The Brief

It’s been nearly two years since UCLA signed a formal agreement for Southern California tribal members to use a portion of the university’s botanical garden to practice their traditional planting, harvesting, and gathering of crops.

It’s now bearing fruit in the form of deer grass (called huutah by the Tongva) and blue elderberry (or huukat, its Tongva name).

Victoria Sork (left), director of the UCLA Botanical Garden and Chantal Ochoa-Clark, the garden's manager of outreach and education

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“Members of our community, from the very beginning, selected the plants that were most important and… our community needed to have access to… also we were there to help plant the plants,” said Desiree Martinez, a Gabrielino Tongva archeologist.

Martinez helped create the small plot at the UCLA Mathias Botanical Garden and Herbarium.

And the portion of the garden planted by Native Americans is small. It’s roughly the size of two pickleball courts if they were asymmetrical and on a steep slope.

It’s easy to miss the native plants unless you look for the knee-high sign that says “Tongva Basket Weaving Garden.”

Native American tradition holds that the Creator established a relationship between people and plants, animals, and the natural elements with the responsibility of people to take care of those things.

“Because of colonization, that connection and that promise or instruction that was made by the Creator, has been severed,” Martinez said.

Native Americans plan to harvest the deer grass in the botanical garden when it's mature, to make baskets.

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“This partnership — groundbreaking in many ways — acknowledges the First People of this area, while also creating a path for the practice, sharing and teaching of culture, customs and stewardship,” said Assemblymember James Ramos in an email. He’s the former chair of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians.

The garden's original caretakers

The Mathias Botanical Garden and Herbarium is a 7.5-acre parcel that’s an undeveloped part of the natural canyon between busy Hilgard Avenue on the east and a dense cluster of UCLA medical buildings on its west edge. It’s hard to appreciate the garden’s magnitude from the outside because the topography descends with the canyon.

It was created when UCLA moved to Westwood in 1929, but there was no visible effort to recognize the original caretakers of the land.

The garden was closed until last spring for a renovation of the stream that flows continuously through the garden. Its re-opening now provides the general public, groups of school children, and in particular Native American students and staff, the opportunity to see an example of a public institution going beyond land acknowledgements and actually giving back a portion of land for Native Americans to use.

“I don't think until recently we really had an appreciation that we were on unceded territory of Native people, and we were not in a place where we are showing our respect,” said Victoria Sork, director of the botanical garden and a professor in UCLA’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Her interaction with area tribal members led her to understand Indigenous thinking about the symbiotic and caretaker relationship between humans and nature. She was one of the signers of the memorandum of understanding.

Native Americans have special access to these plants. And Sork said it’s very important that no one from the public touch, pick, or take them.

The deer grass will be used to create baskets

In a few years the deer grass will be mature enough to be harvested and used for basket weaving. A Tongva group will organize the basket weaving. And the plan is to make sure Native Americans on campus take part.

“Our goal of the garden is to make everyone feel welcome, but we particularly want to make sure the Native people understand that … this is part of their history and future,” Sork said.

Here’s how you can visit

Take the Sunset Boulevard exit from the 405 Freeway and turn south on Hilgard Avenue. Then turn west on Westholme Avenue into the UCLA campus and look for Parking Structure 2.

After you pay, walk south along Charles Young Drive to the entrance to the botanical garden. There’s no entrance fee. There are picnic benches and lots of shade and many of the paths are paved.

The garden closes at 5 p.m. until next month, when it will close at 4 p.m. Here are the garden’s hours.

More than a year-and-a-half after promising to provide up to 40 free carts to eligible street vendors, Long Beach hasn’t even made it halfway to that goal and now plans to cut funding for the program.

As of late February, Long Beach had supplied 11 free carts, with six more applicants waiting for final approvals. Health officials say this is because out of the 123 applicants, the vast majority haven’t completed all the steps necessary.

Long Beach originally allocated $429,500 for the free-cart program, but the City Council recently approved reducing that by $200,201, citing “low participation” and the need to balance a city budget that’s facing deficits.

Applications are still open for vendors seeking a free cart, but city officials are reviewing “the application process and overall program,” Health Department spokesperson Jennifer Ann Gonzalez wrote in an email.

Vendors, for their part, say the process was plagued by delays and complications.

Anita McCoy, who sells pastrami and hot dogs through her business Lucky Bee, said it took roughly eight months to receive a cart that was worth about $17,500. She was grateful but said it took countless emails and phone calls to the Health Department to finally get the finished product.

“I had to be diligent in my pursuit,” McCoy said.

De’Mon Tyndell, who runs The Quesadilla Calling, received his cart roughly a year after applying.

At one point, after months of email exchanges and “doing applications on applications,” Tyndell told city staff, “I don’t even want to do this anymore.”

Although he has the cart, Tyndell said he doesn’t use it for his various pop-ups throughout the week because the roughly 800-pound mobile kitchen is not “user friendly” to transport.

De’Mon Tyndell says the free cart he received from the city hasn’t been practical to use.

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Thomas R. Cordova.

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Long Beach Post

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Moving it requires a trailer with a winch because the cart’s built-in wheels are too small for it to be towed around, Tyndell said.

As a result, the cart has been sitting in storage for the past six months while he uses a flattop grill and tables he can easily load in his van.

The free cart program was aimed at small-time entrepreneurs who needed help complying with new rules the city drafted on street vending. To qualify, applicants needed to live in Long Beach, have no more than two full-time employees and operate only one cart. If approved, they could receive one of four types: fruit carts, grilled food carts, tamale carts and ice cream carts.

But many people trying to run a low-margin business don’t have time for a complicated application process.

For McCoy, selling pastramis and hot dogs from a corner in North Long Beach is just one of her side businesses. That means she doesn’t have to be out every day to bring in enough cash to sustain her operation. That flexibility gave her the time to pursue the free cart with a sense of urgency.

“I was begging them [to give me a cart] because I knew the program was going to be cut,” McCoy said.

Meanwhile, since early last year, the city has begun penalizing street vendors who don’t comply with its rules.

Health Department officials say it’s a necessary step to prevent food-borne illness caused by vendors who haven’t gone through a health inspection.

From early last year through Feb. 23, city staff seized and discarded food from 72 vendors and issued 103 administrative citations against vendors without an active business license. In 71 cases, they’ve also impounded street vendors’ equipment.

Penalties for the citations range from $100 to $500, depending on how many times a vendor has been cited.

Enforcement is carried out based on complaints. The Health Department says its staff first tries to educate vendors on how to comply, then they issue a notice of violation and finally an administrative citation. If vendors don’t heed that citation, a team responds to discard food and impound equipment.

Starting in 2022, California banned cities from outlawing street vendors altogether, but municipalities are still allowed to regulate when, where and how they can sell for health and safety reasons.

Since Long Beach adopted its rules, the city has received 358 applications from vendors seeking a business license to operate legally. As of Feb. 23, the city has granted just 55 (15.4%).

Rather than risk being cited, Tyndell limits his selling to pop-ups at farmers markets, outside bars and various events around the city where he can more easily get permits. Recently, he got a spot selling inside Good Times Billiards — a pool hall in Lakewood — and hopes to add a second location inside another pool hall on Broadway in Alamitos Beach.

That business is awaiting city approval, but Tyndell said he aims to open by the end of the month. There, he says, he’ll finally use his free cart to serve up gourmet quesadillas.

A Vietnam War memorial that became a symbol of government corruption was torn down Wednesday in Fountain Valley.

Former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do had awarded $1 million in taxpayer dollars for the memorial in 2023 — to a nonprofit where his daughter, Rhiannon Do, was an officer.

The project was never completed.

When LAist visited the memorial last year, it was unfinished and cracked. And an architect who visited the site with LAist estimated that the monument cost a fraction of the taxpayer money awarded to build it.

Do is currently serving a five-year prison sentence in Arizona after admitting to directing money to several nonprofit groups and businesses that then funneled some of that money back to himself and family members for personal gain. LAist has been investigating the alleged corruption since 2023.

Do was also ordered to pay $878,230.80 in restitution for his role in the bribery scheme that saw millions in taxpayer dollars diverted from feeding needy seniors, leading authorities to label him a “Robin Hood in reverse.”

Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who now represents Do’s former district, which includes the memorial site, said it would have been too expensive to repair or relocate it.

“Let’s restart and do it right,” she said at the time.

Go deeper ...

Here's a look at some of LAist's coverage of one of the biggest corruption scandals in Orange County history:

LAist investigates: Andrew Do corruption scandal
Ex-Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do is ordered to pay $878,230.80 in restitution
'Robin Hood in reverse.' O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do resigns and will plead guilty to bribery conspiracy charge
Former OC Supervisor Andrew Do turns himself in, begins 5-year federal prison term
6 questions we still have after disgraced former OC Supervisor Andrew Do’s sentencing
A quiet retreat for the judge married to disgraced OC politician Andrew Do

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• Read tips on how to get involved.
• The Orange County Board of Supervisors meets on alternating Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. at 400 West Civic Center Drive, Santa Ana. You can check out the O.C. Board of Supervisors full calendar here.
• Learn how to submit a public comment to the O.C. Board of Supervisors.

Low-polling Democratic candidates for governor of California struck a defiant tone Tuesday in the face of mounting pressure from party leaders to drop out before a key deadline this week.

With nine major Democrats still vying for the state’s top job, party insiders have fretted for weeks about a splintered primary vote that could result in the two leading Republicans — commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — finishing first and second in the June 2 primary and ensuring a GOP victor in November.

In an open letter to campaigns published Tuesday, California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks called that scenario implausible but “not impossible” and urged Democratic candidates to make an honest assessment of their chances before Friday — the deadline to file and officially appear on the ballot in June.

“If you do not have a viable path to make it to the general election, do not file to place your name on the ballot for the primary election,” Hicks wrote.

But candidates who have been mired in single digits for months, including state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former state Controller Betty Yee, showed no immediate signs of heading toward the exits.

At the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office in Oakland, Yee filed the paperwork to officially place her name on the ballot.

“When I was signing the declaration of candidacy, my hands were shaking because I just thought about my mother, who is 102, and how within a generation she’s able to see her daughter do this,” Yee told KQED. “We’re undergoing a process of constant assessment, and every time we do that, we just see that this is still a wide-open race.”

Thurmond, who is Black and Latino, accused the state party of “essentially telling every candidate of color in the race for governor to drop out.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be the party who embraces democracy — a party of, by and for the people?” Thurmond said in a video posted to social media. “Well, the establishment might not be, but our campaign is, and that’s why we’re in this race to win it.”

Hicks did not call on any specific candidates to leave the race but asked those who continue their campaigns beyond this week to “be prepared to suspend your campaign and endorse another candidate on or before April 15 if your campaign cannot show meaningful progress toward winning the primary election in the coming weeks.”

The chair’s plea comes weeks after Democratic delegates failed to agree on an endorsement at the state party convention in San Francisco.

Since then, polling in the race has been largely static, with investor Tom Steyer (who has spent tens of millions of dollars on television ads) being the only Democrat to see significant traction in recent surveys.

Rep. Eric Swalwell, former Rep. Katie Porter and Steyer were the top polling Democrats in polls released last month by Emerson College and the Public Policy Institute of California.

Below that trio is a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls that includes Thurmond and Yee, along with former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, San José Mayor Matt Mahan and former Assemblymember Ian Calderon.

Meanwhile, Hilton and Bianco have faced little competition for the Republican primary vote.

Jon Slavet, a GOP tech entrepreneur who was polling at around 1%, suspended his campaign Tuesday.

“The last few months have been a gift,” said Slavet, in a video posted on social media. “It’s also shown me that building a winning coalition, brick by brick, will take time.”

With Slavet out of the field, a primary election simulator created by Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data Inc., put the chances of a Republican vs. Republican general election at roughly 25%.

In his letter, Hicks said a Bianco-Hilton general election would not only upend Democratic leadership of state government but also depress Democratic turnout in the California congressional districts the party is hoping to flip in November.

“The result would present a real risk to winning the congressional seats required and imperil Democrats’ chances to retake the House, cut Donald Trump’s term in half, and spare our Nation from the pain many have endured since January 2025,” Hicks wrote. “We simply can’t let that happen.”

Last updated: Feb. 24, 2026

At least nine Democrats are competing to succeed termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom in the 2026 general election, but first they'll have to get through the June primary. The crowded field has raised fears among Democrats that they could be entirely locked out of the November election.

Polls have shown former Fox News commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco leading the race, with the top Democrat — Bay Area Rep. Eric Swalwell — essentially tied.

With such a wide-open field, Democrats at the party's February convention were unable to endorse a single candidate, meaning pressure is building on candidates with lower polling numbers and less ability to fundraise to drop out of the race.

The primary election is June 2. Here’s a look at the field right now:

Matt Mahan

Mahan, the mayor of San Jose, is the latest Democrat to enter the race after saying in the fall he wasn’t excited by the selection of candidates. Don’t expect him to join the other candidates’ jockeying to be the biggest opponent to president Donald Trump. A Silicon Valley moderate, he’s criticized Newsom for overly focusing on “resisting” Trump, especially on social media.

He says the state over-regulates businesses and fails to comprehensively address homelessness and crime. He broke with the party in 2024 to support Proposition 36, the ballot measure voters approved to increase penalties on some drug and theft charges. Mahan has honed in on reducing street homelessness with hundreds of tiny homes as well as a policy to arrest unhoused people who refuse repeated offers of shelter placements.

Xavier Becerra

If former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra was looking for attention for his campaign, he found it in the form of negative headlines.

Last month, federal prosecutors indicted a Sacramento powerbroker in an alleged corruption scandal that rocked the state’s Democratic establishment. At its center? A dormant campaign account held by Becerra, from which prosecutors allege Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff Dana Williamson conspired with other political consultants to steal $225,000. Williamson is charged with helping to divert the funds to the wife of Becerra’s longtime aide, Sean McCluskie, who has pleaded guilty in the alleged scheme.

Becerra was California’s first Latino attorney general before serving as a cabinet secretary for former President Joe Biden. He is running primarily on a platform of lowering health care costs.

He has not been accused of wrongdoing in the case and has said he was unaware of what was happening. But it’s still possible the association — and the implication he wasn’t paying attention — will taint his campaign, already polling at just 8% last fall.

The controversy is one of a few moments of intrigue in an otherwise quiet race.

Katie Porter

In October, former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter, a Democrat, was caught on camera trying to walk out of a TV interview with a reporter who pressed her on whether she needed Republican support in the race. A second video followed, showing Porter berating a staff member during a Zoom call. At the time considered the front-runner, she rode out the news cycle and later said she “could have done better” about the behavior in the videos, but they appeared to have dropped her approval ratings. She is essentially tied with the top Republican candidate.

Porter made a name for herself as one of a “blue wave” of female, Democratic lawmakers elected to Congress during the first Trump administration in 2018. A law professor at UC Irvine who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate last year, she gained attention for her tough questioning of corporate executives using her signature whiteboard.

Tom Steyer

Joining a wide field of other Democrats, billionaire investor and climate activist Tom Steyer announced in November he is jumping into the race.

Then-Democratic presidential primary candidate Tom Steyer addresses a crowd during a party in Columbia, South Carolina, on Feb. 29, 2020.

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Steyer, who made his fortune by founding a San Francisco hedge fund, has used his wealth to back liberal causes, including the environment. He’s never held public office before, but ran a short-lived campaign for president in 2020. He has honed in on reining in Californians' second-highest-in-the-nation electricity bills, though some experts are skeptical of his proposals.

Chad Bianco

Pro-Trump Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is neck-and-neck with Porter in the polls, though he is unlikely to last near the top of the pack in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two-to-one and a GOP candidate hasn’t won a statewide seat in nearly 20 years.

The cowboy-hat-toting Bianco has heavily criticized Democratic governance. He argues for loosening regulations on businesses and says he wants to overturn California’s sanctuary law that restricts local police from cooperating with federal deportation officers.

Eric Swallwell

Other Democrats have focused on their biographies and experiences in government to try to distinguish themselves in a race where name recognition is low across the board. All have said they want to make California more affordable and push back on the Trump administration’s impact on the state.

Rep. Eric Swalwell speaks during a press conference after a rally in support of Proposition 50 at IBEW Local 6 in San Francisco on Nov. 3, 2025.

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Swalwell, a former prosecutor and Bay Area congressman, will likely lean heavily on his anti-Trump bonafides. He was one of several members of Congress appointed by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to help lead the second Trump impeachment after the attempted Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection and is now the latest Democrat under attack by the Trump administration over his mortgage.

Antonio Villaraigosa

Former Los Angeles mayor and former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa is among the more moderate of the Democratic field. He boasts of his time running the state’s largest city, during which he boosted the police force. He ran for governor unsuccessfully in 2018.

Betty Yee

Former state Controller Betty Yee emphasizes her experience with the state budget and the tax system, having been a top finance office in ex-Gov. Gray Davis’ administration and having sat on the state Board of Equalization.

Tony Thurmond

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, a Democrat, is the only candidate currently in a statewide seat. He emphasizes his background as a social worker who grew up on public assistance programs in a low-income family. He has stated an ambitious goal of building two million housing units on surplus state land.

Ian Calderon

Ian Calderon, a former Democratic Assembly majority leader, is emphasizing his relative youth. He was the first millennial member of the state Assembly, and is part of a Los Angeles County political dynasty. He has some ties to the cryptocurrency industry and has name-dropped it in ads and debates.

Steve Hilton

Republican Steve Hilton, a Fox News contributor, was an adviser for British conservative Prime Minister David Cameron before pivoting to American politics. Before launching his campaign he released a book this year calling California “America’s worst-run state.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters, which is an LAist partner newsroom.