While population needs are continually in flux, 40% of people incarcerated in the L.A. County jail system have mental health needs based on the latest count in February 2023, according to the sheriff’s department. That’s down from a high of 41% in 2022 and up from 27% in 2017.

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Lawmakers have returned to Sacramento ready to hammer out — and potentially spike — several legislative deals before they adjourn for the year on Aug. 31 and hit the campaign trail.

Think of this year’s end-of-session as a bonus episode to last year’s saga over climate and energy policy. Much of the unresolved business has roots in the deal that renewed the state’s carbon market. But new topics have entered the plot too, and Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón will bring a different dynamic to negotiations among the “Big Three.”

As usual, much of the negotiating will take place at the leadership level behind closed doors. Here are five deals we’re watching this month.

Climate fund a centerpiece to budget talks

How to spend the state’s main climate fund will be a primary sticking point this month after Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative Democrats failed to reach an agreement in time for the June budget.

Now, they have less than a month to settle their differences. Assembly Budget Committee Chair Jesse Gabriel, an Encino Democrat, told reporters in June that the climate budget would be “at the top of the list” for negotiations during the summer recess.

Newsom and lawmakers last fall reauthorized the state’s carbon market, which charges companies to pollute and deposits the dollars in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund for climate programs. The deal also set the order in which projects would receive funding.

But that revenue source, which was estimated to generate $4 billion a year, could shrink by half under new climate rules the Newsom administration adopted this year, endangering funding for various legislative priorities and angering Senate Democrats, who in turn threatened to block Newsom’s funding proposals and presented alternative spending plans in June.

Legislative leaders agreed to use $115 million of the fund for Newsom-backed electric vehicle incentives and another $1.25 billion to backfill the state fire department’s budget. But still at stake is funding for the controversial high-speed rail project, which was set to receive $1 billion a year until 2045. Projects such as safe drinking water, affordable housing and transit are also at risk of losing funding.

Separately, top leaders put off negotiations over Proposition 4, the voter-approved $10 billion bond for climate projects. Last year, state lawmakers fought to secure a piece of the fund for pet projects, some tangentially related to environmental protection, in their own districts in a secretive process that even many lawmakers bemoaned.

Tech-backed California Forever seeks a deal

California Forever, the tech-billionaires-backed group seeking to develop swaths of Solano County farmland, is hoping to get a carve-out on environmental rules for the development.

For months, the group and its labor union allies told state lawmakers the relief was necessary to help California land a deal with Saronics Technologies Inc., a Texas-based shipbuilder they said was eyeing California for its next shipyard. The group wanted the state to streamline environmental reviews and override county restrictions for the development, but no legislation materialized as opponents accused the group of bypassing local resistance and sidestepping environmental regulations.

The shipbuilder announced last month that it would build in Texas, a decision California Forever blamed on state lawmakers. “We were passed over because … our approval process cannot accommodate the required speed without special legislation, which was not passed in time,” the group said in a statement.

“California and Solano County must not miss the next opportunity,” it continued.

California Forever has spent $455,000 since last year lobbying state lawmakers and the governor’s office, according to its lobbying report released Friday.

The proposed development appears to have Newsom’s blessing. The governor’s office called a meeting Thursday to discuss the project with a couple of Solano County supervisors, California Forever representatives and Assemblymember Lori Wilson and Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, who represent the region.

Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, who rose to the role this year, will be a key player in end-of-session negotiations for the first time.

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Dee Dee Myers, who heads the governor’s office of business and economic development that’s been pushing for the development, was also present. In a memo last month, her office called the region a “world-class industrial site” and touted the importance of building a shipyard and an advanced manufacturing hub in the area.

“California is better positioned to attract billions of dollars in investment, tens of thousands of new good-paying jobs and a more resilient supply chain than it has been in decades,” the memo said. “And no project represents this opportunity more clearly than the proposed Solano Shipyard and Solano Foundry.”

Will Newsom's wildfire plan benefit utilities?

Newsom is also proposing legislation to address growing wildfire risks in California but is not giving specifics.

Consumer advocates, wildfire survivors and insurers say he’s trying to reduce utilities’ liability for causing wildfires, shift wildfire recovery costs to insurance policyholders and make it harder for fire victims to get compensation or legal representation — claims Newsom’s office declined to address.

Newsom spokesperson Anthony Martinez said discussions about potential legislation followed a California Earthquake Authority study in April that examined ways to better prepare California for natural disasters. The study was required by a last-minute deal Newsom and state lawmakers struck last year, which required utility companies to pay into the state’s wildfire fund while allowing them to shift certain costs onto customers.

Wildfire Survivors First, a utilities-funded coalition despite its name, is lobbying state leaders to adopt several proposals listed in the study, arguing they would reduce wildfire risks and make property insurance more affordable.

Most legislative leaders were tight-lipped about the potential package. Sen. Ben Allen, a Los Angeles Democrat running for state insurance commissioner, said he would “carefully review” any legislation and urged against proposals to “simply shift around the costs consumers pay.” Democratic Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, who represents Eaton Fire survivors, said she would oppose last-minute deals to cap compensation for fire victims.

Business and labor clash over antitrust proposal

Lawmakers will determine the fate of a controversial bill that would give Californians the ability to sue large companies in state court for using monopolistic practices to stifle competition.

The bill, known as the COMPETE Act, has infuriated the business community and set the California Chamber of Commerce on a warpath. The powerful industry group has called Assembly Bill 1776 “the largest expansion of antitrust law in world history” and warns its members that the legislation would “leave every business of every size in California vulnerable to massive legal liability.”

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas will be negotiating deals with Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

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Business advocates also argue that the bill gives predatory law firms a new way to shake down California businesses by opening the floodgates for what’s known as “private right of action” lawsuits. For years, business owners have complained about California laws that allow activists and a cottage industry of lawyers to bombard them with cash demands and lawsuits over disability access, product warning labels, labor complaints and consumer privacy.

The legislation, authored by Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, a Davis Democrat, has support from labor-friendly progressive lawmakers, but also some who have more moderate records such as Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains and Senator Melissa Hurtado, both Central Valley Democratic lawmakers.

Several of the state’s most powerful unions have lined up as co-sponsors, including the California Federation of Labor Unions, SEIU California and the United Food and Commercial Workers.

The bill is scheduled to be heard in the Senate appropriations committee on Aug. 10.

Counties seek reprieve from costly assault claims

Los Angeles County is leading a behind-the-scenes effort to limit lawsuits from Californians who allege they were abused as children by public employees while in county or school district custody.

The effort comes in response to a deluge of lawsuits that followed a 2019 law that dramatically expanded the time people have to sue for the alleged abuse. Survivors now have until they turn 40 to file claims, rather than the previous cutoff of age 26 or within five years of becoming aware of trauma caused by the alleged abuse. The resulting litigation and settlements have cost counties and school districts billions of dollars.

Last April, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a $4 billion settlement with 6,800 people who claimed they suffered abuse while in county juvenile detention facilities. Some of those cases dated back more than 65 years.

Lawmakers attempted to broker a compromise, Senate Bill 577, at the end of last session that would satisfy survivors and roll back the scope of the law to provide some financial reprieve to cash-strapped counties and school districts. But that effort, led by Sen. John Laird, a Democrat from Santa Cruz, couldn’t gain traction, and Laird eventually shelved the issue.

Now, public employee unions are pushing for a reprieve again, largely to avoid potential pay concessions from their financially burdened public employers. Negotiations will likely take place at the Democratic leadership level between Limón and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

In the past year alone, they’ve helped catch suspected murderers, bank robbers and hit-and-run drivers. They’ve located dozens of stolen cars and helped send a wildland arsonist to prison.

They’re also distrusted and despised by privacy rights activists on the left and on the right. Just last month, police accused a suspect in Monterey County of yanking down three of them with his pickup.

They’re called automated license plate readers. Every day, untold numbers of Californians drive past the thousands of cameras that at least 230 police and sheriffs’ departments have posted along roadways or installed on their patrol cars. The cameras in real time capture and read plate numbers, then cross-reference them with law enforcement databases of vehicles police want to locate, such as stolen cars, getaway vehicles or those that may be carrying a missing or wanted person.

Since 2019, California Democratic lawmakers have unsuccessfully sought to further restrict how police use the technology. They’re trying again this year with a bill that would add limits on how long police may retain license plate data, how they access it and with whom they share it.

Police agencies and officers’ unions across the state oppose the latest measure, which is similar to a bill Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed last year.

“This bill is about one simple principle: Protecting the privacy and safety of Californians while ensuring law enforcement tools are used responsibly before it’s too late,” the author of this year’s legislation, Riverside Democratic Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, told the Assembly privacy committee last month. She did not respond to a request for an interview from CalMatters.

Critics of the technology cite high-profile examples of California police using license plate data inappropriately, including to stalk or harass innocent people. As CalMatters reported last year, California officers have repeatedly violated an 11-year-old state law that prohibits sharing the data with federal authorities and others outside the state.

404 Media also reported last year that a Texas cop searched a national license plate database to try to locate a woman who had an abortion, leading to fears that conservative states that criminalize abortion are accessing California’s plate data to hunt down patients or providers.

Cervantes’ bill would generally limit to 30 days the amount of time agencies could keep license plate data, unless it pertains to an active investigation or is part of a search for missing people. It also sets limits around who can access the data and adds training and search-tracking requirements.

Police and sheriffs’ departments would be prohibited from entering into contracts with camera companies that provide default access to plate databases that federal and out-of-state police can search.

That provision is in response to Flock Safety, a prominent license plate reader company that allowed federal authorities to search local license plate data as part of a pilot program, said Tracy Rosenberg of Oakland Privacy, one of the bill’s supporters.

“(Police departments) learned after the fact, like our advocates did,” Rosenberg said. “And we all said, ‘What the …’ You know, pick your four-letter word.”

Flock Safety did not respond to CalMatters’ request for an interview, but the company says on its website that it doesn’t work with immigration agencies and it stopped its federal pilot programs. Local agencies have total control over the data Flock readers collect, the company said.

“By default, sharing with federal agencies is disabled,” the company wrote. “ICE does not have direct access to Flock cameras, systems or data.”

Why police are opposed

At least 39 police agencies and officers’ unions oppose Senate Bill 1013. Combined, they have spent at least $5.6 million on legislative campaigns since 2000, according to the CalMatters Digital Democracy database.

Police say the technology has proven invaluable at helping them solve crimes.

Tustin Police Chief Sean Thuilliez, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, said the technology helped clear an innocent man. It also identified a suspected killer when a woman was shot and killed on a street in the Orange County city in May.

The woman had just testified against her ex-husband in a restraining order case, making him a prime suspect, Thuilliez said.

But Thuilliez said that thanks to the city’s 102 license plate readers, eight of which are from Flock, detectives quickly ruled out her ex-husband and were able to apprehend her former boyfriend at the Mexico border. He’s now charged with first-degree murder.

“It’s technology mixed with good investigative work,” he said in an interview. “But within one weekend, we were able to arrest the suspect for this person’s murder.”

The Berkeley Police Department noted similar successes after 52 Flock cameras were installed last year. In a report to the Berkeley City Council, the department noted license plate readers had been used in 121 cases, contributed to 58 arrests and led to the recovery of 37 stolen vehicles.

The department noted its rate for solving robbery cases climbed from 34% in 2024 to 49% the following year, thanks in part to the license plate data.

“The technology has fundamentally improved how officers patrol and how detectives investigate crimes spanning a range of serious offenses including robbery, kidnapping, carjacking, burglary, weapons violations, organized retail theft, stolen property and DUI,” the report said.

Why Newsom vetoed last year’s bill

Such investigative success stories may have helped persuade Newsom to veto last year’s bill, which would have required police to dump their license plate data within 60 days.

In his veto message, he said the restrictions on sharing data and forcing departments to purge it could hinder officers’ ability to solve cold cases and find missing people.

State Sen. Sabrina Cervantes also authored last year’s license plate reader bill, which Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed.

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Newsom also said there was no money in the budget to pay for the mandatory California Department of Justice audits last year’s bill would have required.

To address Newsom’s concerns, this year’s proposal allows police to retain data to locate missing people and it makes a state audit program contingent on future funding.

Newsom’s press office declined to say whether he has a position on the latest bill, which has advanced through the Legislature with only Republicans voting against it. The measure is now pending before the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Meanwhile, at least one Republican lawmaker is taking the issue to Congress. U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky recently shared a meme of a “Don’t Tread on Me” snake wrapped around a camera. The riff on the yellow Gadsden flag says, “Don’t Flock me.”

“I’ll soon be sponsoring a bill to withhold federal money from municipalities and police departments that deploy Flock (and other style) cameras to surveil law-abiding citizens,” Massie wrote on Facebook.

Rosenberg of Oakland Privacy said she understands the cameras’ usefulness to California police, but she thinks they’ve become ubiquitous. Police, she said, also shouldn’t have a permanent pass to keep “mountains” of data for as long as they want.

“There is kind of a balancing act. We as human beings also need some camera-free space,” she said. “We don't want to be on camera every minute of every single day.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Aidan Reilly, who grew up in Santa Monica, was in college when the pandemic hit. Back at home, he decided to volunteer at his local food bank.

“And they said, ‘We don't need volunteers. We need food, especially fresh food,’” Reilly told LAist.

That inspired him and a couple of friends to found the Farmlink Project. They cold-called hundreds of farmers across the state, learned about various produce markets and what causes farmers and warehouses to have to dump their food, and figured out how to build a truck fleet to pick up that food on a dime.

Today the nonprofit rescues millions of pounds a week from farms and warehouses in California and across the country.

“We've moved well over half a billion pounds of food at this point, and that's at a rate of about 5 million pounds a week of usually almost entirely fresh produce,” Reilly said.

While Reilly is by no means the first to attempt food rescue to address food insecurity, the scale at which his company does it has earned international attention in large part because of their scale — they mostly work in California but do have operations in all 50 states.

The nonprofit was recently one of 10 companies around the world awarded the Keeling Curve prize. The award comes with a check of $50,000, which Reilly said will go, in part, to paying the salaries of their small team of 25, as well as trucks to move food from farm to food bank. He estimated they could move another 500,000 pounds of fresh produce with the funds.

That food goes to people facing hunger, instead of rotting in farm fields or landfills and releasing the powerful greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, further heating up our planet.

Reilly says the rescues also help farmers save money on costly dumping fees for food that may not be grocery-store perfect, but is fine to eat.

“We make sure it gets to people who need it and provide a tax benefit back to the farmers,” he said.

Fresh produce and fruits at a farmers market.

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A long tradition

With his nonprofit, Reilly joins a long tradition of neighbors stepping up to help their neighbors in times of crisis. One of their primary partners, Food Forward, has a similar story, as does another hyperlocal partner, United Hands of Compton, which was also launched during the pandemic.

Arnali Ray, executive director of the Hollywood Food Coalition, which has operated since 1987, said  the Farmlink Project is an important addition to the existing food rescue “ecosystem.”

“You need all the different players at the different scales in order to make this happen,” she said.

Federal cuts and state policy add to the need

Ray said cuts to and additional requirements to access federally funded benefits, such as CalFresh, as well as rising grocery prices and other costs of living, are rapidly increasing the number of people who are food insecure.

“We've started to see more people that are housed that are seeking resources,” Ray said. “We're noticing more people opting out [of CalFresh], especially folks who are undocumented and scared and nervous about putting their information into the system.”

State policies, such as SB 1383, which requires residents and businesses to divert food from landfills, is pushing more demand for food rescue at the same time. The law was intended to prioritize food rescue, but has proved complicated for many businesses to implement because the mandate came with no long-term funding and requires tailored approaches for each business. And that can take time and resources that many lack.

Still, Ray said they’re getting more calls from local restaurants, grocery stores and other potential food donors who are trying to comply.

“ I look at this as a perfect opportunity because we've got such an abundance of food, and we have so many people who are starving,” she said.

More than three dozen women and children are at risk of losing the services that supported their families after escaping domestic violence, officials are warning.

The contract for an L.A.-area transitional shelter for domestic violence survivors expired at the end of March. No funding has come in since then through the region’s troubled homeless services agency, according to Jewish Family Service L.A., which runs the shelter.

That has forced the organization to cover the roughly $300,000 portion of annual costs through the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, also known as LAHSA, to keep the shelter up and running, according to Eli Veitzer. If that contract doesn’t come through, he said the shelter won't be able to take in new survivors and officials would have to find other arrangements for the families currently in their care.

“The women who are in our shelters have experienced enormous trauma and fear and violence,” he told LAist. “But the children who are in our shelters are just children, and they've also experienced all of that.”

“I'd like to know how they would explain to a 10-year-old girl who's gone through hell why there's no more money for the shelter?” Veitzer added, his voice cracking with emotion.

The number of people experiencing homelessness in L.A. from fleeing domestic or intimate partner violence jumped more than 43% since early last year, according to the results of the annual point in time count released in recent weeks. That equates to more than 5,690 people in the city.

The shelter contract is through LAHSA, and funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. LAHSA told LAist the plight of providers like the shelter is why LAHSA is suing HUD over its decision to suspend the agency from federal grant activity.

“Their actions are putting thousands of people who are safely inside housing in danger of returning to the street,” Ahmad Chapman, a spokesperson for LAHSA, said in an email.

A survivor’s ‘safe haven’

Yaminah is a single mother of two children, a 6-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son, and a former resident of the Hope Transitional Shelter that’s dealing with the budget shortfall.

She suffered more than eight years of emotional and physical abuse from her children’s father, whom she said she now has a restraining order against. LAist is not publishing her last name out of concern for Yaminah and her children’s safety.

In 2024, Yaminah and her children ended up homeless after fleeing the violence. She said she called more than 20 shelters looking for help and a place to stay. But every call was a closed door, with wait lists stretching up to two years, she said.

Their first stay at an emergency crisis shelter connected her to the Hope Transitional Shelter, which provides free, long-term services for women and children who are survivors of domestic violence. Families get assistance with case management, as well as parenting and mental health support. The average stay is between 9 to 15 months, and the eventual goal is to help families move into their own housing.

Yaminah described the transitional shelter as a “safe haven” that gave her family a chance to get back on their feet.

“We didn't have to worry about our fear that ‘Oh what if he finds us,’” she added. “It just gave us that sense of I'm safe, someone else cares, someone is here to help me. And that's so important, because when you're in a domestic violence situation, you feel alone.”

Yaminah and Veitzer, who leads the shelter organization Jewish Family Service L.A., said many survivors stay in domestic violence situations because they don’t know a way out. Yaminah said a loss of funding could be “detrimental” with fewer shelter beds and even longer wait lists.

“What options are you giving them? Where do they go? So do I just stay with the person that's abusing me?” she said. “If the shelters are not fund[ed], it's out of their hands. How can they help us?”

How we got here

HUD suspended LAHSA from federal grant activity in June, pending an investigation into alleged mismanagement by the agency. HUD has said the suspension means LAHSA cannot fulfill its role as collaborative applicant for the entire region’s application for federal homelessness dollars for the upcoming fiscal year.

LAHSA filed a lawsuit challenging the suspension a few weeks later, and a federal judge intervened last month. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter issued a legal order pausing HUD’s effort to suspend LAHSA pending an Aug. 6 court date.

Chapman said the agency is looking forward to this week's hearing “where LAHSA will have its day in court on behalf of all of these federally funded service providers.”

The shelter is being left in limbo amid the federal funding drama, according to Veitzer. LAHSA’s contract is its largest funding source, accounting for 50% to 60% of the program’s budget.

Veitzer said LAHSA and the L.A. County Department of Homeless Services and Housing have been “fairly good” about communicating the status of the legal fight, “but most of what they're communicating is we don't have any answers for you right now.”

He said the most immediate concern is getting a signed contract and funding for ongoing services.

As the organization waits, Veitzer said he’s focused on the 12 women and 25 children living in the shelter, not how the politics play out.

“I do get emotional about this because people are very busy doing a lot of legal stuff, and we're just looking at the hopes and dreams of women and their children to actually live a better life,” he said.

Aaron Schrank’s reporting contributed to this story.