The Brief

After years of struggling to find enough workers for some of the nation’s toughest lockups, the Federal Bureau of Prisons is facing a new challenge: Corrections officers are jumping ship for more lucrative jobs at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

This is one of the unintended consequences of the Trump administration’s focus on mass deportations. For months, ICE has been on a recruiting blitz, offering $50,000 starting bonuses and tuition reimbursement at an agency that has long offered better pay than the federal prison system. For many corrections officers, it’s been an easy sell.

Workers at detention centers and maximum-security prisons from Florida to Minnesota to California counted off the number of co-workers who’d left for ICE or were in the process of doing so. Six at one lockup in Texas, eight at another. More than a dozen at one California facility, and over four dozen at a larger one. After retirements and other attrition, by the start of November the agency had lost at least 1,400 more staff this year than it had hired, according to internal prison data shared with ProPublica.

“We’re broken and we’re being poached by ICE,” one official with the prison workers union told ProPublica. “It’s unbelievable. People are leaving in droves.”

The exodus comes amid shortages of critical supplies, from food to personal hygiene items, and threatens to make the already grim conditions in federal prisons even worse. Fewer corrections officers means more lockdowns, less programming and fewer health care services for inmates, along with more risks to staff and more grueling hours of mandatory overtime. Prison teachers and medical staff are being forced to step in as corrections officers on a regular basis.

And at some facilities, staff said the agency had even stopped providing basic hygiene items for officers, such as paper towels, soap and toilet paper.

“I have never seen it like this in all my 25 years,” an officer in Texas told ProPublica. “You have to literally go around carrying your own roll of toilet paper. No paper towels, you have to bring your own stuff. No soap. I even ordered little sheets that you put in an envelope and it turns to soap because there wasn’t any soap.”

The prisons bureau did not answer a series of emailed questions. In a video posted Wednesday afternoon, Deputy Director Josh Smith said that the agency was “left in shambles by the previous administration” and would take years to repair. Staffing levels, he said, were “catastrophic,” which, along with crumbling infrastructure and corruption, had made the prisons less safe.

Smith said that he and Director William Marshall III had been empowered by the Trump administration to “confront these challenges head-on,” adding, “Transparency and accountability are the cornerstones of our mission to make the BOP great again, and we’re going to expose the truth and hold those responsible accountable.”

ICE, meanwhile, responded to a request for comment by forwarding a press release that failed to answer specific questions but noted that the agency had made more than 18,000 total tentative job offers as of mid-September.

The BOP has long faced challenges, from sex abuse scandals and contraband problems to crumbling infrastructure and poor medical care. It has repeatedly been deemed the worst federal workplace by one analysis of annual employee surveys, and in 2023 union officials said that some 40% of corrections officer jobs sat vacant.

That dearth of officers helped land the prison system on a government list of high-risk agencies with serious vulnerabilities and attracted the eye of oversight officials, who blamed chronic understaffing for contributing to at least 30 prisoner deaths.

The bureau tried tackling the problem with a long-term hiring push that included signing bonuses, retention pay and a fast-tracked hiring process. By the start of the year, that effort seemed to be working.

Kathleen Toomey, then the bureau’s associate deputy director, told members of Congress in February that the agency had just enjoyed its most successful hiring spree in a decade, increasing its ranks by more than 1,200 in 2024.

“Higher staffing levels make institutions safer,” she told a House appropriations subcommittee.

But the costly efforts to reel in more staff strained a stagnant budget that was already stretched thin. Toomey told Congress the bureau had not seen a funding increase since 2023, even as it absorbed millions in pay raises and retention incentives. As inflation and personnel costs rose, the bureau was forced to cut its operating budgets by 20%, Toomey said.

And despite some improvement, the staffing problems persisted. In her February testimony, Toomey acknowledged there were still at least 4,000 vacant positions, leaving the agency with so few officers that prison teachers, nurses and electricians were regularly being ordered to abandon their normal duties and fill in as corrections officers.

Then ICE rolled out its recruiting drive.

“At first it seemed like it was going to be no big deal, and then over the last week or so we already lost five, and then we have another 10 to 15 in various stages of waiting for a start date,” an employee at one low-security facility told ProPublica in October. “For us that’s almost 20% of our custody staff.”

He, like most of the prison workers and union officials who spoke to ProPublica, asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation — a concern that has grown since the agency canceled the union’s contract in September following an executive order. Now union leaders say they’ve been warned that without their union protections, they could be punished for speaking to the media.

After the contract’s cancellation, many of the current staff who had originally spoken on the record asked to have their names withheld. Those who still agreed to be identified asked ProPublica to note that their interviews took place before the agency revoked the union agreement.

Earlier this year, Brandy Moore White, national president of the prison workers union, said it’s not unprecedented to see a string of prison staffers leaving the agency, often in response to changes that significantly impact their working conditions. Prior government shutdowns, changes in leadership and the pandemic all drove away workers — but usually, she said, people leaving the agency en masse tended to be near the end of their careers. Now, that’s not the case.

“This is, from what I can remember, the biggest exodus of younger staff, staff who are not retirement-eligible,” she said. “And that’s super concerning to me.”

ICE’s expansion has even thrown a wrench into BOP’s usual training program for rookies. Normally, new officers have to take a three-week Introduction to Correctional Techniques course at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers in Georgia within their first 60 days on the job, according to the prisons bureau’s website. In August, FLETC announced that it would focus only on “surge-related training,” pausing programs for other law enforcement agencies until at least early 2026, according to an internal email obtained by ProPublica. Afterward, FLETC said in a press release that it was “exploring temporary solutions” to “meet the needs of all partner agencies,” though it’s not clear whether any of those solutions have since been implemented. The centers did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

At the same time, the effects of the budget crunch were starting to show. In recent months, more than 40 staff and prisoners at facilities across the country have reported cutbacks even more severe than the usual prison scarcities.

In September, Moore White told ProPublica some prisons had fallen behind on utility and trash bills. At one point, she said, the prison complex in Oakdale, Louisiana, was days away from running out of food for inmates before the union — worried that hungry prisoners would be more apt to riot — intervened, nudging agency higher-ups to address the problem, an account confirmed by two other prison workers. (Officials at the prison complex declined to comment.) Elsewhere, staff and prisoners reported shortages — no eggs in a California facility and no beef in a Texas lockup where staff said they were doling out smaller portions at mealtimes.

Earlier this year, a defense lawyer complained that the Los Angeles detention center ran out of pens for prisoners in solitary confinement, where people without phone or e-messaging privileges rely on snail mail to contact the outside world. One of his clients was “rationing his ink to write letters to his family,” the attorney said. The center didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Personal hygiene supplies have been running low, too. Several prisoners said their facilities had become stingier than usual with toilet paper, and women incarcerated in Carswell in Texas reported a shortage of tampons. “I was told to use my socks,” one said. The facility did not answer questions from ProPublica about conditions there.

Fewer staff has meant in some cases that inmates have lost access to care. At the prison complex in Victorville, California, staff lodged written complaints accusing the warden of skimping on the number of officers assigned to inmate hospital visits in order to cut back on overtime. (The complex did not respond to a request for comment.) In some instances, the complaints alleged, that left so few officers at the hospital that ailing inmates missed the procedures that had landed them there in the first place.

Chyann Bratcher, a prisoner at Carswell, a medical lockup in Texas, said she missed an appointment for rectal surgery — something she’d been waiting on for two years — because there weren’t enough staff to take her there. She was able to have the procedure almost two months later, after another cancellation.

Staffers say several facilities have started scheduling recurring “blackout” days, when officers are banned from working overtime in an effort to save money. Instead, prison officials turn to a practice known as “augmentation,” where they direct teachers, plumbers and medical staff to fill in as corrections officers.

“That’s why I left,” said Tom Kamm, who retired in September from the federal prison in Pekin, Illinois, after 29 years with the bureau. “My job was to try to settle EEO complaints, so if somebody alleged discrimination against the agency it was my job to look into it and try to resolve it.”

When he found out earlier this year that he would soon be required to work two shifts per week as a corrections officer, he decided to retire instead.

“I hadn’t been an officer in a housing unit since like 2001 — it had been like 24 years,” he said. “I had really no clue how to do that anymore.”

Augmentation isn’t new, but staff and prisoners at some facilities say it’s being used more often than it once was. It also means fewer medical staff available to address inmates’ needs. “Today we had a Physical Therapist as a unit officer so all of his PT appointments would have been cancelled,” Brian Casper, an inmate at the federal medical prison in Missouri, wrote in an email earlier this year. “Yesterday one of the other units had the head of Radiology for the unit officer so there would have been one less person doing x-rays and CT scans.” The prison didn’t respond to emailed questions.

When the government shutdown hit in October, it only made the situation worse, exacerbating the shortages and increasing the allure of leaving the bureau. While ICE agents and corrections officers continued bringing home paychecks, thousands of prison teachers, plumbers and nurses did not.

The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the domestic policy megabill that Trump signed into law on July 4, could offer some financial support for the agency’s staffing woes, as it will route another $5 billion to the prisons bureau over four years — $3 billion of which is specifically earmarked to improve retention, hiring and training. Yet exactly what the effects of that cash infusion will look like remains to be seen: Though the funding bill passed more than four months ago, in November the bureau declined to answer questions about when it will receive the money or how it will be spent.

Demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday in a number of communities across the L.A. region for the latest No Kings protests.

In Pasadena, hundreds of demonstrators started their march at Pasadena City College in the morning, which ended with a rally at Pasadena City Hall.

The energy was joyous, as a large truck with live musicians led people in protest. Many participants said they thought it was important to show up to voice their opposition against the actions of the federal government.

“Especially things like taking away rights from trans people and sending people to ICE detention,” said Tatiana Becker of Pasadena, who now lives in London, England. “This country is not one that I recognize, and I remain an American voter, an American taxpayer."

Before the start of the march, organizers stressed the importance of a nonviolent demonstration. Students, seniors, parents with their children and pets cheered as drivers along Colorado Boulevard honked in support.

“We're here to voice our opinion, and provide numbers," South Pasadena resident Irene Barry said. "We just need to come out in numbers, make sure everybody knows that most people aren't happy with the situation."

Downtown protest

Meanwhile, in Downtown L.A., between 50,000 and 100,000 people were expected in what No Kings organizers said was one of the largest demonstrations in the region.

Protesters met at Gloria Molina Grand Park and City Hall beginning at 2 p.m., with a march scheduled to loop back to the same location.

As the evening went on, some protesters continued to the Metropolitan Detention Center on Alameda, between Aliso and Temple.

LAPD officials issued a dispersal order around 5:30 p.m. in that area, warning protesters to leave or be arrested. Less-than-lethal weapons were deployed.

An LAPD spokesperson told LAist they made a total of 75 arrests — including eight minors — with no reported injuries among those taken into custody.

The Department of Homeland Security claimed two federal officers were hit by cement blocks thrown by protesters and required medical attention.

By 8 p.m., the tactical alert was lifted after police cleared most demonstrators from the area.

High school seniors across California are anxiously awaiting word on their public university acceptances. But thousands of other soon-to-be graduates are virtually locked out. A key reason? Nearly half haven’t taken the required classes.

Statewide, 54% of high school students pass the classes minimally needed to enroll in the University of California or California State University systems as freshmen, according to a CalMatters analysis of traditional high schools. In recent years, the state has provided extra funding to help schools boost their numbers, but the readiness rate has only inched up.

Low-income, Black and Latino students have among the lowest class-completion rates. English learners and students with disabilities also have low rates, but the numbers have climbed slightly the past few years.

California’s two public university systems require all students applying for admission to earn a C or better in a suite of courses. The requirements are four years of English, three of math, two years each of science, social science and foreign language, and one year of art.

Known as the A-G requirements, they often dictate a student’s schedule beginning in ninth grade or even earlier. It’s easy for a student to fall off track — by getting a D or F in a class, for instance, or by skipping a tough class like chemistry or trigonometry, or by not taking a class if their school doesn’t offer it.

CalMatters looked at data from the 2024-25 school year for 1,468 public high schools, excluding about 800 alternative high schools, some specialized schools with high A-G rates, continuation schools and juvenile detention programs. The analysis shows that 222 of those schools posted A-G completion rates of less than 30%. More than 400 schools had A-G rates exceeding 70%.

Researchers weigh in

Schools may have few students completing the full suite of A-G courses for a variety of reasons, said Sherrie Reed Bennett and Michal Kurlaender, education researchers at UC Davis who wrote a 2023 analysis on the gaps in A-G rates across public high schools. Some schools may offer the courses, but students don’t enroll in them. Or students earn below a C in these courses and don’t retake them after school or during the summer. Next, teachers may not allow students to repeat assignments in order to avoid having to retake a class; some schools allow this.

Meanwhile, nearly a tenth of traditional high schools didn’t offer the needed courses, the researchers’ data show.

Ideally, all students should be enrolled in A-G courses, Bennett and Kurlaender said. It’s the only way to guarantee that all students have the option of enrolling in a four-year university after high school.

Within 16 months of finishing a traditional high school, 86% of students who graduated with the required UC and Cal State courses enrolled at a college or university. Among students who didn’t complete that A-G sequence, just 55% enrolled, with the vast majority entering a community college, according to the latest state data from 2023.

A Compton high school’s big leap

Last spring, Dominguez High in Compton Unified had among California’s highest percentage of students graduating who met the UC and Cal State requirements — 96% were A-G ready, according to the California Department of Education.

“To this day, you get that sense of, like, ‘Wait, who, Compton?'” said Jorge Torres, the district’s director of college and career readiness, on how the district’s recent turnaround is a constant surprise to people he meets at conferences. At Dominguez High, around 91% of students are eligible for a federal school meal waiver, making the campus’ student body among the poorest in the state.

Reaching the high A-G rate took about 10 years, said Torres, and is the result of a few key decisions the district and the school’s principal made. In 2015, the district created Compton Early College High School, which emphasized a college-going culture for its students and exposed many to a wide array of community college courses. By 2020, all of the school’s students were graduating on time and completing the necessary courses for UC and Cal State eligibility.

But the school is smaller than Compton Unified’s other comprehensive high schools. Could they scale their results across the district’s larger high schools?

This meant Dominguez no longer offered classes that didn’t meet the UC and Cal State standards, said principal Caleb Oliver. He added an extra period during the school day so students could retake an A-G course without staying late or enrolling in the summer.

The school also revised its student counseling model so that two counselors stay with the same cohort of students for all four years. Torres said that too made a difference. So did adding a counselor who focuses only on college admissions and preparation at all of Compton Unified’s traditional high schools.

The year the school adopted the A-G graduation requirement, about two-thirds of its seniors finished high school having met the UC and Cal State admission criteria. By 2024, when the first freshmen held to the higher standard were graduating, about three-quarters of students graduated A-G ready. The next year, the rate jumped more than 20 percentage points, to 96%.

The work that district and school staff put into Dominguez High School “seems like a strong example of best practices,” said Iwunze Ugo, a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California who has published reports on A-G rates. Dominguez and several other schools at Compton Unified have earned state recognition this year as “distinguished” campuses.

Gisele Genovez, a Dominguez senior, will have taken 14 community college courses by the time she graduates this spring. She applied to UC and Cal State schools with nursing programs and earned acceptances to several. “This school has really shown the importance of taking college courses, how it will benefit you, and it’s not something that you’re going to regret in the future,” she said.

As a Dominguez freshman, Alexis Hernandez didn’t think he’d attend college because he assumed he’d be priced out as a low-income student. But the school’s A-G requirement prepared him anyway.

“Just going to work after high school” was the route for students from low-income families, he thought. By 11th grade, he was excited to apply to college the following year and live on a university campus that’s within driving distance of home.

Now a senior, Hernandez has taken one community college course and has been accepted to several Cal State and UC campuses while he awaits results from other campuses. How will he choose which nearby school to attend? Whichever awards him the most financial aid, he said.

According to state data, slightly more than half of Dominguez students head to college within 16 months of graduating, though the latest figures are from 2023. That’s a bit lower than previous years, but lately, fewer of the school’s college-bound students enroll in community college and more attend four-year universities.

Past a certain point, the school is limited in what its students choose to do after high school, Oliver said. Colleges play a role in attracting students as well.

Programs that expose admitted students to free summer courses and introduce research-tested study skills can be the determining factor for an admitted student deciding whether to enroll, he said. Oliver noted such a program at nearby Cal State Dominguez Hills, a university that enrolls about two dozen Dominguez High students annually.

But students benefit “if they sign up for it,” he cautioned. “Everything is if they sign up for it. We can offer, but we need you to take hold of it.”

‘D equals diploma, C equals college’

Schools with lower A-G completion rates tended to have higher numbers of English learners or students in special education. Plenty of those students enroll in A-G courses, but if they need extra support, such as speech therapy or language development, for a period or two a day, it’s difficult to complete all the required courses needed to gain admission to UC or CSU, school administrators said.

Bennett and Kurlaender at UC Davis said that’s a poor excuse, and that far more students in special education or who are English learners should be able to complete A-G courses. To help schools boost their numbers, the state provides grants for schools and districts to hire tutors, expand college counseling or take other steps.

At Mt. Diablo High and Ygnacio Valley High, both in Concord, nearly 90% of students are English learners or low-income. Both schools also have higher-than-average numbers of students with disabilities. And both schools had A-G completion rates under 25% last year.

“This is a huge priority that we’re working hard on,” said Heather Fontanilla, director of college and career readiness for Mt. Diablo Unified School District, which includes both schools. “Ultimately, we want students to have post-secondary choices, including the chance to go to a four-year college. We do not want their transcript making decisions on what options they have available.”

The district is trying to raise its numbers by changing more courses to be A-G eligible, although the tough part is getting students to pass those classes. Students have to earn a C or better in an A-G course for it to count toward college admission, but only need a D for the class to satisfy the graduation requirement.

“We tell the kids, D equals diploma, but C equals college,” said Fontanilla. “All it takes is for a student to get below a C and everything starts to spiral.”

That’s because students who get below a C have to retake the class if they still want to enroll at a 4-year college. Make-up classes are typically held after school, a potential conflict for students who have jobs or family responsibilities.

So the district has started offering tutoring for students who are struggling, in hopes of saving their A-G eligibility before their C slips to a D. The district is also expanding outreach to parents so they can better support their children’s college-preparation efforts.

Manteca High in San Joaquin County also has a low A-G completion rate, close to 30%.

“We have a great graduation rate,” said Clara Schmiedt, assistant superintendent, noting that Manteca High’s graduation rate is nearly 95%, and the school was recently named a California Distinguished School. “But raising our A-G rate is a priority for us.”

One issue at Manteca High has been chemistry. Many students have struggled to pass, so the district is introducing a new curriculum and adding a new science teacher. Another problem is foreign language. The school only offers a few French classes, so students taking French might not be able to fulfill the foreign language requirement for A-G.

The district is also trying to change the culture around college. It’s expanding its dual enrollment program at a local community college, and sends dozens of students every summer to an academic institute at University of the Pacific in Stockton.

“We’re really trying to innovate,” Schmeidt said, “so students have as many opportunities as possible.”

We already knew that Democrat Tom Steyer, a billionaire running for California governor, is rich. But how rich?

In 2024, Steyer and his wife, Kat Taylor, reported a total income of $39 million, thanks to the duo’s massive investments in the global stock market. That’s more than all nine of his major opponents in the governor’s race and their partners made that year combined, according to their federal tax returns released this week.

A 2019 state law, designed to better inform California voters, requires candidates for governor to release their federal tax returns to qualify for the June primary ballot. Among major candidates, only Chad Bianco, Matt Mahan, Katie Porter and Tony Thurmond have already filed their 2025 tax returns.

Here are some highlights:

Tom Steyer

Income: $39 million in 2024, primarily from massive investments in the global stock market. He and his wife also made $6 million in passive income in Luxembourg, Netherlands, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands in 2024. They collected $38,000 in royalties from other properties and earned $23,000 from TomKat Ranch, their 1,800-acre cattle ranch in Pescadero.

Federal taxes paid: $5.4 million in 2024 — 54 times the average annual California household income.

Their earnings swing with the market: In 2021, they reported $160 million in income from investments and paid $39 million in taxes. But in 2022, they made a paltry $8 million and paid $1 million.

The couple regularly files tax returns in dozens of states each year (19 in 2024) and pays taxes abroad, too. Steyer also has a United Kingdom bank account, which at one point had a balance of $61 million in 2024.

The pair is big on philanthropy, donating $18 million in 2024, including $3 million in stock to Yale University and $1.5 million in stock to TomKat Foundation, the couple’s philanthropic nonprofit.

Steve Hilton

Income: $7.5 million in 2024, including $250,000 from Fox News and $6.7 million his wife, Rachel Whetstone, made as chief communications officer at Netflix. The couple also earned $360,000 from global investments but reported a net $3,000 loss in capital gains.

The couple received another $25,000 that year in rent from three properties in London, including two flats in the trendy Camden area. Hilton, a Republican, reported losing more than $226,000 on his media company, CR Productions.

Federal taxes paid: $2.8 million in 2024.

Eric Swalwell

Income: $461,000 in 2024, including his $184,000 congressional salary and $247,000 from his wife Brittany’s consulting work. The couple had a $41,000 home mortgage interest deduction in 2024. Rivals have challenged the Democrat’s California residency, though he lists a Bay Area rental as his primary residence.

Federal taxes paid: $83,000 in 2024.

Katie Porter

Income: $300,000 in 2025, nearly all from her salary as a law professor at the University of California-Irvine. Porter, a Democrat, also collects royalties from book sales: She made $140,000 in 2023 from books she authored, including two textbooks and her memoir, I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan, published that year. She earned $18,000 in 2024 and $3,500 last year in royalties.

Federal taxes paid: $58,000 in 2025.

Chad Bianco

Income: $590,000 in 2025, jointly with his wife Denise Bianco. Bianco’s return doesn’t break down the Republican’s wages, but his base salary as sheriff was $348,000 in 2024, after the Riverside County Board of Supervisors gave him a 27% pay raise that May.

He was already the highest-paid sheriff in the state in 2023, earning more than $593,000 in total compensation, which includes benefits such as a pension and health care coverage.

Federal taxes paid: $127,000 in 2025.

Xavier Becerra

Income: $490,000 in 2024, jointly with his UC Davis physician wife Carolyn Reyes. That includes Becerra’s nearly $250,000 salary at the time as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary in the Biden administration. The couple leased out four single-family homes that made them a net profit of $110,000.

Federal taxes paid: $116,000 in 2024.

Tony Thurmond

Income: $309,000 in 2025 — $203,000 as superintendent of public instruction and $18,000 from Integrated Community Services, a San Rafael-based disability supportive service where he worked as a supportive living aide, one of several side jobs the Democrat has held. Wife Vanessa Wiarco earned $87,000 as community engagement manager with KVCR Public Media at San Bernardino Community College.

Federal taxes paid: $52,000 in 2025.

Antonio Villaraigosa

Income: $1.4 million in 2024, most of which came from Actum, a business consulting firm with offices worldwide, including Los Angeles and Sacramento, and his own firm, Antonio Villaraigosa LLC. He also collected a $125,000 pension as the former Democratic mayor of Los Angeles. He and his wife, Patricia, filed their taxes separately.

Federal taxes paid: $462,000 in 2024.

Betty Yee

Income: $211,000 in 2024, almost all of which came from pensions and Social Security benefits. Yee, a Democrat, reported $1,300 in consulting and teaching income, and her husband, Steven Jacobs, is a rabbi with no reported income. The couple received $54,000 from selling a timeshare in October 2024. In 2021, the couple also reported $3,400 in gambling income in 2021.

Yee, who was California's controller until January 2023, received an annual salary of roughly $157,000 in 2022 and $13,000 in 2023, when the job ended in January.

Federal taxes paid: $24,000 in 2024.

Matt Mahan

Income: $507,000 in 2025, including his San Jose mayoral salary of $226,000 and his wife Silvia Scandar Mahan’s salary of $267,000 as president of Cristo Rey San Jose High School. In 2024, the couple claimed $14,000 in clean energy credits for using solar-powered electricity.

Federal taxes paid: $99,000 in 2025.

CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang and Juliet Williams contributed reporting. 

At the end of last year, community newspaper the Palisadian-Post shuttered its doors after 97 years in operation.

Subscriptions evaporated after January’s fires, as did advertisers, according to a departing message from former owner Alan Smolinisky.

In the months since, a pair of longtime Palisades residents have stepped up to acquire the beloved community paper.

Under new management

“The Palisadian-Post was a part of the reason we moved to Pacific Palisades, because the paper's role in providing a part of the character of the community was that strong,” said Tim Schneider, co-owner of the new Palisadian-Post.

Schneider had tried to buy the paper before — 24 years ago, when he and his family first moved to the Pacific Palisades.

“We've chronicled our children growing up in the pages of the Palisadian-Post, like a lot of Palisadians,” said Laura Schneider, also co-owner of the newspaper.

The married couple comes from long careers in the publishing industry. When they heard about the paper shutting down last December, they sprang into action and began negotiating a purchase.

Tim says that despite the struggles the community faces, it’s a dream come true to have the chance to continue a nearly century-old tradition with the Pali-Post.

Laura (left) and Tim Schneider (right) , the new owners of the Palisadian-Post, pose for a picture.

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Suzanne Trepp

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Palisadian-Post

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Something old, something new

The paper’s relaunch is set for May 4, the paper's 98th anniversary.

“The first step in the relaunch process is going to be gathering community feedback,” said Laura.

The two have been making calls to former employees and residents of the Palisades, looking for input on what they want out of this new iteration. One thing they say they’d like to see is a sustained focus on the recovery.

“ He needs to hire a news reporter who's focused on the rebuilding of the Palisades. That's a huge theme, obviously, all the aspects of the rebuilding,” said Bill Bruns, editor emeritus with the Palisadian-Post. Bruns was a longtime editor who's been advising the Schneiders on the relaunch.

After January, Tim says people went to various sources to get information to track the Palisade Fire's chaotic aftermath. He thinks a newspaper like the Pali-Post is a better place to provide readers with authoritative and reliable information.

He says he wants the paper to be a central information hub for the thousands of Palisadians who have been displaced.

“ We have 5,000 Palisadians living in Santa Monica, more than 3,000 Palisadians living in Brentwood," he estimated. "So our approach with the Palisadian-Post is to use it as the connective thread that ties together Palisadians."

Former Pali-Post editor Bill Bruns stands in front of the old "Pacific Palisades Post" building on Via de la Paz. The building held the newsroom as well as the paper's printing press.

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Bill Bruns

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Bill Bruns

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Staging a comeback

In its new iteration, the paper will be strictly digital, with a new website, daily newsletter and community calendar to give readers a full range of events in the neighborhood — recovery-related or otherwise.

In time, the couple hopes to bring back a physical edition of the paper.

Several former advertisers the Schneiders have talked to are committed to coming back.

“ I'm happy to say, not only have all of them committed to supporting the new Palisadian-Post, but we've heard from dozens of businesses that have indicated an interest in getting involved for the first time,” said Tim.

Beloved favorite columns of the paper are returning too, like the local Two-Cents section written by residents.

The first event planned is going to be the "Pali Bee" — the local Spelling Bee that the newspaper sponsored in previous years.

Laura says that despite the last 15 months of difficulties, the sense of community in the Palisades remains strong. The two hope that strength will get the newspaper and the community back on its feet.

“ That's something very special about this town, and that's something that we hope that we can tap into as we bring the Palisadian-Post back," Laura said. "This town has tremendous heart. And that's a big part of the story that we wanna tell."