The Brief

Last Saturday, Gov. Gavin Newsom rocked out in Napa Valley and took a stand for the arts in California. “Make arts matter again,” he said.

But the statement left arts administrators in Southern California scratching their heads.

“It feels like the governor speaks the language of supporting the arts,” said Beatrice Casagrán, artistic director of Ophelia’s Jump, a theater in Upland in San Bernardino County. “His actions say something different."

Casagrán is one of thousands of arts professionals in California watching whether Newsom will follow through on a proposal to zero-out $11.5 million already allocated to the Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund. The deadline for cuts to be final is June 15.

The fund was created to help smaller arts organizations pay people to put on shows and programs after a state law compelled groups to classify freelance workers as employees. It’s a reimbursement fund, so groups already spent the money and sought to be paid back. Groups say the disappearance of the funds means they’ll have to slash programs in the coming year.

The play Alma was produced by Chance Theater in Anaheim. Its leaders say a proposed budget cut would affect their programs.

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“We are going to have to consider how programs in the next season may have to be curtailed in order to accommodate the fact that these reimbursements won't come,” said Christopher Maikish, executive director of Celebration Theater in Hollywood. His theater is the longest running LGBTQIA+ theater organization in Southern California.

Celebration Theater declared expenses of about $350,000 in 2023, most of which went toward employee pay. The fund would have reimbursed $75,000, Maikish said.

As California lawmakers carry out final revisions to next year's proposed $322 billion state budget, advocates wonder whether pro-arts Newsom or arts budget cutting Newsom is going to prevail.

It all goes back to the gig economy

California lawmakers passed AB5 in 2019 to protect workers in the gig economy. Large gig companies ended up with exemptions. But smaller nonprofit arts organizations did not. These groups often were volunteer led and paid artists through stipends.

“Now we've moved into a model of full employment and so our costs have basically tripled in the last five years,” Maikish said.

Arts advocates banded together to lobby for the creation of the Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund to help make up for the added costs.

“We estimate at least dozens of arts organizations are at risk of closing their doors permanently,” said  Ricky Abilez, director of policy and advocacy at Arts for LA.

And that’s not just because of Newsom’s proposed cut, he added. More than 500 nonprofits in L.A. County have lost a total of $28 million in active federal grants.

Abilez and others say they understand that California’s budget deficit means some groups will lose out in state funding. But California is already below average compared to other states’ arts funding. Restoring the fund, they say, will have ripple effects to local economies because people who attend shows and exhibits spend money on childcare, meals and parking, among other things.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. California legislators, including Newsom, will have to agree on state allocations and cuts before a June 15 deadline to pass a state budget.

Arts for LA has published a Take Action toolkit to help people who want to advocate to protect these and other funds for nonprofit arts groups.

The Los Angeles City Council gave the L.A. Police Department the green light Tuesday to move forward with a pilot program to install new automated license plate recognition cameras in the city, despite concerns from council members and the public about privacy and surveillance.

The council voted 9-6 to veto the program, but fell short of the 10 votes required to nix the agreement and send it back to the Board of Police Commissioners.

Under the pilot program, security company Axon Enterprise will install cameras on some city streetlights for a three-month trial period, at no cost to the city.

The narrow vote divided the council, which debated at length whether L.A. should move forward with introducing more license plate readers on its streets without additional requirements on how the police use the data.

This summer, LAPD declined to renew its contract with Flock Safety for license plate readers after reports that law enforcement agencies including LAPD had shared Flock data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Across California, the use of AI license plate readers has faced pushback from community members concerned about how the information is used.

The L.A. City Council voted 9 - 6 to veto the program and fell short of the ten votes required to nix the agreement.

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Courtesy of the L.A. City Clerk's office

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“I certainly understand the department's desire to bring on a new company to replace Flock, but in the neighborhoods that I represent, there still seems to be a lot of uncertainty about how this new technology will work,” said Councilmember Curren Price, who voted to veto the pilot program.

Council members who blocked the veto cited public safety concerns, saying there were other ways to require the police to increase transparency. Councilmember Traci Park said that outrage over the technology stemmed from misinformation.

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who also voted against rejecting the pilot program, said the council’s power to negotiate tighter regulations on how LAPD uses license plate reader data could come later on, after the three-month testing period.

“The point of leverage is going to come after the three months, he said. “That's when we're going to be faced with this question about ‘Do we expand this?’”

How we got here

The City Council weighing in on an LAPD pilot program is not the norm, and comes after months of heightened scrutiny over how the department utilizes automatic license plate reader data. The department primarily uses the technology in its vehicles rather than on city streets.

In July, the Office of the Inspector General for the L.A. Board of Police Commissioners issued a lengthy report on the status of the technology within LAPD, and recommended the department get approval for new contracts from the Board of Police Commissioners, a civilian body appointed by the mayor that determines policy for the department.

That’s what led the board to consider and approve the Axon pilot program in September. That opened up an opportunity for the L.A. City Council to intervene in the decision. Under the city charter, the council can veto actions by boards of commissioners with a two-thirds vote.

That’s what Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez was pushing for when he initiated the council vote. He said Tuesday that the vote was an opportunity to push the police department to commit to independent auditing of how it uses automated license plate reader data, establish board oversight of sharing data with external agencies and limit who in the department can access the data.

“We should take time to make sure that we have thorough, thoughtful protections laid out before we install more cameras,” Soto-Martinez said Tuesday.

The pilot program is just a small slice of LAPD’s business with Axon. The Board of Police Commissioners also recently approved a 10-year, $235 million contract with the company for body cameras, tasers and automated license plate recognition cameras for around 1,600 police vehicles.

That contract will require council approval and is currently being reviewed by the city administrative officer, according to the mayor’s office.

Record-breaking high tides rolled into Southern California waters for the second day in a row Tuesday.

The tide gauge in San Pedro read 8.18 feet Tuesday morning, its highest measurement since records began more than a century ago, after already setting a new record on Monday. The previous record of 7.93 feet was set in 2005.

Records were also broken at tide gauges in La Jolla and Santa Barbara.

High water levels spilled over seawalls and swept across beaches, inundating communities along L.A. and Orange County coasts that have been hit repeatedly by storm surges and destructive surf over the last few months.

“We've already seen impacts that we have not had in quite some time,” said Lisa Phillips, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service. 

The exceptionally high tides were expected to peak Tuesday and slowly subside as the week progresses. Coastal flood warnings are in effect up and down the coast until Thursday afternoon.

But scientists say the conditions are just a preview of what’s to come in the next few months with the highest astronomical tides of the year — and peak El Niño season — still on the horizon.

Coastal flooding

On the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach on Monday, water poured over the seawalls of some homes that back up to Newport Harbor, leaving up to a foot of flooding in some intersections.

At the corner of 39th Street and River Avenue, Diane Teitscheid waded ankle-deep, motioning for cars to slow down so as not to slosh the water into her and her neighbors’ garages.

“All the water on our entire street is coming from that house,” she said, pointing to a home where water rushed through the side gates.

The city urged residents to prepare for the high tides, knocking on doors and offering free sandbags at multiple locations. Some did not heed the warning.

“What we're finding is there's just some private residents that are choosing to do nothing,” said Joe Stapleton, the Newport Beach City Council member whose district includes the Balboa Peninsula. “And by doing nothing, they're intentionally flooding streets and neighbors' properties.”

Stapleton said the city is now planning to take “more of an enforcement approach,” which could include fines for people who refuse to bolster their seawalls with sandbags in flood-prone areas.

Several Newport Beach homes were inundated by seawater on Monday.

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Tide levels in some parts of Southern California set records Monday, when this photo was taken on Newport Beach's Balboa Peninsula, and again the following day.

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Flooding also prompted officials to shut down part of Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach.

Farther north, seawater inundated streets and homes on the Long Beach Peninsula, where a number of structures along the boardwalk have been rendered uninhabitable by recent storm surges from Hurricane Marie and Tropical Storm Rachel.

What’s pushing the tides over the top?

Tides are naturally high during this time of year because of the position of the moon and sun.

But at the moment, other factors are driving up sea levels and pushing astronomical tides even higher than they would normally be.

First, the ocean off the coast of Southern California is warmer than ever recorded — we’re nearly a year and a half into a prolonged marine heat wave. Since warmer water takes up more space than colder water, sea levels are higher. Water temperatures across the Central Coast and Southern California are 5 to 9 degrees above average.

Roads and homes near 38th Street Park on Newport Beach's Balboa Peninsula flooded Monday.

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Scientists say the warming is being driven by a combination of human-caused climate change and El Niño, a climate pattern in which the normally cooler eastern Pacific Ocean heats up.

Second, El Niño has pushed a Kelvin wave into Southern California waters. What’s a Kelvin wave? It’s essentially a huge mass of warm water moving across the ocean. When a Kelvin wave collides with a landmass, it can raise sea levels up to a foot.

University of California climate scientist Daniel Swain also said the current tidal conditions are just the beginning of even more severe high tides over the next several months. That means more flooding for coastal communities.

“We have not seen the worst coastal flooding this year that we're likely to see later,” Swain said. “This is probably, unfortunately for those who are dealing with it, just a preview of what is to come. The coastal flooding will be more widespread geographically and probably significantly deeper later this season.”

Swain said king tides — the term for tides at their yearly peak — have yet to arrive. Tides generally don’t reach their highest until late November, December and January.

On top of that, Southern California will likely see continued sea level rise from El Niño-driven Kelvin waves over the next few months. And this year’s potentially historic El Niño season is also likely to come with significant rain, potentially adding storm surge and surf.

Drive around Newport Beach this election season, and you’re likely to see lawn signs with an image of four giant concrete bunnies behind bars below the phrase “SAVE OUR PARK.” It’s a reference to the current City Council’s controversial idea of building a new police headquarters and jail on the parkland that surrounds the Newport Beach Civic Center, home to the famous, or infamous, “Bunnyhenge” sculpture.

The proposal, one of several the city is considering for a new police headquarters, wouldn’t actually lead to the sculpture’s demise, but the idea of paving over a significant portion of the open space and paths around the sculpture has emerged as a top issue in the city’s November City Council race. Other major issues include protecting the city’s vulnerable shoreline from El Niño and preventing the kind of chaos that engulfed the Balboa Peninsula on July 4, when looting, illegal fireworks and street brawls broke out, leading to hundreds of arrests.

Three seats on the seven-member council are contested (in a fourth seat, Robyn Grant, the incumbent has no challengers). Two challengers, Walter Stahr and Andy Gerken, entered the race in their respective districts specifically to fight against building a new police station in the park, which would include the city jail.

“I am 100% opposed to a jail in the park. That is my number one issue,” Stahr said at a candidate forum in September.

Walter Stahr, a candidate for Newport Beach Civic Council District 3, jumped into the race out of concern for the proposal to build a new police headquarters in Civic Center Park.

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At the same forum, Gerken said, “I imagined a police department there and the park gone, and I thought, ‘How could I not run?’ So I ran to save the park.”

The issue illustrates a classic Southern California debate, and one that gains increasing urgency as developable land grows ever more scarce — how valuable is open space?

Everyone agrees Newport PD needs new digs. But where? 

Newport’s current police headquarters, off Jamboree Road, is more than 50 years old. The force has outgrown the building, and it is plagued by maintenance problems. “It’s routine that we have sewage backup; we had the electrical fire last month, the power outage with the failure of the backup generator in November,” Dave Miner, the police chief, said at a city meeting in March. “We definitely do need a new building.”

Neither the City Council members nor the candidates running to unseat them dispute the need. The question is where.

A series of ad hoc committees has looked into several options:

• Rebuild the headquarters in its current spot
• Build on a city-owned site near John Wayne Airport, which was purchased years earlier with a potential police headquarters in mind
• Purchase private land for the new headquarters
• Convert a portion of Civic Center Park, right across from City Hall, which would mean razing some of the sculpture garden that includes Bunnyhenge
  

Concept designs show the police station taking up to one-quarter of the existing parkland on a slope that would put it right under the watchful gaze of the giant concrete rabbits of Bunnyhenge.

Earlier this year, when the majority of City Council members seemed to favor the park option, opponents sprang into action. Dozens of people showed up to a City Council meeting in March to speak against the idea, including Stahr. He is challenging incumbent Erik Weigand in District 3 along with another challenger, Tim Stoaks.

“Parks are sacred spaces,” Stahr said from the lectern at that meeting. “One does not destroy a park to make way for an office building, because, face it, that’s what the police station really is: it’s an office building and a parking structure and a huge gas station.”

Up to a quarter of Newport Beach Civic Center Park, and up to about half of the lower part of the park, could be razed to build a new police headquarters.

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Supporters say putting the new police station on city property makes financial sense and would consolidate the city’s main services at the Civic Center.

No decision has been made to build the new headquarters on the parkland. But the city has allocated at least half a million dollars to evaluate the option.

Once maligned, Bunnyhenge hopped into locals’ hearts

The controversy over potentially putting a new police station in the park has echoes in Newport Beach history. In the early aughts, the city was desperate to replace its outgrown City Hall. One controversial option was to build it on part of the land, the same slender parcel at issue now, that residents had been promised as their own coastal version of a Central Park.

Residents put the idea on the ballot in 2008, and after a whopping $800,000 in spending for and against the measure (the equivalent of about $1.2 million today), voters approved the new Civic Center.

One of the walking paths that would likely have to be rerouted or eliminated if a new police headquarters is built in Civic Center Park.

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The park was developed along with the Civic Center, including the sculpture garden where Bunnyhenge sits. It also includes wetlands, walking paths through native coastal vegetation and a dog park.

The quirky installation of giant rabbits at the park has spawned love and ire over the years. Families take their holiday pictures with the concrete beasts, and they’ve become a destination for out-of-town visitors thanks, at least in part, to their inclusion in the popular Atlas Obscura travel guide.

But some, including former City Councilmember Scott Peotter, thought the bunnies were a waste of money. In a 2014 campaign video, Peotter criticized city officials for spending money on the installation. At the end of the video, Peotter walks away while one giant bunny’s heads spontaneously explodes. (It wasn’t real, and the bunnies still stand.)

Park lovers say a new police station would not only intrude on the sculptured bunnies’ territory, but the project would also eliminate walking paths, jeopardize the adjacent wetlands and reduce habitat for the real bunnies and other animals that live in the park.

What do the candidates say about building a police station in the park?

At a forum held in late September at the OASIS Senior Center, City Council candidates were asked which site is most appropriate for a future police station and why. The two challengers running on the issue, Stahr and Gerken, were unequivocal about where it should not be located.

“Definitely not the Civic Center Park,” Gerken said, adding that he would consider the police department’s preferences regarding the other options.

Stahr said, “I don't know the precise place it should be. The one thing I am absolutely morally convinced of is that it does not belong in the park.”

The other two challengers, Stoaks and Tina Babajanians, also said they opposed the idea.

In contrast, incumbents Weigand, Lauren Kleiman and Joe Stapleton didn’t rule out the possibility. “What I will agree with a lot of people in the community is this process has been flawed from the beginning,” Stapleton said, noting that he would have favored a “more public-facing committee” rather than the initial ad hoc committee, which had no public members.

Kleiman, who is facing a challenge from Gerken to represent District 6, said she supports building a new station “anywhere that is central and that allows the police to have continued operation … that would not impact safety in the city.” She said ideally the new HQ would get built where the current one sits, but doing so would be logistically challenging and disrupt police operations.

Weigand, who is facing a challenge from Stahr and Stoaks to represent District 3, said he was “OK with studying the Civic Center site … to figure out if it actually works.” If it turns out it's not feasible, he said, the city should look at nearby properties that would put the new HQ in “the heart of our city.”

After the candidate forum, resident Pamela Marks said her top issue is making sure the police station doesn’t get built in the park. But more than the idea itself, she said, she doesn’t think the current City Council has listened to residents’ concerns about the proposal. “I get that feeling when I go to the meetings. They kinda roll their eyes and, you know, they just blow it off,” she said.

Asked why preserving Civic Center Park is important to her, Marks said, “The park's important to me because open space is important to me.” She said she volunteers for the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in neighboring Huntington Beach. “I've released wildlife in that park because that's where it was found.”

GKN Aerospace opened its $100 million claims program Tuesday for those affected by the Garden Grove hazmat scare that forced more than 50,000 nearby residents to evacuate in May.

The company is also hosting a community meeting Tuesday night to go over the program.

The claims money comes from a $125 million settlement between the Orange County District Attorney and GKN Aerospace. Another $8.5 million will be used to reimburse government agencies that responded to the emergency, including the county, the Orange County Fire Authority and others. The remaining $15 million will be used to pay civil penalties.

How it works 

People and households who lived within the mandatory evacuation zone are eligible for the claims program. Businesses can file a Business Interruption Claim for losses of income.

Residents who lived in the warning zone, not the mandatory evacuation zone, do not qualify.

Eligible evacuees can be reimbursed for lodging, meals and lost wages or profits through the claims process.

Here’s how the process is outlined:

1. Residents who were impacted by the emergency can start their claim here, add up costs or losses, as well as upload documents that verify identity, address and costs or losses.
2. After a claim is filed, it will be reviewed, and an offer will be made. 
3. Applicants can accept, appeal or decline this offer. 
4. If the offer is accepted, the company will issue the reimbursement and close the claim. 

Only one claim per household is allowed. Duplicate claims will be rejected.

GKN Aerospace will not be administering the claims. An independent claims administrator, Ernst & Young, will administer them, and a retired federal judge will supervise.

Earlier this year, GKN Aerospace committed $3 million to OC United Way’s OC Community Resilience Fund for people impacted by the evacuation orders. If you received support from this fund, you can still apply to the new claims program.

Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against GKN Aerospace following the scare.

People who are involved in a lawsuit can still apply for a claim, according to the company. But those who choose to accept a compensation offer will be required to sign a settlement agreement and must dismiss any current litigation. They must also forfeit the right to participate in future litigation or settlements related to the Garden Grove hazmat scare.

You can find more information on this FAQ page or get support by calling the GKN Aerospace support line at 657-526-7470.

What about the community event? 

GKN Aerospace officials are expected to answer questions about the claims portal. The event will take place Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 6 p.m. at the Delta Hotels Anaheim Garden Grove, 12021 Harbor Blvd.