The Brief

The North Valley Military Institute — a grades six-12 charter school founded in 2013 — voluntarily surrendered its charter and closed its doors permanently on Aug. 25, leaving nearly 800 students and 180 employees in the Los Angeles area without a place to learn and work.

Both NVMI officials and community activists who called for the school’s shutdown have said the closure was months in the making.

Officials of the charter school blame the closing on accommodation problems as NVMI relied on space at several LAUSD campuses. They told EdSource that their decision to surrender the charter at the Aug. 25 meeting — where five of its 10 board members also resigned — resulted from the school’s inability to secure a single, permanent campus location.

Community advocates, however, cited a long history of problems, including letters from the Los Angeles County Office of Education detailing alleged misappropriation of funds, unqualified teachers and insufficient services for students with disabilities. The advocates have also pointed to poor standardized test scores and academic performance plus widespread written complaints of bullying and sexual assaults in the school.

Community advocates who have called for NVMI’s closure over several years have also blamed the Los Angeles County Office of Education for having permitted the charter to continue operating, despite all the allegations. But LACOE spokesperson Van Nguyen said in a statement to EdSource that the county office is “committed to upholding accountability, quality education and maintaining a high standard of financial responsibility among educational institutions within our community.”

Nguyen also said in a later email that the North Valley Military Institute is one of 15 charter schools authorized by the county office of education since 1997 that has been “revoked, non-renewed, terminated and self-closed.” Only 25 of the 40 charter schools remain open.

It was not until Aug. 17 — four days before the charter school was scheduled to start the new year — that parents were notified via email that the school would be closed, but only for the 2023-24 academic year.

“As the captain of the NVMI ship, I am responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen here, and ultimately, I am singularly responsible for not being able to overcome the challenges that we have faced,” said NVMI’s superintendent, Mark Ryan, in the email to parents. “An apology is so inadequate, but I am sincerely sorry for not being able to get us over the finish line and operate this school year.”

More than 95% of students enrolled at NVMI are from underrepresented minorities, the bulk of whom are Hispanic or Latino, according to state enrollment data.

Ryan said most of the charter school’s students will not be able to attend other schools — including ones they may have previously attended — because they have been suspended, expelled or have been in juvenile hall.

Many expressed concern about how the students would fare in a different school setting.

“They pride themselves with serving students that are at risk,” said Carl Petersen, a community activist. “And … I’m afraid those kids are going to fall through the cracks.”

Despite concerns that not every student will find a school that will take them, NVMI hosted an enrollment and deployment fair for students and their families to help them determine the next steps.

More than 25 schools, as well as LAUSD representatives, attended the event, Ryan said. The previous Tuesday, Aug. 15, NVMI held a virtual version of the event for those who were unable to attend in person.

“We want to help! Los Angeles Unified has reached out on multiple occasions to support all families and students,” according to a statement released by the district on Aug. 18.

“Given the school year has started for many students, the district reiterates our readiness to collaborate with families to ensure their children are in school immediately, and we call upon NVMI to do the same.”

On Aug. 22 — several days before NVMI surrendered its charter and five days after parents were notified — the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which issued NVMI’s charter, sent a “notice of concern” to Ryan, Daniel Villanueva, the board’s chairperson and the rest of the board about the charter school’s noncompliance with both its memorandum of understanding with the county office of education and state law.

The letter specifically states that NVMI’s vote to shut down may have violated the memorandum of understanding between the LA County Office of Education and NVMI, which states the charter would remain effective even if the school becomes non-operational and until the school completes the mandated closure procedures.

It also stated that the agenda for the Aug. 25 special meeting was not provided with adequate notice under the Brown Act — which requires school boards to publicly an agenda for special meetings 24 hours ahead of the meeting time — and claimed that the Spanish translations “may not have accurately conveyed the intended meaning.”

“We feel it is important to update NVMI concerning future advanced appointments for its school,” the letter reads. “Based on the action taken by NVMI’s Board, NVMI will not receive any further advanced apportionments for the 2023-24 school year, pursuant to a directive provided by the California Department of Education.”

Abysmal academic performance

During the 2021-2022 academic year, based on the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments, only 15.81% of NVMI students across all grade levels met or exceeded state standards in English language arts, while only 3.22% met or exceeded math standards. In science, 4.17% of NVMI students met or exceeded state standards, based on the California Science Test.

Previously, in the 2013-14 academic year, the year the school opened, NVMI did not have any reportable SAT scores because of the low number of students who completed the exam, according to staff findings on the North Valley Military Institute College Preparatory Academy.

In 2015-16, the same staff findings revealed that the average SAT score for NVMI students was 1,235 on a 2,400 point scale — below LAUSD, county and state averages. Only 11.1% of NVMI students tested above the median score.

No students at NVMI completed AP exams during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 academic years. In the 2015-16 academic year, 13 students took AP exams, but none passed with a 3, the staff findings show.

Ryan said this is largely because the students who come to NVMI are already years behind their peers but that the school had a number of academic supports for students, resulting in about 90% of its students successfully completing a college course before graduating.

“I would love to improve standardized test scores,” Ryan said. “But I do think that there are these other, you know, metrics that you can point to: the number of kids who are successfully completing A through G requirements, the number of kids who successfully graduate. You know, those are very, very important metrics that, ultimately, are much more important for a kid’s adult life than whether or not they did well on a standardized test.”

Staffing concerns

A Dec. 1, 2022, letter from the LA County Office of Education to Ryan, Villanueva and the school board outlined a series of violations of the law and the Memorandum of Understanding under which the charter operates. Among the violations was an allegation that the school failed to provide evidence of 11 teachers’ credentials.

“For 10 of these staff members, it could not be determined if they held any California teaching credential or English Language Authorization,” the letter continued.

It also noted that seven teachers did not have the correct credentials; one had an expired credential, and six did not have the correct EL authorizations.

The letter states that NVMI was notified of the concerns on Oct. 5 of the concerns, but that it failed to resolve them as of Dec.1.

Ryan attributed the problem to a hardship in finding teachers. “Everybody, this most recent school year, struggled with finding fully credentialed teachers to teach in every single classroom, and NVMI was no exception.”

But were the people the school hired qualified to teach? Ryan explained, “We absolutely struggled to find people that were fully credentialed. But … when we found somebody that we thought would be a good teacher — who had at least a bachelor’s degree, who had demonstrated basics … so that they would qualify for the equivalent of an emergency credential — we did hire multiple people in that situation.”

Inadequate support for students with disabilities

The Los Angeles County Office of Education also stated in the letter detailing a series of concerns about the school’s operations that 37 special education students at NVMI had overdue individualized education program meetings — and that there were “15 students with a total of 1,240 minutes of owed services.”

Ryan said in response, that yes, NVMI occasionally had overdue IEPs or owed services, but not currently. “As of June 2023, when the most recent school year ended, there were no overdue IEPs and no owed service minutes.”

Allegations of bullying and vandalism

In a series of written complaints, community members alleged that there was widespread harassment and vandalism from NVMI students toward members of their host campuses, particularly the VOCES campus.

[NVMI “is a school that has subjected the communities in which it has tried to operate to chaos over the last year in particular,” alleged Hans Johnson, the president of East Area Progressive Democrats, which has called for action against the charter for years. “The pattern of misconduct … and neglect of its students … is extremely disturbing.”

On Dec. 17, 2022, German Gurrola, the co-location coordinator at VOCES Magnet, wrote an email to county office of education officials detailing a series of incidents involving alleged harassment— a couple of which were against students with special needs.

They ranged from verbal harassment to throwing trash from NVMI students to cases where NVMI allegedly threatened to take over shared spaces.

“We tried really hard to not purposely, to not intermingle with the Valley Oaks Center for Enriched Studies’ community, not because we were trying to be separatist, but because we knew from co-location stories,” Ryan said in response, adding that students at both schools were “equally guilty.”

“In every case where anything was ever reported to us, or we became aware of anything, even if it wasn’t reported to us, we [took] appropriate disciplinary action … and it’s not a fair statement to say that we somehow encouraged it.”

Gurrola’s email said he was only aware of one incident where a VOCES student was involved, but that the student had been a previous NVMI student.

“There is constant harassment by NVMI students towards our students and staff, including harassment by NVMI staff,” the email alleged. “This is creating a climate that affects our socio-emotional learning environment and places undue stress on our students, staff and families.”

A separate 2017 lawsuit alleged that NVMI students were victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by the school, LAUSD and Brice Tschappat, an administrator hired to assist with the annual summer camp. The lawsuit also argued that LAUSD, which supervised and oversaw the charter at the time, allowed the sexual abuse of NVMI students.

The sexual abuse accusations include alleged exposure to sexual language and pornographic images and a claim that an NVMI administrator “assaulted and battered at least one of the minor plaintiffs.”

Alleged misappropriation of funds

On March 7, the county office requested an audit of NVMI, which is still in progress, according to Nguyen. The county office did not, however, respond to questions about whether NVMI complied with the audit.

“Based on our review of receipts and internal documents of NVMI’s recent leadership retreat, there is reason to believe that fraud, misappropriation of funds, or other illegal fiscal practices may have occurred,” the audit request reads, stating that the school “mismanaged and misappropriated” $90,000 of public funds to conduct a leadership retreat in Las Vegas.

The letter also cites an internal staff bulletin that promises NVMI staff fully paid daytime family activities — ranging from bowling to trips to a water park — as well as group tickets to the “Tournament of Kings” show and “America’s Got Talent,” among others.

A Dec. 8, 2022, email from Ryan to the county office of education admitted that NVMI “used one-time ESSER dollars for the staff well-being activities,” and that non-employees attended the events as well.

The request letter further alleges that Local Control Funding Formula money was used to serve breakfast — with $2,300 being incurred by non-employees — and demanded that NVMI provide a complete list of its expenditures from the retreat.

Ryan explained that the retreat was necessary for staff and that they spent most of the time at the retreat working.

“This was a very sincere working retreat, where 100% of the people who were in attendance can attest … that this was not just some, you know, some junkets to Vegas for people to go gamble and enjoy themselves. This … was absolutely hard work.”

Looking back

Support for the charter has waxed and waned over the charter’s decade of existence, Ryan said, adding that several community members expressed apprehension about having a military academy in Los Angeles.

“This school has served a very special niche,” Ryan said. “There is a population of kids who have simply not been successful in traditional public or private schools, kids who have been suspended, expelled, justice-involved youth, foster youth, homeless youth, kids with significant learning differences … for whom the traditional special education programs have not worked.

“This school was founded on the premise that military structure … and culture could really provide a place where students who haven’t necessarily been successful in other places, where they could be successful.”

For eight years, NVMI administrators have relied on LAUSD campuses to house their school, Ryan said. And each year, they would have to go through a process outlined by Proposition 39, under which LAUSD would offer NVMI a space to locate the charter, usually within the campus of another school.

Toward the end of the 2021-22 academic year, LAUSD made an offer that would place NVMI on two district campuses. NVMI filed a lawsuit against the district in response, alleging that the offer was illegal and that the charter school could have been housed on a single campus, Ryan said.

The complaint accused LAUSD of “splitting our campus, upsetting the military culture of the school, causing us financial challenges, causing us operational challenges.”

LAUSD declined to comment on the multisite offer or lawsuit.

Ryan said he eventually convinced NVMI’s school board to accept LAUSD’s offer and do their best to operate on multiple campuses. During the split-campus operations, NVMI started each day with a gathering of all NVMI students at the VOCES campus in order to be able to engage in military formation, before busing students to the other locations for the rest of the school day.

In the spring of 2022, Ryan said LASUD came back with their 2023-24 campus site offer that would require NVMI to operate its school from four different campuses, including three LAUSD campuses.

NVMI’s board knew that a lawsuit would be costly, Ryan said, adding that they were “dipping significantly into our financial reserves” that had accumulated to nearly $3.8 million.

“At that point, because we knew we had burned through so much of the reserve … I recommended to my board there’s just no way we can do this. We simply cannot operate another year the way that we operated in ’22-23,” Ryan said. “We went through way too much money, killed staff who were working terribly hard to be able to make this very complex operational plan come to fruition, and it was difficult on families. It was difficult on kids, and it was financially simply not sustainable.”

As a result, the board made a decision this spring to suspend only the middle school for the 2023-24 academic year.

Meanwhile, Ryan said the school board realized on July 5 that they didn’t have a campus site. In negotiations, they agreed to lease a five-story building from the Foursquare Church, costing the school $60,000 monthly. Rent at the LAUSD campuses, by comparison, was significantly lower, totaling more than $73,000, according to Ryan.

Ryan said they submitted “a material revision” to the LA County Office of Education that would have amended the charter with the updated church location.

“Almost immediately, there was more upheaval, and there was an outcry that, ‘Well, gee, you know, this is a public school … giving public money to a church,’” Ryan said.

The city of Los Angeles said a public school could operate on the church site but that acquiring the necessary change of use permit could take years. These promises from the city, Ryan noted, were made verbally and not in writing.

Ultimately, Villanueva, the school board’s chairperson, said deciding to close the school was the “biggest disappointment” of his life.

“Our heart was always full,” Villanueva said. “{We thought): ‘Let’s give this one more try … to literally not only turn every stone but every pebble and every grain of sand in our house up until last week.’”

Long Beach is famously surrounded by a breakwater to protect its harbor, but that massive barrier hasn’t been able to shield homes on the city’s Peninsula from hurricane-charged swells recently.

Over the last few weeks, strong waves have repeatedly stripped away sand, broken through a boardwalk bulkhead and threatened to collapse beachside homes by clawing away the sand underneath them. All of this keeps happening in a narrow stretch of homes along the Peninsula, mostly between 62nd and 69th places.

Those few blocks are vulnerable to swells coming from the south because of an opening in the breakwater and jetty that allows boat access to Alamitos Bay.

In order to protect those homes, Long Beach typically builds a sand berm to block waves. When waves rip it away, the breakwater keeps it from washing out to sea, and it instead piles up to the west near downtown (a phenomenon called littoral drift.) The city spends $1 million to $1.5 million a year on trucking that sand back to the Peninsula and rebuilding the beach.

This year, it hasn’t been enough.

El Niño’s warm waters have supercharged high tides. That, combined with hurricane-driven waves coming up from the south, has stripped so much sand away from the Peninsula’s beach that the wooden bulkhead under the coastal boardwalk has been exposed.

At high tide, breakers now slap directly against the wood, repeatedly splintering it.

The city is hoping to soon start a $11.4 million dredging project to gather enough sand to rebuild the beach and protect the boardwalk, but that can’t happen while it’s getting pounded by the surf.

There may be some relief soon. Hurricane season in the eastern Pacific runs from mid-May through November. Hurricanes later in the year are much more likely to form in the western Pacific — as opposed to the southeast — and the federal breakwater that shields Long Beach’s harbor blunts the swells that originate from the west. That’s why much of California’s western coast may still see dangerous waves through the winter, though Long Beach is usually safe.

To bolster the Peninsula’s defenses, Long Beach is now considering a $6.8 million plan to build a rock revetment — a wall of boulders that would sit behind the beach as a backup.

This aerial view of the Peninsula was included in a city report on ways to replenish its sand.

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City of Long Beach

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via Long Beach Post

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But for a long-term solution, officials say it may cost $150 million to $350 million for a full habitat and shoreline restoration — funded partly by state mitigation credits.

It’s the kind of project that would take massive amounts of approvals and planning and likely some delays. The city council, for now, has approved $30,000 to look into it further.

Not only has Gov. Gavin Newsom vocally opposed the proposed California billionaire tax, but he also wants to prevent the state from ever passing a wealth tax in the future.

On Friday he endorsed Proposition 42, a ballot measure that would cancel out Proposition 40, the proposed billionaire tax. Prop. 42 would prohibit retroactive taxes like the one-time 5% tax on assets that would apply to any billionaire who lived in California on Jan. 1, 2026, if Prop. 40 passes.

But Prop. 42, funded and placed on the ballot by billionaire and Google co-founder Sergey Brin to defeat the billionaire tax, also would go further, by banning any new taxes on personal property.

That includes pensions and 401K accounts before retirees start drawing retirement income from them. It also includes other investments, financial assets, business holdings, art collections and all other forms of personal wealth that would be affected by the billionaire tax or any future wealth tax.

Newsom’s decision to support Prop. 42 runs counter to his own Democratic Party and some labor unions. It also aligns him with some of the wealthy tech donors with whom he’s maintained longstanding relationships dating back to his days as mayor of San Francisco.

Proponents primarily argue that middle-class workers’ retirements and pension accounts should never be taxed as assets before the gains are later taxed a second time as income, even though there is no such proposal. Lawmakers have in the past proposed asset taxes but those bills went nowhere in the Legislature and any tax would require a two-thirds majority to pass. The proposed billionaire tax also exempts many kinds of retirement accounts.

“We all agree that Californians deserve to have their retirement and life savings protected from new state taxes so those savings are there when they need them,” Newsom said in a statement released by the proponents, who also include police and fire unions.

Proponents of the tax criticized his Prop. 42 endorsement as “in lock step with his billionaire backers.”

“By voting yes on Prop 42, he’s showing California his true colors,” said Debru Carthan, vice president of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West in a statement. “He’d rather millions of children and families lose their healthcare than ask a couple hundred billionaires to finally pay their fair share.”

Newsom has not yet taken a position on Prop. 41, another Brin-backed, anti-billionaire measure that would nullify Prop. 40 by subjecting the tax revenues to certain state spending limits and audits, said spokesperson Izzy Gardon. The billionaire tax measure, funded by one healthcare union, would put 90% of the money it collects toward the state’s healthcare program for low-income residents, Medi-Cal.

Newsom, along with many other leading California Democrats and most Republicans, has vocally opposed the billionaire tax and tried to negotiate to keep it off the ballot. In general during his two terms as governor he has opposed state-level taxes on assets, out of concern the wealthy will leave the state and deprive the state of their income tax revenue.

But he has also sought to take advantage this year of a populist upswing and frustration toward tech billionaires ahead of his decision on whether to run for president after he leaves office. The California Democratic Party endorsed the billionaire tax and polling shows a slim majority of likely voters support it.

In response to the billionaire tax, Newsom this summer announced a proposal to impose a national tax on the wealthy, including a minimum tax rate on anyone with a net worth of more than $100 million. He also wants to undo corporate tax cuts that President Donald Trump and Congress approved in 2017, boost inheritance taxes and close loopholes the wealthy use to borrow from unrealized capital gains without paying income taxes.

Critics from the left have tried to use his Prop. 40 opposition against him. Last weekend as he rallied for the billionaire tax, Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna, another possible 2028 presidential contender, said donor relations were the “only reason” for Newsom’s opposition.

“You can’t be anti-Trump and then do the bidding of Trump donors,” Khanna said in a video with progressive former congressional candidate Saikat Chakrabarti.

Khanna pointed to Brin, who has never donated to Newsom but has had a relationship with the governor for years. Newsom and Brin attended each other’s weddings. The tech magnate has recently also turned rightward, courting Trump’s favor.

Newsom announced his endorsement of Prop. 42 on Friday along with his positions on most of the 14 ballot measures Californians are deciding on.

He endorsed most measures on the ballot, but opposes Proposition 39, the Republican-backed voter ID measure; Proposition 43, a measure to make it more difficult to pass most local taxes; and Proposition 44, a health union-backed measure to dictate how much money clinics serving low-income patients must spend on patient care.

He hasn’t yet taken a position on Proposition 45, the business-backed measure that puts time limits on the environmental review process for new developments.

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

There's a new film club in town. Think burlesque, with a dose of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and the vibe of a Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight screening — and you’ve got Sh—ty Movie Club.

Kinda.

Founder Shadie Elnashai calls his epic hangs “movie parties.” They began as get-togethers among friends in 2019, where drinking games or movie bingo are part of the experience. Since then, screenings have been held in Cairo, Tokyo and Sydney. In Los Angeles, ticketed events started in late August at venues like Clifton’s — all in celebration of films with a certain flavor.

Gems like The Apple, the over-the-top sci-fi biblical musical from 1980 where an evil music label controls the world — in the futuristic year 1994.

Or Ninja Terminator, a Hong Kong martial arts flick that its director stitched together using original footage and those from another existing film. No one at his screening, Elnashai said, was any the wiser, until he stopped the movie midway and told them.

"We actually don't use the word 'bad'. Sh—ty movie to me is awesome. It's entertaining, it's earnest, it's genuine," said Elnashai, who studied film in college. "Some people still hate it, don't get me wrong.  "

Audience members showing off their "Niu Lai"-inspired outfits.

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Fiona Ng

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LAist

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What a Sh—ty Movie Club screening is like

I got a taste of that joy and reverence, along with some 200 people at Clifton’s in downtown L.A., at a recent screening of the viral Chinese animated film Liu Nai.

The coming-of-age tale of a baby cow was made by a mother and son with zero film or animation experience — and it looked it. Those very bush-league qualities helped it go viral. The film went on to gross $9 million at the Chinese box office against a budget of under $200.

A hand-drawn poster advertising the film "Niu Lai", which translates to "Here Comes the Cow", is seen at a cinema in Beijing on August 21, 2026.

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PEDRO PARDO

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Getty Images

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Before the movie: Posters, jokes and a cow striptease 

I had read about the movie, but was never curious enough to try and see it, until I saw a social post for the screening.

At Sh—ty Movie Club, the film is the main course, with a full menu built around it. First comes a preshow that features a show-and-tell of homemade film posters by audience members (a nod to what happened in China), a call-out for bovine jokes, and, between gags, cow-related video clips (including a McDonald’s infomercial from Hong Kong) Elnashai compiled runs in the background. The indisputable climax belongs to the long, slow striptease by a woman dressed in a full cow costume.

“Each screening's a little different,” said Elnashai, whose day job is curating entertainment for private and corporate events, adding that he typically readies a few dozens assets — clips, jokes, gags — for each club screening. “There’s so much prep that goes into it.” 

Founder Shadie Elnashai designed a drinking game specifically for the screening of the viral Chinese cow movie "Niu Lai."

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Fiona Ng

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LAist

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Talking back to the screen is encouraged 

The Chinese viral cow movie itself is screened from a bootleg probably taped inside a movie theater (the film isn't in U.S. theaters or on streamers) — with jagged angles and a Chinese QR code that ricochets across to boot. Somehow, it all feels very on point.

Audiences are encouraged to talk at the movie, to chant “rewind” for an instant replay, and to abandon themselves to the film — odd but uniquely singular in its aesthetics — in the good-natured company of so many others.

“There's no rule book,” Elnashai said of many of the films screened at the club. “Each one is completely, beautifully different. Experiencing that all together is so fun for me to watch.”

Vicki Rodriguez and her family gathered at Central Library in downtown Los Angeles in September — blocks from where they lived more than half a century ago — to see their lives on Bunker Hill portrayed by a famous painter they called “Mr. Politi.”

In the 1960s, Caldecott-winning artist Leo Politi painted the historic Bunker Hill neighborhood. Thousands of people were forced by eminent domain to relocate for the modernization plan known as the Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project. Politi, who had once lived there himself, took it upon himself to sketch, then paint, some of the houses that were soon to be demolished.

“I saw these beautiful mansions being torn down,” Politi told an interviewer at KCET in 1987, “and I says, ‘I just got to start drawing them and recording them,’ so I did a lot of studies up there, and when I finished, I did the book.”

"The Veranda" by Leo Politi in "Bunker Hill, Los Angeles: Reminiscences of Bygone Days". The drawing features Ruby and Julie.

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A scan from the book.

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In 1964, he published a selection of what he captured in a book, Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Reminiscences of Bygone Days. The beloved childhood home of Vicki and her family was featured in those paintings.

Watching Mr. Politi at work

Vicki, her sister Ruby Besing, and their cousin Julie Lendt remember playing outside the house they all lived in at 221 S. Bunker Hill Avenue and watching Politi sketch.

They didn’t know then that the friendly man with an easel and paints was a lauded artist. When they saw the finished product, they were thrilled to find that Politi called them “the last children on Bunker Hill.”

Photo taken in 1960 of 221 S. Bunker Hill Ave., where the Bruce family lived.

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Historic American Buildings Survey

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Courtesy Library of Congress

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How Politi's art ended up at the library

In 1965, after displaying some of Politi’s paintings from the book, Central Library acquired 44 of his sketches and drawings for $3,000. Though collecting art isn’t typically part of the library’s mandate, librarians deemed the pictures of the now-leveled neighborhood to be of important historical value.

Vicki and her family — who relocated to Echo Park after being forced to move — learned a few years ago that several of the artworks had been put on display in the library’s children’s section.

But the picture of their family home at 221 S. Bunker Hill Avenue wasn’t one of them. It was housed in the library’s Special Collections.

The Bruce family has had a copy of Leo Politi's book on Bunker Hill for decades.

A copy of Politi’s book signed to Vicki and Ruby’s family is a prized possession.

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Courtesy Ruby Besing

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How the Bruce family came to Bunker Hill

Though Politi refers to the house in the book as belonging to their grandmother, it actually belonged to Vicki’s parents, Byron and Vaden Bruce, who’d grown up poor in Kentucky and moved west in the mid-1940s to Los Angeles in search of a better life.

Byron’s aunt, a preacher named Statia Mobley who ran a mission on Skid Row, married the couple in May 1946. They celebrated their wedding with a dinner at Clifton’s Cafeteria, a special treat that they indulged in on their anniversary each year after.

Vaden and Byron Bruce on their wedding day at Clifton’s Cafeteria in May 1946.

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Courtesy Ruby Besing

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Byron Bruce was a musician whose sight was limited. Since he couldn’t drive, Bunker Hill was the perfect launch point from which he could walk to the many bars and clubs that dotted the downtown landscape. He was also a smart businessperson who cobbled together the money to buy a few homes around the neighborhood, sliced into apartments, which he maintained for his tenants. Vaden worked for over 30 years in the administrative office at the Sears in Boyle Heights.

Vicki, Ruby and Julie all walked down the hill each day and through the 2nd Street tunnel to Fremont Elementary School.

Leaving Bunker Hill

As they played in the streets while Politi worked to capture them, they had no idea about the yearslong battle to level their neighborhood. The Bruces never troubled their children with the unfolding drama over its purchase by eminent domain. (Those who didn’t own their home — the majority of the people evicted from Bunker Hill — were forced out without any assistance.)

When they finally had to leave in the summer of 1963, their childhood on the hill became a cherished memory.

Vicki Rodriguez, Ruby Besing and Julie Lendt pose with a sketch they’d never seen from the Leo Politi Collection at Central Library

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Lisa Napoli

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LAist

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For 30 years now, Vicki, who lives with her husband in Tujunga, has been a longtime secretary of my neighbor on the modern Bunker Hill — directly across the street from where the Bruce family once lived.

When he told me about Vicki’s roots in the neighborhood, I helped her connect with the library.

What the family found in the library's collection

Ruby Besing, librarian Ani Boyadjian, Julie Lendt and Vicki Rodriguez.

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Lisa Napoli

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LAist

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In September, Vicki, Ruby, Julie, and Vicki’s son, Jeffrey, huddled around boxes of art as librarian Ani Boyadjian carefully opened the first. The very first piece she pulled out was one depicting their Bunker Hill Avenue home. But it wasn’t the picture Politi used in the book — it was another one that the family hadn’t known about.

Looking at paintings and sketches they didn’t know existed, these last children on Bunker Hill, now in their 60s and 70s, found themselves transported back in time to their beloved neighborhood — and flabbergasted to see how much attention Politi had paid them, even Ruby’s beloved childhood pet cat, Poncho.

“To our knowledge, there were only the two paintings in the book. And then at the library, we see there are something like 15 sketches and paintings, renderings of the house we’d never seen before,” Vicki said after the visit. “It blew me away. Seeing this artwork was a dream come true.”