The Brief

California’s culture wars escalated Monday as the state sued a school district over its transgender student policy, and a parents’ group took the first step toward placing a trio of initiatives on next year’s ballot that would restrict protections for transgender youth.

The moves follow highly publicized incidents last month in which state leaders attempted to rein in school boards they said had run afoul of civil rights laws. Under California’s local control system, school boards have wide latitude to enact their own policies — a freedom that’s now being tested as a handful of districts move to expand parental rights by limiting the rights of LGBTQ students.

Monday morning, Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a complaint against the Chino Valley Unified School District in San Bernardino County over its new policy requiring parental notification when students change their gender identity at school.

The complaint, filed in San Bernardino County Superior Court, seeks a temporary restraining order against enforcement of the policy, which Bonta referred to as the “forced outing” of transgender and gender nonconforming students, while the court determines whether it violates state law.

“It presents students with a terrible choice,” the attorney general said at a news conference in Los Angeles. “Either walk back your rights to gender identity and gender expression, to be yourself, to be who you are, or face the risk of serious harm. Mental harm, emotional harm, physical harm.”

The policy requires schools to notify parents when students request to be identified by a name or pronoun, or use facilities or participate in a program that does not align with the sex on their official records. Parents would be notified even if they do not have the student’s permission.

Bonta said this could potentially put students with parents hostile to their gender expression in danger. He argued that the policy violates California’s constitutional right to privacy, as well as the state’s equal protection clause and state laws that guarantee students the equal right to an education regardless of their gender identity.

Citing comments from school board members who said transgender students were suffering from a mental illness and a perversion, Bonta said the policy was plainly discriminatory.

“In its function, in its text and in its context, this policy is destructive, it’s discriminatory and it is downright dangerous,” Bonta said. “It has no place in California, which is why we have moved in court to strike it down.”

‘Desperate attempt to stop us’

Sonja Shaw, Chino Valley’s school board president, was undaunted by the lawsuit, and said the district’s policy is legally sound.

“This is a desperate attempt to stop us, and quite honestly, it’s embarrassing that Bonta is wasting so much time and money on this,” Shaw said Monday. “Every time he does something like this, it’s a gift, because it exposes who these people really are — extremists who want to come between students and their parents.”

At a boisterous meeting July 20, the Chino Valley Unified board voted 4-1 to pass the policy requiring school staff to notify parents within three days of discovering that a child has changed their gender identity. That could include changing their name or pronouns, joining a single-sex team or club or using bathrooms or locker rooms that don’t align with their gender at birth.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond attended the meeting to protest the policy, but police escorted him out when he spoke longer than his allotted time.

Andi Johnston, Chino Valley Unified communications director, said that the district’s policy does actually include protections for students who might be at risk for abuse from parents. If a student believes they are in danger or may be abused, injured or neglected due to their parents knowing of their preferred gender identity, staff must notify police or child protective services and won’t immediately notify parents.

Assemblymember Bill Essayli, a Corona Republican, speaks during a press conference at the state Capitol in Sacramento on Aug. 28, 2023.

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Rahul Lal

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CalMatters

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Chino Valley Unified was among the state’s first districts to enact such a policy, which is based on a bill that’s currently stalled in the Legislature. Assembly Bill 1314, proposed by Assemblymember Bill Essayli, a Republican from Riverside, would have reversed the state’s current policy of protecting the privacy of LGBTQ students who might not be “out” at home. Because the chair of the Assembly education committee, Al Muratsuchi, declined to schedule the bill for a hearing, Essayli said he would contact school boards directly and urge them to pursue the issue.

Since then, three other districts — Anderson Union High School District in Shasta County, and Murrieta Valley Unified and Temecula Valley Unified in Riverside County — have adopted similar policies. Several others have proposals in the works.

Going to the voters in 2024

A few hours after Bonta filed his lawsuit, the group Protect Kids California filed state paperwork to place three initiatives on the fall 2024 ballot that would require schools to notify parents when students alter their gender identity; restrict girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms and sports teams to “biological” girls, based on the sex assigned them on their birth certificates; and ban surgery and hormone therapy for transgender minors.

“These initiatives are necessary because we have a Legislature that’s out of touch with most Californians, so we’re taking these issues directly to the voters,” said Jonathan Zachreson, a Roseville City School District board member and president of Students First California, which is backing the initiatives.

The group has until April to gather close to 550,000 signatures per initiative to qualify for the ballot.

At a press conference Monday afternoon on the steps of the Capitol, backers of the initiatives said they were eager to return rights to parents, who they say are best suited to help their children.

“What we are concerned with is who gets to raise our kids, who gets to raise the next generation of students in the state of California,” Essayli said. “Is it the government or is it their parents?”

At the end of the event, a group of young activists confronted one of the speakers but was then surrounded by backers of the initiatives. The activists wanted to know why adults were speaking on behalf of youth who’d be affected by the policies.

Impacts on young people

LGBTQ groups said both efforts — the proposed initiatives and the school board actions — are deeply harmful to LGBTQ students, and the state is right to intervene. The 2015 U.S. Trans Survey found that 10% of transgender people had faced violence from a family member due to their gender identity, and 15% had run away or been forced from their homes. In general, LGBTQ youth are more prone to depression and anxiety and are four times as likely to attempt suicide as their peers, according to the Trevor Project, which advocates for LGBTQ youth.

“These anti-LGBTQ policies are spreading like wildfire, and people need to realize the harmful impact that these policies have on young people,” said Jorge Reyes Salinas, communications director for Equality California, a civil rights organization focusing on LGBTQ issues. “It’s imperative that the state take action. … We’re grateful that Bonta filed this suit to uphold the rights and dignity of LGBTQ students.”

He said he’s confident the ballot initiatives will fail, saying that most Californians oppose “hate and discrimination, especially when it comes to LGBTQ students. But we are ready to continue fighting, and we’re not going to stop until we’re victorious.”

Meanwhile, members of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus, with help from Gov. Gavin Newsom, said they were continuing to craft a bill strengthening the rights of transgender students.

“Recognizing the nuance and complexity of this work, we are continuing to refine our legislative approach in this two-year session, including working with the governor and key stakeholders, to ensure the most comprehensive and responsible legislation is proposed,” said Assemblymember Chris Ward, a Democrat from San Diego. “Our LGBTQ Caucus is fully committed to assuring that every student feels safe and supported in their school environment and that teachers aren’t forced into policing and outing students. We know that lives and careers are at stake here.”

Flies, rodents and other pests have been a persistent problem in Boyle Heights and nearby communities as millions of tons of food rot in a nearby burned-out warehouse. It’s gotten bad enough that L.A. Mayor Karen Bass is asking for action from the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

In a letter sent Tuesday to county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, Bass said she’s “concerned with County DPH’s pace in addressing this disaster” and the risks it posed to health and quality of life.

“Possibly the worst manifestation of these risks is the severe infestation of flies in Boyle Heights and neighboring communities,” Bass wrote.

LAist has asked the Department of Public Health for comment and will update this article when they respond.

The back-and-forth between jurisdictions

Bass wrote that the city of L.A., which does not have its own health department, is largely dependent on L.A. County for control of potentially disease-carrying vectors. The city has said elsewhere that its Sanitation Department did set about 250 rat traps in surrounding areas.

Bass’ letter says the county took its first steps to hold Lineage accountable for a fly infestation on July 17, ordering Lineage to remove flies and mosquitoes from the warehouse.

“Although I appreciate that County DPH has taken this first step, the County’s report only directs Lineage to eliminate flies from Lineage’s own property,” Bass’ letter to Ferrer states.

Bass urged the county to compel Lineage to address pests at neighboring properties “with aggressive measures to eliminate the flies and any other vectors.”

As for L.A. County’s Department of Public Health, a spokesperson told LAist on July 17 that it had itself directed the city and Lineage to address the pest situation.

“Los Angeles County Department of Public Health requested that both Lineage Logistics and the City of Los Angeles develop and implement a vector/insect control plan,” the statement reads.

Lineage’s part

According to Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents Boyle Heights on the L.A. City Council and met with Lineage representatives on Monday, an inspector contracted by the company confirmed that the rotting food at the warehouse is serving as a breeding ground for flies. The infestation won’t go away without addressing the root cause, Jurado reported the contractor as saying.

“Removing waste, adding odor-control equipment, and conducting a pest inspection are important,” Jurado said in a statement. “But residents are asking a more fundamental question: Are conditions actually improving? They deserve evidence, timelines and accountability — not just a list of activities.”

Lineage has not yet presented its pest control plan to the public.

A ticking clock

The first day of instruction for L.A. Unified schools is Aug. 12, three days before the city’s current deadline to clear the warehouse — a deadline Lineage does not appear to be on track to meet.

That’s led many teachers and parents to raise the alarm about smells and pests that may very well still be around when school starts. An LAUSD spokesperson told Boyle Heights Beat that it is prepared to temporarily relocate nearby schools, as they did with summer programs during the warehouse fire.

Lineage meets deadline at last minute

Meanwhile, Lineage also faced a deadline of Tuesday to present a plan to air quality officials on how to address smells. A South Coast Air Quality Management District spokesperson said that the agency received a response from Lineage at 5 p.m. and is evaluating it.

L.A.’s homeless services agency has not completed any internal audits in years — and one that was started two years ago is still incomplete because management is taking months to provide responses, officials said Monday.

The delayed audit has been looking into why the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, failed to spend $7 million in federal dollars it was granted to house and serve people in need. The roughly six-page audit report hasn’t been released because it’s missing LAHSA management responses that were requested over two months ago, officials said.

Internal audits are considered critically important to protecting taxpayer dollars at every level of government. L.A. County auditors, for example, issued about 100 reports in a recent fiscal year.

“ We haven’t gotten anything,” said Erum Shahnawaz, LAHSA’s chief internal auditor, referring to the lack of response from LAHSA management at a meeting of the agency’s audit committee on Monday.

“That’s the only thing that's holding us from issuing the final report,” Shahnawaz said of the underspending audit.

That audit is examining a repeat problem. A previous, external audit in January 2022 found LAHSA had left $3.5 million in federal grants on the table by not using them.

Shahnawaz flagged management’s delays to the LAHSA Commissioner Justin Szlasa, Szlasa said. He chairs the commission’s audit committee, and has repeatedly called out LAHSA executives’ delays in providing information about taxpayer spending over the past year.

“ I've been trying to intervene and use whatever I can to try to help provide support,” said Szlasa as he described his attempts to get the auditor the answers needed to complete the report.

Szlasa was appointed to the commission by L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.

 “It shouldn't take us two months to receive a…management response to an internal audit,” Szlasa said at Monday’s meeting. He said the industry standard for internal audits is eight or nine weeks from start to finish. That compares to the two years — and counting — for LAHSA’s federal underspend audit.

“We haven't had a single internal audit completed here in the last couple of years, which is nuts,” Szlasa added. He called for internal audits to happen much more frequently.

Long delays to LAHSA audits also are not new. In November 2024, the county issued a widely-seen audit that included findings that LAHSA was failing to complete internal audits.

Half of LAHSA’s governing commission is appointed by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and half appointed by each of the five county supervisors. Bass is also the only elected official on the commission. She served on the audit committee for several months last fall. Records show she was absent for all of the meetings during that time.

Janine Lim, LAHSA’s deputy chief financial officer, said management’s responses to the audit on underspending haven’t been provided yet because LAHSA leadership did not have clearly defined roles for who is supposed to coordinate responses to internal audits.

“ We need to work on clarifying that role internally,” Lim said.

 “The last two months have been probably some of the most stress-filled two months that we've had at LAHSA,” said Paul Rubenstein, chief of staff to LAHSA CEO Gita O’Neil, pointing to mass layoffs.

Szlasa said there’s not that much in the audit for management to respond to.

“It's like, six pages or less,” he said.

Szlasa said  another option is to “just say we've asked management for responses and we're awaiting management response. We can publish the results.”

In response, Shahnawaz said that if management doesn't have an updated timeline for a response, then she’ll go ahead and issue the report without the response.

Once they floated that idea, Lim committed to providing the responses by next Tuesday.

LAHSA’s leadership has downsized the internal audit team — dropping from a staff of three to just one in the agency’s proposed budget up for approval Friday.

Delays in getting access to financial records

The delayed responses from management are not the only thing that’s been slowing down audits, Szlasa said at the meeting.

LAHSA policy, approved by its governing commission, says internal auditors are “ authorized to access all organizational records, personnel, and systems necessary for conducting audits,” he said.

But the auditor has faced challenges in actually getting that access, Szlasa said — including delays in being allowed to view LAHSA’s databases that show contracts and financial payments.

 ”We finally were granted access, but it wasn't, it wasn't easy, it wasn't immediate. It was slow,” Szlasa said.

Many failed outside audits

The delays on the internal audit come even after LAHSA failed multiple external audits in recent years, which have found the agency — overseen by city and county elected officials — has neglected to properly track billions of dollars in spending.

Largely in response to earlier audits, L.A. County supervisors pulled funding from LAHSA and are having the county instead oversee it directly. L.A.’s mayor and City Council have continued to have LAHSA manage the city’s homeless spending while the council delays plans to start studying a possible plan to transition away city tax dollars.

Signatures under scrutiny

LAHSA is also in the midst of a different internal audit — expected to finish in late August or early September — examining whether top officials followed requirements when signing contracts and letting others sign. It was launched in the wake of LAist reporting that found LAHSA’s then-CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum’s signature finalized a $2.1 million contract with her husband’s employer.

LAist also discovered Adams Kellum’s signature, as LAHSA’s CEO at the time, finalized a quarter-million-dollar contract between LAHSA and a longtime service provider she led up until two months earlier.

That contract was signed so soon after she left the service provider — St. Joseph Center — that the contract paperwork still listed her as one of St. Joseph Center’s points of contact and authorized signers.

She is currently under a state ethics investigation into whether her actions were an illegal conflict of interest.

When Bengara opened in Los Angeles' Arts District earlier this year, its owner and head chef had something special lined up in their kitchen arsenal.

It was genshiyaki, a rare traditional Japanese grilling method that dates back 1,500 years.

Chef and co-owner Tyler Burges had only encountered it once while traveling in Japan at a robatayaki spot in Fukuoka, a port city on the island of Kyushu.

Robatayaki, a style of slow, ember-cooked grilling rooted in Japan's rural coastal kitchens, usually centers on an open charcoal hearth. But the restaurant Burges visited had something even more noteworthy: a genshiyaki pit, a gentler, ambient method of cooking that uses radiant heat instead of direct flame.

Loving the unusually subtle, delicate flavor and texture it produced, he and head chef Phil Mireles decided to bring genshiyaki back to the U.S. and build their Arts District restaurant around it. The genshiyaki pit is a rare enough technique that Burges had to work with fabricator Phil Roxworthy for six months just to get the grill built to spec.

It's Burges' and Mireles' first L.A. project. The pair are also behind Smoke Door, their acclaimed Lake Tahoe restaurant, and Bengara brings a more casual, day-to-day take on the same fire-driven cooking.

All roads lead to the Arts District

Chef/owner Tyler Burges (left) and head chef Phil Mireles at Bengara.

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Wonho Frank Lee

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Courtesy Bengara

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Burges and Mireles both got their start at San Francisco's Saison and Angler under chef Joshua Skenes — who's now just down the street in L.A. at LYNX with fellow alum Brandyn Tepper.

Burges traces Bengara's DNA back to two mentors: Ron Siegel, who introduced him to Japanese ingredients and technique in his mid-20s, and Skenes, who taught him to cook with live fire. It was Skenes, Burges said, who showed him that fire didn't have to mean char and bravado.

"The one thing I loved about wood-fire cooking is you get this subtle, sweet barbecue flavor when you cook correctly over embers, and you don't cook directly over the fire," Burges said. "Most places, when you think about grilling something, you think of char, bold flavors, masculine flavors. But Chef Josh — it's like a master art, getting really delicate, subtle flavor using that grill method."

The uni kiritampo, Bengara's take on a traditional Akita-prefecture rice skewer, finished with scallion.

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Wono Frank Lee

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Courtesy Bengara

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What sets the food apart

Take their luscious miso cod. On a normal grill, the marinade's sugars would blacken before the fish cooked through. On the genshiyaki pit, the cod sits at a distance from the embers, cooking gently until the very end, when it's given one last pass directly over the coals — what Burges describes as a final "kiss" of heat before it hits the plate.

To fuel genshiyaki's slower, ambient style, ordinary charcoal or wood is replaced with binchotan, an ultra-dense, pure-carbon hardwood charcoal traditionally made in Japan, which burns hotter and cleaner.

The signature dish

A perfect example of how this cooking style comes together is the uni kiritampo, the Akita prefecture rice skewer, reimagined with uni and cooked via genshiyaki — born of an offhand kitchen conversation with one of the restaurant's Japanese chefs about regional dishes cooked over fire.

Once they realized genshiyaki was the dish's original, historic cooking method, the rest fell into place.

"It's like the most delicious thing," Burges said. "I don't know why it never made it over to the United States earlier."

Bengara's Arts District dining room pairs industrial bones with warm, low lighting and long communal tables.

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Wonho Frank Lee

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Courtesy Bengara

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The chewy exterior, with just a hint of smoke, gives way to a creamy inside, like a caramelized custard, that’s topped with a decadent amount of uni, providing a semi-sweet finish — one memorable bite.

Tasting menu option

Bengara recently added a daily eight-course tasting menu ($98) that doubles as a greatest-hits tour of the kitchen — Toyosu carpaccio with chili coffee oil, pork belly "tacos" wrapped in mochi crepes, miso cod, Mary's half chicken, and handmade citrus soba, with optional wagyu and uni add-ons.

The price includes a beverage pairing, with a full non-alcoholic option alongside the boozy version. Walk-ins are welcome, and reservations can be booked via OpenTable.

Topline:

Why it matters: Museum officials said you will “likely experience high demand and long wait times in the queue" and thanked people for their patience.

LAist saw estimated wait times up to 6 hours, and it took a little more than 4.5 hours for this reporter to get through. On the bright side, there were still plenty of tickets left, including for the first day. Do not refresh the page or you may lose your spot.

The details: All tickets are timed entry. Tickets are $25 for adults and $21 for those 65 and older. Children, members, active-duty military, personal aides or attendants and EBT cardholders have free entry. Museum neighbors in the LM37 program will also be free, with that pass opening in August.

But how do I buy: Each person is limited to nine tickets, and you’ll have 20 minutes to check out once they’re added to your cart, according to the museum. You can find the link here.

What's next: The grand opening is Sept. 22.

Go deeper: How to secure Lucas Museum of Narrative Art tickets ahead of the fall opening