When acting and production work was hard to come by for Matteo Chizzola, he decided to open a matcha lemonade stand in his Los Feliz neighborhood. Now, it’s become a joyful place for community members to get together and connect.
Why now: Now more than ever, people are craving community and connection. The conduit may be as simple as a matcha lemonade.
On a recent Friday morning in Los Feliz, Matteo Chizzola set up his matcha-lemonade stand, something he’s been faithfully doing on weekends for the past year.
A bowl of fresh lemons sat on a citrus-themed tablecloth, a patio umbrella with tassels provided shade in the intense heat, and a vibrant green and white sign emblazoned with “Matteo’s Matcha” drew the attention of passersby.
Several cars stopped to honk hello at Chizzola on the corner of Franklin Avenue and Talmadge Street, just west of the entrance to the century-old Shakespeare Bridge. Locals walking by bought milky matcha drinks and mint matcha lemonades from the 27-year-old.
“I think a lot of the appeal — at least as far as people have told me — is they come to Matteo's Matcha not only to get the product and because of it being $5, but also because they like to come talk to me,” Chizzola said. “Not to toot my own horn in any way, but it is a conversational neighborhood lemonade stand where I've developed relationships with these people.”
Haley McDonald, a loyal customer for the past 10 months, often walks there with her dogs.
“It's nice to see a familiar face when I come, and it's a good start to my day,” McDonald said. “It makes L.A. feel a lot smaller."
Sophie Stedman and Mary-Dudley Berry, friends of Chizzola’s who have become loyal customers, have Matteo’s Matcha stickers on the back of their phones. Stedman usually grabs a matcha lemonade before heading to a local pool.
“Matteo’s Matcha stand is my third space," she said. "It’s the best. We love it.”
Last year, Chizzola, an actor who also works in production and event catering, came up with the idea of running a stand in his neighborhood after a dry spell in gigs.
“There was one morning when I woke up super late because I wasn't working, and I was just like, 'I need a job, like I don't have money and structure,'” he said.
He'd been making drinks for friends and threw out the idea of opening his own lemonade stand, partly joking. His best friend told him it was a genius idea, so he ran with it.
He makes his drinks by mixing matcha powder (imported from Nishio in Japan) with cold water in a cocktail shaker, and then vigorously shakes it to aerate and prevent clumps, a method he learned as a customer at the nearby matcha cafe Kettl.
Depending on what’s in season, he’ll punch up his lemonade with blood orange, cherry, opal basil, or cucumber, which he buys from the beloved Schaner Farms stand at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market. Chizzola first heard about the farm’s stellar produce from chefs at the restaurants he previously worked at: Gjelina in Venice and Lulu at the Hammer Museum in Westwood.
Typically, Chizzola sells 25 to 40 drinks a day, and makes a few hundred bucks a weekend. While he mostly sticks to his Los Feliz location, his matcha stand has taken him to Skyduster Beer in downtown L.A. for the World Cup, a baby shower and estate sale. In September, Matteo’s Matcha made it into an Alo and Vogue commercial featuring model Amelia Gray in New York.
He isn’t sure where he’s going to take his business, or if he wants to be known as “the matcha guy.” Chizzola’s been dreaming up different ideas of opening more stands or even bottling his lemonade one day, but he also wants to act and work in production.
“I would love to keep doing this, but it's definitely taken a physical toll on me already,” said Chizzola. “I've been doing it with the sun beating down on me for 12 hours a week, and I want to keep doing it, but I don't know if I have the consistency in me or if I want it to be a pop-up situation.”
If anything, he knows the stall brings him joy.
“Matteo's Matcha has allowed me to wake up with a smile on my face most mornings, which is incredibly important to me,” he said.
Location: Corner of Talmadge and Franklin, Los Feliz
Hours: Typically Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Check Instagram for the most up-to-date hours.
Topline:
The Social Security Administration projected Wednesday that the annual cost-of-living adjustment for older adults and people with disabilities will go up by 3.6% beginning in 2027, with some recipients complaining that is not enough to offset soaring prices.
How much will benefits go up?: The adjustment translates to $75 extra per month for the nearly 72 million people who receive monthly Social Security benefits and about 7.3 million beneficiaries who get Supplemental Security Income. The cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, for retirees and disabled beneficiaries is financed by payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers, up to a certain annual salary. That is set to increase to $192,300 in 2027, from $184,500 in 2026.
Why it matters: Some older adults feel the increase is a drop in the bucket as inflation has eaten away at monthly savings. The government reported Wednesday that inflation accelerated in September, with the consumer price index rising 3.7% in September compared with a year ago and gas prices have spiked in the wake of renewed fighting between the United States and Iran. Nancy Altman, president of the Social Security Works advocacy group, said the latest inflation data shows that “as important as the Social Security COLA is, it is not keeping up with prices.”
The Social Security Administration projected Wednesday that the annual cost-of-living adjustment for older adults and people with disabilities will go up by 3.6% beginning in 2027, with some recipients complaining that is not enough to offset soaring prices.
The adjustment translates to $75 extra per month for the nearly 72 million people who receive monthly Social Security benefits and about 7.3 million beneficiaries who get Supplemental Security Income.
The announcement comes as inflation adds pressure on household budgets and businesses and as midterm elections are weeks away.null
The cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, for retirees and disabled beneficiaries is financed by payroll taxes collected from workers and their employers, up to a certain annual salary. That is set to increase to $192,300 in 2027, from $184,500 in 2026.
The agency’s commissioner, Frank Bisignano, said in a statement that the adjustment will give recipients “greater financial stability.”
Some older adults feel the increase is a drop in the bucket as inflation has eaten away at monthly savings. The government reported Wednesday that inflation accelerated in September, with the consumer price index rising 3.7% in September compared with a year ago and gas prices have spiked in the wake of renewed fighting between the United States and Iran.
Nancy Altman, president of the Social Security Works advocacy group, said the latest inflation data shows that “as important as the Social Security COLA is, it is not keeping up with prices.”
null
Lorrie Ufkin, a 71-year-old retiree who lives outside Rochester, Minnesota, said the COLA will not put a dent in her healthcare costs, which are set to increase after the Trump administration concludes at year’s end a temporary Medicare Part D subsidy program that has helped offset premiums. Ufkin said that her premiums and drug cost are expected to rise, although the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has projected a modest increase for most people.
The COLA “doesn’t even meet what they’re going to do for changes to Medicare,” she told The Associated Press.
She said one of the medications both she and her husband take will go from $11 per month for each prescription, to $200 per month, after Republican administration changes made to older Americans’ healthcare programs. She said that was “catastrophic.”
Senior advocacy groups say the COLA is a strong reminder of the financial straits of many older people.
“There’s a lot on the line financially right now for older Americans — one in five have no retirement savings, and more people feel financially insecure this year than last. That makes Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment critically important,” said AARP CEO Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan.
Jaime Jakubczak, a 68-year-old resident of Buffalo, New York who retired early at 55, has recently gone back to work to make ends meet, specifically to afford rising property taxes. He said the COLA is insufficient because it is offset by high inflation and a proposed 3.9% property tax increase in his town.
Jakubczak called the 3.6% cost-of-living adjustment “a pittance,” given how high food, healthcare and gasoline prices have become across the country.
“We were getting ahead a little bit with the COLA based on inflation, but the inflation is so high that it doesn’t offset what our COLA allowance is,” he said.
Most older adults believe the COLA isn’t adequately keeping up with inflation, according to an AARP poll from September. That poll found that about three-quarters of those 50 or older disagreed with the idea that a 3.5% COLA in 2027 would be enough to keep up with rising prices.
The Social Security Administration faces a looming bankruptcy date if a funding shortfall is not addressed by Congress.
The June 2026 Social Security and Medicare trustees’ report states that Social Security’s combined trust funds — which cover old age and disability recipients — will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2034. After that, incoming revenue would cover about 83% of scheduled benefits.
While a permanent solution for shoring up the benefits program has not been passed into law, lawmakers on the Hill have called for new measures to replenish the trust funds.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, in June proposed lifting the Social Security payroll tax cap, which is a maximum amount of earnings taxable. Treating all income the same “would generate substantial revenue that would extend the solvency of Social Security for another generation,” they wrote in The New York Times.
The move is controversial because Republicans have traditionally criticized calls to raise taxes on the wealthy.
The Peterson Foundation estimates that lifting the payroll tax cap would add roughly $3 trillion into the program over the next 10 years.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations signed into law new benefits for retirees, which boosted their finances, but simultaneously accelerated the insolvency of the old-age benefits program.
The Trump administration, as part of Republicans’ tax and spending bill, gave a temporary tax deduction for people 65 and over, which applies to all income — not just Social Security. But those who aren’t able to claim the deduction include the lowest-income older adults who already don’t pay taxes on Social Security, those who choose to claim their benefits before they reach 65 and those above a defined income threshold.
Additionally, Democratic President Joe Biden in 2024 repealed two federal policies — the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset — that previously limited Social Security payouts for roughly 2.8 million people, including largely former public workers.
Topline:
Community efforts to block data centers have come up against a formidable obstacle in the City of Industry, a sprawl of industrial warehouses and commercial manufacturing centers that snakes across 12 miles of the San Gabriel Valley.
The backstory: The San Gabriel Valley has become a hotbed of opposition to the building of data centers for artificial intelligence, part of a nationwide backlash uniting communities across demographic groups and political parties — a Gallup poll earlier this year found seven in 10 Americans oppose construction of data centers in their area. Community groups have notched victories across several cities in this region of nearly 2 million people, including in Monterey Park, which in June became the first city in the nation to pass a voter-approved ban on data centers.
What's next: Data center opponents in the region are now turning their attention to the City of Industry, where they know that going up against a city with so much power yet so few residents or oversight will require new strategies.
Read on... for more on how San Gabriel Valley residents are fighting against data centers.
Falynn Love met her husband 25 years ago at the Puente Hills Mall, a place best known as a filming location for the 1985 movie Back to the Future.
Today, Love is fighting to preserve the largely vacant, 1970s-era retail center in the City of Industry, about 15 miles east of Los Angeles, as a third space for the community, and to stop plans to turn the site into a massive industrial complex with two large warehouses, a new bus transit station and a 10-megawatt data center.
Those plans have sparked fierce opposition among residents of the San Gabriel Valley, where a diverse coalition of community groups across an array of predominantly Latino and Asian suburbs has mobilized to try to stop a series of proposed data centers over concerns they will worsen the area’s air quality and noise pollution and hike residents’ utility bills.
“We’re going to be bearing the cost of these kinds of projects,” said Love, who joined the fight after learning about plans for the Puente Hills Mall when attending a neighborhood meeting in Rowland Heights, an unincorporated community just across the street.
As with many residents in the coalition, the issue impelled Love to get involved in activism for the first time.
“It doesn’t matter what race you are, what background, what religion,” Love said. “Everybody is standing for the same thing, and it’s community, it’s people, it’s environment.”
The San Gabriel Valley has become a hotbed of opposition to the building of data centers for artificial intelligence, part of a nationwide backlash uniting communities across demographic groups and political parties — a Gallup poll earlier this year found seven in 10 Americans oppose construction of data centers in their area. Community groups have notched victories across several cities in this region of nearly 2 million people, including in Monterey Park, which in June became the first city in the nation to pass a voter-approved ban on data centers.
But community efforts to block data centers have come up against a formidable obstacle in the City of Industry, a sprawl of industrial warehouses and commercial manufacturing centers that snakes across 12 miles of the San Gabriel Valley. Though it borders a dozen communities from El Monte to Diamond Bar, with just over 200 residents, it’s a municipal oddity that has faced legal challenges since its incorporation in 1957.
Public records obtained by community groups and reviewed by Capital & Main show City of Industry officials have been discussing data center proposals with developers in recent years — the largest of which is the plan for the Puente Hills Mall site. Activists say there are few means by which residents of surrounding communities can protect themselves from the impacts because the city has few actual constituents and its leaders are unaccountable to nearby residents who could be harmed.
“Residents and surrounding communities are really disadvantaged by the fact that this unaccountable city exists,” said Samuel Brown-Vázquez, an organizer with No Data Centers San Gabriel Valley and Avocado Heights Vaquer@s.
A City of Industry spokesperson reached by Capital & Main said the city has not approved plans for a data center but declined further comment for this story.
Data centers, large industrial facilities that house computer servers to store, process and transmit digital information used by artificial intelligence, cloud computing and other digital services, require large electrical systems, enormous amounts of water for cooling equipment and other resource-intensive infrastructure.
As technology becomes more reliant on these services to feed AI-powered search engines and chatbots, data centers are rapidly expanding nationwide, but so is community resistance, as residents raise concerns about the environmental and health impacts of the resource-hungry facilities and their effects on electricity and water rates.
“I couldn’t believe that a data center was going to be built within a five-minute walk of my house,” said Steven Kung, co-founder of No Data Center Monterey Park and candidate for Monterey Park City Council.
“It didn’t sit well with me because data centers usually get built in rural communities or deserts, and there was this cognitive dissonance in a data center coming to such a housing-dense area,” said Kung. “It felt like environmental racism.”
Monterey Park, a predominantly Asian and Latino community of about 57,000 people just a few miles west of the City of Industry, has been leading the local data center resistance.
After fierce community backlash, the Australian-owned investment firm StratCap pulled its plans for a 247,000-square-foot data center in the city.
Grassroots canvassing, social media campaigns and protests led to a temporary moratorium and eventually a city ordinance, which paved the way for a ballot measure. In June, 86% of residents approved Measure NDC, becoming the first in the nation to pass a ban on data centers.
“It feels very empowering in a time when people feel powerless,” Kung said.
No Data Centers San Gabriel Valley, a coalition of residents, activists and at least six community organizations from across the San Gabriel Valley, has used similar tactics in El Monte, Montebello and Baldwin Park, where city councils adopted temporary moratoriums on data centers, and Alhambra, where a citywide ban is on the November ballot.
But there’s a 12-mile-long obstacle to community groups’ aspirations to keep data centers out of the San Gabriel Valley.
Data center opponents in the region are now turning their attention to the City of Industry, where they know that going up against a city with so much power yet so few residents or oversight will require new strategies.
“Those of us in unincorporated L.A. County are going to get stuck with the impacts — the public health impacts, the adverse environmental impacts — and there is no remedy and no recourse or enforcement mechanism at this juncture,” said Brown-Vázquez, the organizer with No Data Centers San Gabriel Valley.
The City of Industry is an industrial powerhouse with 92% of its land zoned for industrial use and 8% for commercial use.
But with a population of 210, it is one of the least populous cities in California according to a 2024 estimate by the U.S. Census Bureau. Residents of El Encanto Healthcare and Habilitation Center, a skilled nursing facility that was once a private mental institution, even comprise some of the current voting population.
Activists say the City Council operates with little accountability from the small residential population. A City Council election hasn’t been held since a 2020 recall, which was the first election in nearly 20 years.
Brown-Vázquez is a resident of Avocado Heights, a designated SB 535 Disadvantaged Community and unincorporated area encircled by the City of Industry. His sister has cancer, which he believes could stem from their proximity to underregulated industrial activity.
Multiple environmental concerns have arisen over the City of Industry, including groundwater contamination from a former Benchmark Technology facility and lead contamination from the Ecobat battery recycling plant.
“City of Industry is really an anomaly in terms of municipalities within the state of California in that it’s almost completely exempt from a lot of the safeguards that should theoretically exist,” said Brown-Vázquez.
In February, the City of Industry City Council voted to change zoning laws to allow Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) and data centers virtually everywhere in the city.
“The city is shaped like a tapeworm, basically snaking throughout the San Gabriel Valley along the freeway,” said Kung.
“By rezoning and allowing for data centers and battery energy storage systems, these dangerous entities … could touch almost every city in the SGV,” Kung added.
BESS systems can provide a reliable power supply to the grid, but potential risks include lithium battery fires and health effects from harmful gases released in fires. Data centers operate around the clock and often rely on battery storage systems for a consistent energy supply.
“It’s clear this is 100% a necessary part of the infrastructure to build out and increase the load capacity to accommodate data centers,” said Brown-Vázquez.
While the City of Industry said it has not approved plans for a data center, public records show city officials discussed potential building sites with developers, including at the Puente Hills Mall site, the site of the former Alfred S. Madrid Middle School and the Industry Business Center building 10, before changing zoning laws.
Public records reviewed by Capital & Main include a December email discussing substation power for the Industry Business Center building 10. In it, City of Industry City Manager Joshua Nelson wrote, “I think we should just bank/count/gamble with it being a data center and we will find a user that will use the power.”
A representative for Raeden Inc., the company that proposed the data center, told Capital & Main that “Raeden is not currently pursuing a project in the City of Industry. We were previously exploring a site in the area, but are not actively moving forward at this time.”
Brown-Vázquez said the City of Industry has not been transparent with the public about its data center discussions and has tried to suppress information by not providing interpreters or filming public meetings and by making it difficult to submit public comment.
In March, dozens of residents from neighboring communities across the San Gabriel Valley lined up to give public comments at a City Council meeting. They were told to fill out a comment card by 9 a.m., but public comments were pushed to the end of the meeting after the city held an hourslong closed session.
“They’re doing that specifically to try to dissuade people from speaking,” said Brown-Vasquez, while outside the council chambers. “This is how they operate. It’s part and parcel of their operations.”
“We might not live in the City of Industry, but we are stakeholders, and we deserve the opportunity to be able to weigh in and to submit comments,” added Brown-Vázquez, who has filed multiple Brown Act violations against the city.
The City of Industry is one of “the Big 4” industrial cities in L.A. County, alongside Commerce, Vernon and Santa Fe Springs, which together comprise 24% of the county’s industrial space and market themselves as attractive places for investment due to low taxes and fees, permissive zoning and other business-friendly policies.
“Nowhere else in Southern California — or the entire West Coast — will you find this concentration of industrial power, logistics excellence and business opportunity,” the consortium promoting business investments states.
The City of Industry has roughly 3,000 businesses employing over 68,000 people and generating over $31 billion annually in total sales in a city with only a few hundred residents.
With few city residents reaping those economic benefits, Brown-Vázquez said he wants to know where all the money is going.
The City of Industry had much higher per-capita revenue, over $300,000 per resident, in fiscal year 2024 compared to under $2,000 per resident in neighboring cities like El Monte and La Puente, according to data from the California State Controller’s Office.
The Marici BESS project, a 400-megawatt battery storage facility that will connect to Southern California Edison’s electric transmission system, was approved by the city in February. This project is anticipated to generate $6 million in community benefit fees and around $3 million in project sales and use tax revenue, according to a community benefit agreement reached between the city and the developer.
“We’re supposed to be the beneficiaries of investment,” said Brown-Vázquez, adding that the revenue generated from industry should be invested back into the neighboring communities.
The City of Industry has been the center of several corruption scandals where city business investments were used to siphon money, including by former Mayor Dave Perez and former City Manager Paul Philips. Despite multiple efforts by the state at regulating activity there, the city remains an industrial powerhouse.
New legislation co-sponsored by the Big 4 could further perpetuate the City of Industry’s power in the San Gabriel Valley, said Brown-Vázquez.
Introduced in February by state Sen. Bob Archuleta of Norwalk, and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September, Senate Bill 1274 establishes “industrial cities” as an official definition in state code for programs, policies and funding.
Archuleta said in an interview that industrial cities are burdened with heavy traffic from commerce and the large influx of a daily commuter workforce. Street infrastructure projects in these cities are underfunded by the state, he said, and clearly defining industrial cities in state code can give them a pathway to advocate for more transportation funding.
“This is our way of saying thank you for making California the economic hub that it is,” said Archuleta. “If we’re going to turn the tide, and bring in labor, and bring in new development and new opportunities to maintain our fourth-largest economy status, this is how we have to do it.”
Brown-Vázquez believes this blanket designation could lead to future exemptions for industrial cities, which he said already operate with few regulations or concern for the environmental well-being of neighboring communities.
No Data Centers San Gabriel Valley is working to apply pressure on the City of Industry through regional joint power associations by asking school districts to pass resolutions and by calling on county and state officials.
“They need some pressure put on them to understand that their decisions impact a lot of communities,” Love of Rowland Heights said about the City of Industry.
“Why doesn’t L.A. County or the state of California come down on some of these [industrial] cities? Why are they just allowed to be reckless with the surrounding community bearing the brunt of that?” Love asked.
Several new state laws are imposing new requirements on water use, electricity costs, land use and local oversight for data centers. Despite previously vetoing such legislation, Newsom recently signed comprehensive laws aimed at regulating the data center industry.
L.A. County Supervisor and Board Chair Hilda Solis, who represents the San Gabriel Valley, heard the calls of her constituents and introduced a motion in April to address the health and environmental impacts of data centers.
At the Board of Supervisors meeting, county officials cited numerous health concerns related to data centers, noted strains on the electric grid infrastructure and consumer utility rates, raised concerns about the strain on water consumption, and said fire and zoning codes have not been updated with clear regulations for the new type of data centers being proposed.
Despite these alarms, Solis received pushback from colleagues, such as Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who called data centers a “21st century reality.”
Supervisors approved a watered-down version of Solis’ motion, directing county departments to conduct a comprehensive study of the potential public health, environmental and community impacts of data centers, without implementing the proposed moratorium on new builds in unincorporated areas.
After further analysis, the county Department of Regional Planning provided recommendations for managing data centers and, in September, issued a temporary moratorium on hyperscale data centers in unincorporated communities.
The ban could become permanent under a recent motion from Solis. County supervisors were scheduled to vote on the measure at a meeting Tuesday but Solis pulled the item from the agenda.
In a statement, Solis said that she postponed her motion to allow more time to address “issues raised by our labor partners and ensure we have a strong policy that reflects the needs of our residents and workers.”
Solis said her staff had heard from other board offices about “concerns raised by the unions and the trades about protecting good-paying jobs and ensuring workers are not left behind as this industry grows” and said that those concerns “deserve careful consideration.”
In any case, such prohibitions will not protect residents from projects in the City of Industry and other incorporated cities.
Meanwhile, the San Gabriel Valley’s coalition of data center opponents is continuing to educate residents about the dangers of encroaching data centers with teach-ins, art builds and demonstrations.
In May, dozens of residents from diverse backgrounds and communities rallied at Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park across the street from the Puente Hills Mall to protest the proposed data center. Another rally is set for Oct. 18.
“I’m sick of being sold out by our politicians. These spaces should be for the people that are surrounding it, for the communities, not to be lining their pockets for their own business and profit,” said Alicia Contreras, a resident of La Puente who was attending her first demonstration with the coalition.
“I’m also looking for community,” she added as one of her reasons for protesting. “I just see so many people that don’t look like me, and it’s surprising. I didn’t know that we were all here.”
Photos by Semantha Raquel Norris for Capital & Main.
Copyright 2026 Capital & Main.
Topline:
The Dodgers are back in L.A. tonight for Game 3 of the National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. Manager Dave Roberts says Shohei Ohtani will be in the lineup.
Why it matters: Ohtani has struggled at the plate so far this postseason, hitting .150 (3 for 20) over six games. He has seven strikeouts, three walks and one stolen base with no home runs and no RBIs. Roberts said Tuesday he talked with Ohtani about how he's feeling, and that their conversation wasn’t about benching the Japanese superstar, but rather offering him time off similar to Freddie Freeman during the postseason in 2024. Freeman had a sprained ankle and bone bruise, and took three days off spanning the NL Division Series and NLCS before earning World Series MVP honors.
The backstory: Ohtani admitted before the NLDS against Atlanta that he’s not 100% healthy from right biceps and left knee issues that bothered him the last the last few months of the regular season. He has appeared visibly uncomfortable at the plate while flailing at pitches.
What's next: The Dodgers and Brewers square off tonight at 5 p.m. at Dodger Stadium. Blake Snell will start for L.A. The game will be broadcast on FS1.
With contributions from LAist staff.
Shohei Ohtani will be in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ lineup for Game 3 of the National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers tonight.
Manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday that Ohtani will bat anywhere from second to sixth with the two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers losing the first two games of the best-of-seven series.
“He was very convicted that he is onto something mechanically (with his swing),” Roberts said. “He was adamant that he can help us. He’s well enough to help us win a baseball game, so that’s all I needed to hear.”
Ohtani is hitting .150 (3 for 20) over six postseason games. He has seven strikeouts, three walks and one stolen base with no home runs, no RBIs and an OPS of .411.
He hasn’t homered since Aug. 18 at Colorado.
Ohtani admitted before the NLDS against Atlanta that he’s not 100% healthy from right biceps and left knee issues that bothered him the last the last few months of the regular season. He has appeared visibly uncomfortable at the plate while flailing at pitches.
“The symptoms have subdued a lot,” Ohtani said Tuesday through a translator while making an unscheduled appearance in the off-day interview room. “The symptoms shouldn’t be the reason why I can’t hit, and even if the injuries happen by accident, I take full responsibility.”
Roberts spoke to Ohtani before the team worked out at Dodger Stadium, where Ohtani took on-field batting practice, something he rarely does during the regular season.
Roberts said their conversation wasn’t about benching the Japanese superstar, but rather offering him time off similar to Freddie Freeman during the postseason in 2024. Freeman had a sprained ankle and bone bruise, and took three days off spanning the NL Division Series and NLCS before earning World Series MVP honors.
“Over the course of this long season, there’s only really a short period of time when my mechanics is completely in sync,” Ohtani said. “So it’s just really kind of just going back and forth, finding the right parts of the swing and managing just the different parts of the swing. It’s a constant, ongoing process that’s headed in the right direction.”
Ohtani led the Dodgers to a four-game NLCS sweep of Milwaukee last year, when the Brewers hit a measly .118 against LA’s pitching.
He was 5 for 14 (.357) with three home runs, four walks and five strikeouts as NLCS MVP — all three homers came in a memorable Game 4 clinch in which he also struck out 10 as a pitcher. He had a 1.643 OPS and 1.143 slugging percentage.
“We remember vividly at this time last year that he maybe had the best baseball game ever played the day he pitched against us and hit a home run every time up, it seemed like,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “You can’t forget that, his capabilities. But you still have to go at him.”
Ohtani is known for hitting homers but the offensively starved Dodgers would take any kind of production from him at this point.
“In this big moment, we’re listening to Shohei, and we’re going to support the crap out of him and believe in him,” Roberts said, “and that’s it.”
Two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell starts for Los Angeles against Robert Gasser of the Brewers in a matchup of left-handers on Wednesday.
The Dodgers will be looking to get considerably more innings out of Snell than in his last start on Oct. 4.
He lasted 3 2/3 innings, giving up one run, three hits, walking five and striking out five, in a 3-2 loss in Game 2 of the NLDS against Atlanta. He didn’t speak to media afterward and has kept a low profile since then.
“Just a lot of time talking to myself, figuring out where I need to get to, where I’m at,” he said. “Watching two games against Milwaukee, just kind of game planning, seeing what I can expose, what they’re doing really well. Just trying to figure them out.”
Brewers center fielder Garrett Mitchell grew up in Orange County as a Los Angeles Angels fan. His family had season tickets in left field. He went to high school with the son of Angels star Garret Anderson.
“Got to have some good conversations with him, take some blasts into the past and talk about memories,” Mitchell said. “I was a shortstop when I was a kid, too. So I enjoyed watching David Eckstein and Adam Kennedy, and I also have a personal relationship with Adam Kennedy as well.”
Mitchell said the way the Angels played reminds him of how the Brewers approach games.
“Guys who maybe aren’t the greatest or the best on the field but know what they’ve got to do and know their roles and grind and compete to the best of their abilities,” he said. “That’s what it takes, it’s a team effort.”
Topline:
With an El Niño winter threatening heavy rain, the State Auditor warns that California’s aging dams “continue to pose a risk to public safety,” especially in the Bay Area, San Diego, and Los Angeles areas.
The backstory: Lawmakers gave the state the power to penalize dam owners that violate safety requirements in 2017, after the Oroville spillway failure forced the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people. Water managers have yet to use that power, the audit found.
Why it matters: Disasters are extremely rare. But when they do occur, like in Oroville, or the 1928 collapse of nearly-new St. Francis dam northwest of Los Angeles — they can be catastrophic.
Read on... for more on the audit.
With an El Niño winter threatening heavy rain, the State Auditor warns that California’s aging dams “continue to pose a risk to public safety,” especially in the Bay Area, San Diego, and Los Angeles areas.
Lawmakers gave the state the power to penalize dam owners that violate safety requirements in 2017, after the Oroville spillway failure forced the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people. Water managers have yet to use that power, the audit found.
Even if state water managers had wielded their enforcement powers, dam owners likely couldn’t have afforded the fixes.
An audit released Monday found 57 dams in poor or unsatisfactory condition as of May, up from previous counts. That number is likely to keep rising, as state water officials reevaluate aging dams.
The 40 riskiest dams — rated high or extremely high hazard — are located throughout the state, but cluster near densely populated coastal cities.
Should these dams fail, the auditor reported, “they could collectively endanger as many as 1.5 million people and cause more than $265 billion in economic damage.”
Almost a decade ago, lawmakers strengthened the California Department of Water Resources’ authority to impose penalties such as reservoir restrictions, property liens, and fines when dam owners violate state safety laws and other requirements.
State engineers have referred owners of 44 dams for enforcement as of April. But, the auditor wrote, the water resources department “has never taken punitive enforcement actions against dam owners that fail to remedy their violations.”
The problem is that dams are getting older. Many were built when safety standards were softer. State laws never required dam owners to set aside funds to keep them safe, so when concrete crumbles, sediment accumulates and spillways threaten to erode under floodwaters, most dam owners lack the money for repairs.
The state’s water resources department oversees the safety of more than 1,220 dams, most of them in satisfactory condition. Responsibility for maintaining the dams falls to the local governments, utilities, water agencies, and the private landowners and companies that own them. Some of the dams rated in poor condition are owned by state agencies.
Disasters are extremely rare. But when they do occur, like in Oroville, or the 1928 collapse of nearly-new St. Francis dam northwest of Los Angeles — they can be catastrophic.
The auditor applauded the water resources department’s inspection program but blasted its failure to enforce against dam owners who fail to meet state planning, safety or other requirements, “thereby allowing serious deficiencies to persist.”
One of the cases involved a dam with a 47-foot-wide hole in its spillway that has gone unrepaired for more than 30 years, which the audit said could cause flooding affecting nearly 300 people and more than $88 million in damage.
The audit doesn’t name the dam. State water managers said more specifics could pose security concerns, though the department makes each dam’s hazard potential and condition public in an annual report.
State water managers finalized the enforcement regulations in 2022. But they told the auditor they haven’t been able to adequately staff an enforcement branch and aren’t confident they could afford to defend their actions in a hearing.
Even with staff and money, the auditor concludes, if a dam owner remained noncompliant, the state “cannot act before the dam poses emergency-level danger. This leaves a gap in state law that puts public safety at risk.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom touted dam repairs in his drought-era water supply strategy four years ago, as a way to shore up water supplies. Two years later, in 2024, Newsom and lawmakers slashed funding for a dam repair grant program.
Since then, a 2024 ballot proposition delivered a $464 million infusion for the program. A Federal Emergency Management Agency grant also awarded California $629,198 this September, according to Jason Ince, a spokesperson for the Department of Water Resources
But the audit cited estimates that repairing the state’s less-than-satisfactory dams could cost around $28 billion, making the funding a drop in the bucket.
The report urged state lawmakers to set deadlines and require dam owners with high and extremely high hazard dams — meaning ones that could kill people if they fail — to submit maintenance and repair plans to state agencies.
It also called for lawmakers to expand state water managers’ enforcement authority, and for the agency to use the full force of its powers.
“To ensure that the safety of the public is addressed before a dam’s condition results in an emergency,” the audit said, “the Legislature should amend state law to allow Water Resources to order the condemnation and decommissioning of a dam when Water Resources’ other means of enforcement are unsuccessful.”
Laura Hollender, deputy director of flood management and safety with the Department of Water Resources said that the department worked closely with the State Auditor but disagrees with some of the report’s findings and recommendations.
Still, she said in a statement, they are carefully reviewing the recommendations and preparing for whatever El Niño brings. “Protecting public safety is DWR’s highest priority, and we recognize the critical role that dam safety and levee maintenance play in reducing flood risk for California communities.”
As the wet season approaches, the auditor also highlighted that dam safety planning statewide is incomplete.
The Governor’s Office of Emergency Service has not yet approved emergency plans for 245 dams describing what their owners would do to protect people and property should the dam fail. Officials told the auditor’s office that dam owners haven’t completed required revisions, and state law doesn’t require deadlines.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.