The Brief

Los Angeles city planners heard from hundreds of residents during a public hearing Wednesday over the fate of a private school’s plans to redevelop a Studio City golf course into a student athletics complex.

The Harvard-Westlake school’s proposed 17-acre River Park Project would be built along a half-mile stretch of the L.A. River. The site is currently occupied by the Weddington Golf and Tennis facility, a 9-hole course that first opened in 1956 and costs $12 to play on weekdays.

Harvard-Westlake purchased the property in 2017 for $42 million, with plans to expand athletics opportunities for students. The school’s current plan includes two fields, a running track, a gym, a swimming pool and eight tennis courts.

Harvard-Westlake, which charges about $47,000 per year for tuition for seventh to 12th graders, already has a field, a gym, a track and an Olympic-sized swimming pool on campus. But the school’s head of athletics Terry Barnum said existing facilities can’t accommodate all the student athletes who want to play sports.

“We're having to stack practices throughout the school year, with students not starting practice until sometimes seven o'clock at night,” Barnum said. The River Park project would allow practices to start earlier and enable the school to launch a girl’s lacrosse program, he said.

Opponents see 'an arrogance of wealth'

For years, the school’s proposal has faced fierce opposition from Studio City residents who worry about noise, traffic, field lighting and the loss of hundreds of mature shade trees.

Teri Austin with the group Save Weddington said the project, located four blocks from her home, would take affordable recreation space away from the public and put it in the hands of an expensive private school.

“Now if that isn't an arrogance of wealth, I don't know of a better example,” Austin said.

L.A.’s planning department held a virtual hearing Wednesday to document public support and opposition to the school’s request for conditional use permits from the city, which are needed for the project to move forward.

Supporters say the public will have access

Callers who supported the project said Harvard-Westlake would be a good steward of the property. They noted the school has plans to replace uprooted trees, to set aside six acres of public park space for walking and jogging along the river, and to make sports facilities available to the public when not in use by students.

“The access that the community is going to have to this amazing new facility is going to be unprecedented for private property,” said caller Shauna Altieri. “I just can't imagine a future for this site that is more beneficial to more members of the community than what Harvard-Westlake has outlined.”

Many of the callers in favor of the project appeared to be alumni or staff of Harvard-Westlake (Altieri is listed as an assistant director of communications on the school’s website).

Others called on the city to deny the project’s permits, including Studio City resident Bill Nye (as in “The Science Guy”). He said he often plays disc golf at Weddington in the afternoons, when school teams would be practicing.

“It’s a private school,” Nye said. “You’re not going to be able to run on the track when the track team is running. You’re not going to be able to swim in the pool when the swim team is swimming … Once this thing is gone we’re never going to get it back. And that’s why I oppose this project.”

Famous alumni

Harvard-Westlake was named the second best private high school in the nation in 2023 by the school review website Niche. Alumni include actors Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, journalist Jessica Yellin and former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti.

Harvard-Westlake president Rick Commons said opponents of the project often unfairly paint the school as a bastion of privilege and wealth. He said the school has dedicated almost $15 million in annual financial aid to 350 students from all over L.A.

Commons said Studio City homeowners have long opposed the prospect of new housing development on the Weddington site. He sees the River Park project as a win-win for both the school and the desires of the surrounding community.

“We want to build a facility that serves our students, serves the greater Studio City community and our community partners, and improves the environment,” Commons said.

Commons said there have been “dozens of adjustments that we've made in response to concerns with the community, that we have wanted very much to accommodate.”

Those changes include a smaller gym, one pool instead of two and three fewer lanes on the running track. In addition to reducing parking, lighting and bleacher seating, Commons said the school will preserve Weddington Golf’s clubhouse and putting green. The city designated the site a historic-cultural monument in 2021.

Opponents like Teri Austin don’t see why the school needs to build on the Weddington site, which she views as valuable green space and a beautifully preserved slice of mid-century Americana.

“They have two campuses already,” Austin said. “They do have options to build this elsewhere. And they're choosing to try to ram it down the throat of this neighborhood when we have something that is so unique.”

City councilmember hasn’t taken a position on the project

The proposed project is located in city councilmember Nithya Raman’s district. She has yet to take a position on whether the development should move forward.

“While this effort predates our time representing this neighborhood, our office continues to productively engage with community members, advocacy groups, and the school to gather feedback in order to achieve the best outcomes — as we do with all projects under the city’s discretion,” Raman said in an emailed statement.

Wednesday’s public hearing was not designed to reach any conclusion about the project’s fate. The plans are scheduled to go before the city’s planning commission on Aug. 24 before any final decision will be made.

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

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