The Brief

In early December, husband and wife team Tyler and Ashley Wells opened their new restaurant, Bernee, on Mariposa Street in Altadena.

It was their dream restaurant, envisioned after a successful run with their Los Feliz restaurant, All Time. A back-to-basics menu that changed daily, with most of the food prepared on an open wood-burning hearth.

For the first few weeks, the restaurant was a success, packed every night. Their personal lives did not go as smoothly — during this time, Ashley and Tyler decided to part ways as a couple.

Tyler moved into a small backhouse on the east side of Altadena, overlooking Eaton Canyon. But he would only spend a total of four nights there, because on Jan. 7, while he was at the restaurant, the Eaton Fire began sweeping through. His was one of the first houses to burn down.

The restaurant survived. But with smoke damage, and a hardware store next door filled with hazardous materials, it wasn’t safe to reopen.

“It was a heavy moment, and I felt helpless,” Wells said. “My first instinct was to accept that I was done in L.A., the restaurant wouldn't reopen, and I had no house. It felt like the universe was trying to tell me something,” he said.

Heavy smoke engulfed the block where their restaurant, Bernee, was located. Despite the devastation, the building remained standing.

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Courtesy Tyler Wells

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Before the fires, he’d been working 17-hour days at the restaurant, an intensity he had brought to his previous time at Handsome Coffee Roasters in downtown L.A. and All Time. While he loved what he had built, the loss of his marriage and now the community made him realize he needed to slow down, reassess his life, and make a change.

The Ecology Center

The change Wells sought appeared about 70 miles south, at a place called the Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano. The 28-acre, regenerative, and organic-certified farm was founded by Evan Marks in 2008. Wells and Marks already had an established relationship, with Wells regularly purchasing produce from the farm and hosting occasional dinners.

“ The first time I set foot on this place, it changed me,” Wells said.

Wells had always been impressed by the scope of the operation, with fresh produce sold daily to the public, and served at a cafe and a restaurant space. Apprentices also learn the fundamentals of growing and harvesting organic produce, as well as running a farm stand.

When Marks learned that Wells was struggling, he called him regularly to check in. Realizing he had nowhere to go, Marks offered him a residency at the center, where he could live on the grounds.

Diners enjoy meals at The Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano, where Chef Tyler Wells has been hosting his summer dinner series.

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Danielle Evonne Photography

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Courtesy The Ecology Center

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An open fire is utilized to cook sustainably-caught local fish, two aspects of Chef Tyler Wells' culinary practice at The Ecology Center.

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Danielle Evonne Photography

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Courtesy The Ecology Center

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It would take some convincing on Mark's part to get Wells to admit that he needed help, despite the humbling experience he had just gone through. Still, Wells understood that if he was going to make a change, he had to take a chance.

“ The moment when the universe just sat me down and said, 'No, you can't. You're physically unable to do anything. You don't even own pants.' The love that I was forced to receive and ultimately submit to changed my life, and that was from this farm,” Wells said.

He made a home for himself in a tent between two orange trees. Slowly, the residency evolved into him hosting an ongoing dinner series three days a week throughout the summer.

He said it was some of the most challenging work he’d ever faced as a chef, with the food cooked over an open fire in the fields, and an abundance of produce each week forcing him to constantly modify the menu.

But, he added, it ultimately helped him grow his skills and develop a closer connection to the land.

" I think there's a maturity and a confidence in my cooking that has never been there before,” he said.

The Farm Lettuce Caesar salad from Chef Tyler Wells's summer diner series at The Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Locally caught swordfish served with blistered cherry tomatoes and summer squash.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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When I visited the Ecology Center recently, I had the chance to try some of his dishes. A massive Caesar salad made with little gem lettuce that had been picked that morning, accompanied by a beautifully creamy dressing. A locally caught swordfish topped with blistered cherry tomatoes and a summer squash salad finished with salsa verde.

It was a perfect summer meal in a place that felt like a blend of a chaparral oasis and a modern commune, with the sun setting over the hills and the Grateful Dead playing on the outdoor sound system.

“It's almost, man, this is spiritual. This farm is turning me into a hippie, and I grew up straight edge punk rock on a skateboard,” Wells reflected. “Sometimes I'll just feel some ingredients that need to go together…. my intuition, I think my mind is so clear, it's so uncluttered with other things."

Bernee becomes Betsy

Wells is now wrapping up his time at the Ecology Center and has shifted his focus back to his original dream. He’s now the sole owner of Bernee and he has been busy reimagining it.

It has a new name — Betsy, his mother’s name — but it's at the exact location on Mariposa Street, just across the street from the recently reopened Miya Thai. 

Betsy is set to open on Saturday, Aug. 30, marking a homecoming for both Wells and his staff. He’s brought back 12 members of his original team, including the entire front-of-house and kitchen staff.

Chef Tyler Wells and Joey Messina, a member of the original Bernee staff, who's returned to help lead the kitchen at Betsy.

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Skandia Shafer

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Courtesy Tyler Wells

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The menu is similar to Bernee, but with a stronger emphasis on sustainable seafood, another unexpected result of his time at the farm.

“I never had these deep relationships with fishermen, and now we do,” he said. “It’s just so exciting to me to know when it came out of the ocean, who caught it. Just the freshness and the quality are unbelievable."

Although he initially planned to wait until late fall to open, after talking with his staff and other community members, reopening now just felt right.

“The town feels good, and this crew is ready, and I couldn’t risk tearing that apart,” said Wells.

In August, the Trump administration announced a significant overhaul of the Head Start program, leaving early childhood providers in Los Angeles concerned about their ability to serve low-income children.

The proposed rules strip Head Start of many of its regulations and impose new requirements, like teaching in English only.

The public comment period ends Oct. 6 — after which the administration could finalize the new rule. It’s unclear when that will happen, and experts say it could be caught up in litigation.

Why does the administration want to change the rules?

Federal officials said the deregulation would provide for more local flexibility.

An administration statement said the moves reduce both regulatory burden and administrative costs, allowing for more available slots — as many as 236,000 Head Start slots nationwide — and save $2.2 billion.

“We are removing unnecessary bureaucracy, strengthening nutrition and physical health, trusting parents and local communities, and opening Head Start to hundreds of thousands more children,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services. “That’s how we renew the promise of Head Start for the next generation.”

Earlier in the administration, the White House proposed to cut Head Start entirely from the budget but reversed course.

The case against the proposed rules

Head Start providers worry the new rules, if implemented, could be the start of whittling down a program that provides early education and other wraparound services for about 70,000 children across the state.

“It's a holistic program really designed to lift kids out of poverty and to set them up for future success, so what's at risk when the standards are changed are a lot of those elements and guidelines that support the program quality,” said Melanee Cottrill, executive director of Head Start California.

For example, Head Start provides support services beyond education, like developmental screenings and dental care, which would no longer be required under the Trump administration’s plan. The new rules would also require documentation beyond self-attestation for families experiencing homelessness.

“Putting a lot of documentation requirements in place would be very onerous for people who are in really difficult circumstances,” said Donna Sneeringer, president of the Child Care Resource Center, which serves about 2,000 kids in its Head Start programs in northern L.A. County. The program opened up a Head Start center at a family homeless shelter last year.

The administration’s proposal also sets a 5% cap on administrative costs, down from the current 15%, which Sneeringer said will be hard for nonprofits to implement.

“I think many Head Start operators are really going to struggle to even keep their programs open,” she said.

Many California college students struggle to find affordable housing. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of four bills on Wednesday meant to speed up the process of building student housing and reduce the cost for developers.

Newsom also signed a law earlier this month giving former foster youth and unhoused students priority for student housing. The law also allows those students to defer their student housing payment until they receive their financial aid.

“It’s really about a package of laws to try and handle the demand that exists for students,” said Assemblymember David Alvarez, a Democrat from Chula Vista and author of one of the laws, Assembly Bill 1732, the marquee bill of the package that exempts student housing projects from the California Environmental Quality Act.

Additionally, the laws include incentives for developers to build affordable housing. They also reduce obstacles to student housing projects by exempting them from local ordinances and blocking frivolous lawsuits.

Shaun Chilton, president of the Associated Students of Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, said he’s heard from students who say it’s difficult to find housing, and they sometimes cram themselves together four to a room.

With the limited housing, San Luis Obispo can be an expensive place to live. A five bedroom, 2,400-square-foot house near Cuesta College costs $12,000 a month to rent, according to rent.com, which also lists one-bedroom studios for $1,900 to $2,600 a month.

“We see a lot of uncomfortable housing situations at ridiculously high price points,” Chilton said.

All five laws were sponsored by the Student Housing Coalition. Four of them help developers overcome barriers to building more affordable student housing units. The coalition started in 2022 by what outgoing coalition chair Kate Rodgers described as a group of student “housing nerds” who saw a need for a pro-housing movement.

Student housing is “kinda seen as small potatoes” compared to larger statewide development problems, according to Rodgers, who is now the legislative director of California YIMBY in Sacramento.

“Our counterpoint as an organization to that is, the University of California and the California State University are far and away the largest public institutions that house people,” Rodgers said.

Laws from 2025 are moving housing projects along

Both on- and off-campus student housing projects have faced multiple delays in the past due to zoning restrictions and lawsuits. Rodgers identified several projects where new laws have helped developments avoid similar issues.

According to Rodgers, a UC Santa Barbara development that is underway did not have to meet California Coastal Commission minimum parking requirements due to a law signed in 2025 compelling the commission to defer to state or private colleges and universities when determining parking needs for residents of their housing projects.

Construction began in June and the university plans to move students in by fall 2028.

In another example, Santa Monica College and the Student Homes Coalition co-sponsored a successful bill in 2025 exempting California community colleges from local zoning requirements for student housing projects on land owned or leased by the college.

Now the college is moving forward with a project to house 750 students. It will be developed through a public-private partnership between Santa Monica Community College District and Michael’s Student Living.

Additionally, the San Bernardino Community College District utilized the same new law when it filed for exemption from local zoning laws for its Legacy Village housing development. The project includes 452 student beds, 180 workforce housing units, and retail space.

Rodgers said Student Homes Coalition’s core strategy is to work with developers every step of the way when putting together bills to address developer-side construction costs and delays. “We do not want to be spending our time on something that is not going to produce units,” she said.

Student housing now exempt from CEQA review

As part of the latest round of new laws, the Student and Faculty Housing Opportunity Act adds public colleges and universities to a law passed last year allowing CEQA exemptions for affordable housing developments. However, because public university properties are under the jurisdiction of the state, they didn’t qualify for the exemption under that law.

CEQA requires local and state agencies to provide a report assessing the potential impacts of a large project on the environment and take steps to lessen those impacts. Developers can be sued over allegedly inadequate findings or mitigation measures in these reports, which can slow down or halt projects entirely. The exemption aims to streamline affordable housing projects.

Alvarez told CalMatters that this bill in particular is intended to apply to on-campus housing projects at universities with adequate capacity.

“But some universities don’t have on-campus capacity, so they will be allowed to utilize this tool to streamline the construction of [housing] off campus,” he said.

Numerous organizations and individuals supported the bill, including California YIMBY, Student Homes Coalition and the University of California Student Association.

Kai Wang, a first-year political science major at UC Davis, spoke in support of the bill before members of the Assembly Committee on Housing and Community Development on April 13.

“Higher education should be opening doors, not leaving students searching for one,” Wang said.

Even with the CEQA exemption, developments remain open to litigation that can slow or stop them. Democratic state Sen. Angelique Ashby of Sacramento wrote Senate Bill 916, which will help prevent bad-faith lawsuits against student housing developments.

Current law allows courts to require a plaintiff to put up bond money for lawsuits against low- or moderate-income housing projects when a court finds the lawsuit frivolous or meant solely to slow or stop a project. The new law extends this same protection for student housing projects.

One new law, Assembly Bill 2118, streamlines the approval process for building mixed-income housing along commercial corridors. Another new law, Assembly Bill 2480, adds incentives for developers when they set aside part of their projects for affordable housing.

Currently, off-campus housing developments that set aside 20% of their units for low-income students qualify for these incentives, which include the ability to add more units and reduce parking. The new law gives even more incentives for dedicating at least 24% of the units for low-income students.

Foster youth, unhoused students get priority housing 

Some of California’s most vulnerable college students, those who are unhoused or in the foster system, now have priority for on-campus student housing. Newsom signed Assembly Bill 2766 on Sept. 14, adding the state’s community colleges to the list of campuses required to give priority housing to those students.

The bill also requires community colleges and California State University campuses to identify eligible students via housing applications, advertise housing benefits on their websites, and defer fees and housing deposits until students receive their full financial aid.

They must also prioritize eligible students for the NextUp foster youth support program, which provides them support and can include housing.

The University of California campuses are requested to do the same, but cannot be required due to their being constitutionally independent.

Diana Karageozian, lead clinical case manager at Fresno State’s Center for Essential Needs, said she’s looking forward to this law.

“I think people kind of forget about college students and how hard it is,” Karageozian said.

More funding for affordable student housing will be on the California ballot this November. Proposition 1 would allow the state to borrow $11.25 billion in bonds to fund housing projects across California. Some of that would go to efforts like student housing, tribal housing and farmworker housing.

Aaron Friesen and Anahid Valencia are contributors with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.

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

Lyft must pay $272.5 million in a historic settlement with the state of California and three cities over allegations that the company misclassified its drivers before it helped write a law that allowed it to consider them independent contractors.

Thousands of drivers who drove for the ride-hailing company from 2016 to 2020 are entitled to employee benefits such as minimum wage, overtime and reimbursement for work-related expenses, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Thursday at a press conference in San Francisco. The drivers will split at least $237 million, which is the largest misclassification settlement in state history, he said.

“Make no mistake, misclassification is how companies cheat workers,” the attorney general said, standing with the city attorneys and staff of San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles, who worked on the case for six years. Their lawsuits were consolidated in San Francisco Superior Court with those of the state Labor Commissioner’s Office and two individual drivers. “That’s not a business model, that’s exploitation,” Bonta said.

The state and cities also sued Uber over misclassification and wage theft. Both companies have been fighting the lawsuits for years and asked the state and U.S. supreme courts for review. Both high courts refused to review the cases.

“Lyft is only part of the picture,” said San Diego City Attorney Heather Ferbert at the press conference. “Uber has a larger share of the rideshare market, and that means more drivers, more miles driven and more affected workers. So our job is not done.”

Ferbert told CalMatters afterward that “if Uber doesn’t want to come to the table and talk about a meaningful settlement,” the case against the company could go to trial.

In 2020, Lyft, Uber and other gig-economy companies headquartered in California spent $205 million on Proposition 22, a ballot initiative that 58% of the state’s voters approved. It exempted the companies from state labor law and allowed them to treat drivers and delivery workers as independent contractors instead of employees.

“This settlement closes a chapter from a very different time, before Prop. 22,” said George Flynn, a Lyft spokesperson.

But drivers and other gig workers have complained about many of the same issues since Prop. 22 was passed. CalMatters found that effectively, nobody is in charge of upholding the promises gig companies made under the law, such as guaranteed wages, some healthcare benefits and a way to fight against “deactivations,” or being kicked off the apps.

This year, Uber drivers sued the company, accusing it of failing to create a system that allows them to appeal deactivations. Also this year, ride-hailing drivers formed a union after winning the right to collectively bargain last year.

Rideshare Drivers United, a Los Angeles-based group whose members filed the initial 5,000 claims with the state on behalf of Lyft and Uber drivers, said the settlement falls short of the $434 million in claims it filed on behalf of about 1,900 Lyft drivers.

“Yes, we are getting some of the money back because we fought for it, but why do they not have to pay basic minimum wages and expenses like every other company?” said Nicole Moore, president of the group, in a statement. “Are we OK with letting these companies cheat a system of the most basic labor rights?”

Many drivers have worked for both Uber and Lyft. Yasha Timenovich, who drives and does deliveries in the Los Angeles area, said he expects to be eligible for the Lyft settlement and for compensation from Uber when the time comes.

“Since we waited six years for this lawsuit, what’s another year?” said Timenovich, who now does gig work for Amazon, DoorDash, Grubhub, Roadie, Spark and Lyft. He recently signed up for another gig delivery service, Veho. All of those companies consider him an independent contractor. He said he works six or seven days a week, sometimes up to 18 hours a day.

California Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower said in a statement that her office is forgoing its part of the settlement, $5.45 million, “so that every available dollar goes directly to drivers who filed wage claims.” Her office said more than 1,600 Lyft drivers filed the claims; the settlement will apply to any eligible Lyft drivers so the exact number of potential claims is unknown.

A settlement administrator will manage the fund that will be doled out to drivers, who will be eligible for compensation based on the number of miles and hours they drove for Lyft between April 2016 and December 2020. The administrator will contact drivers once the San Francisco Superior Court approves the settlement and Lyft begins making payments to the fund.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Lyft said it can choose to make settlement payments over four years.

An Uber spokesperson did not return CalMatters’ request to comment on its pending case or the comments the officials made about their ongoing litigation against the company — including Bonta saying that Uber was “a major violator” when it came to misclassification.

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

Tommy Lefroy is the brainchild of singer-songwriters Tessa Mouzourakis and Wynter Bethel, who are putting a literary spin on soft rock. They’re getting ready to release their first album, The Precariat, this month and have been teasing fans along the way, with their latest single, “Vacuum” out Friday.

The name Tommy Lefroy is a reference to the man who is often said to have inspired Jane Austen’s character Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Bethel said they wanted to “subvert and embody the muse or the 'heartbreaker.'”

Their first album, The Precariat, draws inspiration from the works of economists and social activists. Mouzourakis cites Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism as inspiration for the album because the book talks about people in power capitalizing on disaster.

“We’re seeing that now, although we’re kind of in a state of constant crisis,” Mouzourakis said. (Fun fact, the band even hosts book swaps at their shows.)

Then there’s British economist Guy Standing, who wrote The Precariat in 2011, about a new socioeconomic class facing financial insecurity and instability. Their new album focuses on that feeling of instability they experienced firsthand, such as when Mouzourakis moved to L.A. around the time of the January 2025 fires, which also delayed recording their album.

Bethel is originally from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Mouzourakis hails from Vancouver, British Columbia. The two met in Nashville in 2017 in songwriting circles and started creating music together during the pandemic.

The time they spent together writing their first EP Flightrisk in London inspired their latest single, “Vacuum.” Bethel said when she moved to London, she didn’t know anyone except for Mouzourakis.

“We were kind of referencing this sense of us having no community besides each other, the band becoming this focus and this thing that was tying us together,” said Mouzourakis. Bethel adds, "It was a gut feeling that led me to ask Tessa to start a band, and in this song, we're kind of equating that to sort of blind faith of following someone into the dark."

Songs like “Slush Puppy,” the first single off The Precariat, reference the book The Coming Insurrection written by The Invisible Committee and touch on the surveillance state.

“Things feel sometimes futureless, or it feels so heavy, it feels unbearable,” Mouzourakis said. “We tried to offer sort of glimmers of hope in community and friendship and the people around you and talking to each other, sharing in this experience, because it is incredibly isolating.”

The Precariat comes out Oct. 23, and they play at El Cid, 4212 W Sunset Blvd, on Nov. 4. Tickets are around $27.