The Brief

The director of California’s mental health commission traveled to London this summer courtesy of a state vendor while he was helping to prevent a $360 million budget cut that would have defunded the company’s contract.

Emails and calendars reviewed by California Healthline show Toby Ewing, executive director of the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, made efforts to protect funding for Kooth, a London-based digital mental health company the state hired to develop a virtual tool to help tackle its youth mental health crisis. Ewing pressed key legislative staffers to maintain its contract, even as Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers proposed cuts in the face of California’s $45 billion deficit.

When Ewing and three commissioners — Mara Madrigal-Weiss, the commission chair; Bill Brown; and Steve Carnevale — left for London in June, Ewing wasn’t sure whether he had saved Kooth’s funding. On the second day of their trip, staff informed him that lawmakers had restored the money.

A few days later, he emailed Kooth Chief Operating Officer Kate Newhouse suggestions he had shared with Assembly and Senate staff to improve Kooth’s youth teletherapy app. “We expect you to be involved in whatever we dream up,” Ewing wrote to Newhouse in another email.

It’s unclear why Kooth picked up a $15,000 tab for state officials to travel to London. It’s also unclear why Ewing pushed to protect its app from a spending cut. The commission is a 16-member independent body appointed by various elected officials to help ensure funds from a millionaires tax are used appropriately and effectively by counties for mental health services. Kooth’s contract is with the Department of Health Care Services, which is separate from the commission.

Kooth last year signed a four-year $271 million contract to create Soluna, a free mental health app for California users ages 13 to 25. The app, along with another, by the company Brightline, for younger users, launched in January to fill a need for young Californians and their families to access professional telehealth free of charge. It’s one component of Newsom’s $4.7 billion youth mental health plan.

Ewing, who reports to the commission, started in 2015 and earned $175,026 in 2023, according to The Sacramento Bee. He was placed on paid administrative leave in September pending an investigation. Commission chief counsel Sandra Gallardo said the commission does not comment on personnel matters. Ewing did not respond to requests for comment.

Three commission employees filed whistleblower complaints against Ewing in September with the California State Auditor. They spoke with California Healthline on the condition that their names not be used due to fears of workplace retaliation. They say Ewing’s conduct advancing a private company’s agenda as a public official crossed a line.

The agenda for Thursday’s commission meeting listed a personnel matter to be discussed in closed session. The whistleblowers said Ewing is the subject of the discussion.

Madrigal-Weiss said she couldn’t comment on Ewing’s actions. However, she said the commission supports virtual mental health resources for youth.

“These resources are less expensive and have proven valuable for youth, especially those who struggle to access services in typical brick-and-mortar spaces,” said Madrigal-Weiss, who is also executive director of student wellness and school culture for the San Diego County Office of Education.

Brown and Carnevale didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Kooth is committed to advancing youth access to behavioral health services, said Caroline Curran, of Metis Communications, a public relations firm representing Kooth.

“As a leader in youth behavioral health services with over 20 years of experience in the United Kingdom and the United States, we regularly convene sector-leading organizations to facilitate learning through sharing expertise and diverse perspectives on youth behavioral health,” Curran said.

As California Healthline reported in April, the Kooth and Brightline app rollouts have been slow, with few children using them. In May, Newsom proposed a $140 million budget cut. DHCS Director Michelle Baass said in a hearing that it was due to low use, but the state expects more users to come on board over time.

She told lawmakers on May 16 that roughly 20,000 of the state’s more than 12.6 million children and young adults had registered on the apps, and they had been used for only about 2,800 coaching sessions.

State Sen. Caroline Menjivar (D-Van Nuys) asked Baass at the hearing whether “there’s room to get out” of the contract altogether. Senators later voted unanimously to cut the entire platform budget to save the state $360 million.

Ewing texted a colleague on June 3: “Kooth is freaking out. Is the cut coming from the Admin or the Leg.? Do we know if it’s a done deal?”

State lobbying records show Kooth has paid around $100,000 this year to the firm Capital Advocacy. At the same time, Ewing’s emails and calendars show that he pushed for Kooth’s funding to be retained. For instance, his June 4 calendar shows he was scheduled to meet with Laura Tully, an executive from Kooth USA, at a coffee shop near the Capitol.

The next day, a whistleblower said, Ewing met with key Senate staff members: Scott Ogus, deputy staff director of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee, and Marjorie Swartz, a consultant for Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire. They said Ewing also discussed Kooth’s contract that week with Rosielyn Pulmano, a health policy consultant for Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas.

“Toby kept saying that ‘California has to have a digital strategy,’” recalled the whistleblower, who attended both meetings. “He kept pushing Marjorie and Scott, saying that he would give them ideas to make the platform better.”

Ewing emailed ideas to the legislative aides on June 10 and 12.

About two weeks later, he and the commissioners left for the seven-day trip to the U.K. According to documents filed with the state Fair Political Practices Commission, receipts, and emails reviewed by California Healthline, Kooth covered the costs of four-star hotels, meals, train tickets, and international flights.

Public disclosure forms show Kooth paid expenses for Ewing, Madrigal-Weiss, and Brown. The forms do not show the company paid for Carnevale’s travel.

Under California law, state officials generally must report travel payments to the FPPC, which Ewing and his fellow commissioners did.

Kooth postponed a mental health investment conference in London in June, emails and documents show, but then organized new events for the California commissioners to attend instead.

On May 23, Newhouse informed Carnevale and Ewing in an email that Kooth needed to postpone the planned June event. Carnevale, a venture capitalist, described the news as “disappointing for all,” especially “because we have already booked trips, including family members of Commissioners who were planning to turn this into a holiday.”

Acknowledging the disruption, Newhouse told Carnevale that she “would like to think creatively as to whether we could try to arrange a meeting where you can talk about the CYBHI,” referring to Newsom’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative.

“I know though from our conversation that we need to cover the ‘purpose’ of your trip and not sure what is possible or not,” she wrote.

Curran, the Kooth spokesperson, said the company “adapted by holding a knowledge exchange between representatives from international policy institutes, research foundations, and non-profit organizations.”

Madrigal-Weiss defended the trip, which she said included meetings with “members of the government, service providers, education, and finance” who shared ideas on how “to enhance funds for public mental health needs” through private and philanthropic partnerships.

One of the whistleblowers said many of the commissioners back in California were not aware of the trip until their colleagues were halfway across the world. Sami Gallegos, a spokesperson for the California Health and Human Services Agency, said the Department of Health Care Services did not participate in the travel.

Ewing was put on leave before Kooth’s rescheduled conference this month in London.

Although it’s not unusual for state officials to travel overseas — often on the dime of private entities — it doesn’t look good, said Sean McMorris, a government ethics expert with California Common Cause, a nonprofit government watchdog group.

“It looks like undue influence,” McMorris said. “I think a lot of people would view something like this as a way to curry favor. You can connect the dots.”

Kooth has similarly gifted travel to state officials in Pennsylvania, where it had a $3 million contract with 30 school districts. In each case, Kooth invited the officials to speak to highlight their work. Pennsylvania has informed Kooth it intends to terminate the contract.

In the days immediately after last January’s Los Angeles firestorm, state lawmakers and civic leaders promised to turbocharge the rebuilding effort. For California, where the permitting and construction of homes is infamously slow and costly, the scale of destruction stood as a singular challenge.

A year later, the charred homes, the melted appliances and the toxic ash have mostly been removed, the dirt beneath scraped and then carted away. Many of the residents whose houses were spared have returned. Permits for reconstruction have been filed, architects and contractors hired. Battles with insurance companies, utilities and banks persist, vacant lots and blackened trees abound, but look around and — here and there — you’ll find new construction.

As of this week, more than 2,600 residential permits have been issued between the Palisades and Altadena — roughly one for every five of the nearly 13,000 homes lost. Another 3,340 are under review.

For many displaced and traumatized homeowners, that represents an intolerably slow return to what was. But by historic standards, the Los Angeles recovery has been on the speedy side so far.

In a press release commemorating the first anniversary of the disaster, Gov. Gavin Newsom lauded the permitting figures as “historic.”

Last year local governments — the City and County of Los Angeles, as well as Malibu and Pasadena — issued permits for single-family homes and accessory dwelling units “three times faster” than they were in the five years leading up to the fire, the administration noted.

Rebuilding after disaster is almost always a grueling, slow process. Of the more than 22,500 homes destroyed in five of California’s most destructive fires between 2017 and 2020, fewer than four-in-ten had been rebuilt by 2025, a Los Angeles Times analysis from late last summer found.

A year after major fires ripped through Maui, Paradise, Redding and the outskirts of Boulder, Colo., 2%, 3%, 15% and 30% of the destroyed homes, respectively, had been permitted for reconstruction, according to a separate Urban Institute analysis.

Based on the pace of permitting, Los Angeles’ reconstruction is on a relatively fast track. But freshly-pulled permits aren’t completed homes.

“People can pull permits, but you know, if they don't have their costs sorted out — we've had folks abandon their plans,” said Devang Shah with Genesis Builders, which is selling pre-approved, fixed-priced rebuilds in Altadena. Using permits as a metric of progress may be premature, he said.

Some of the speedy progress that Los Angeles has seen may be due to regulatory changes imposed by fiat in the aftermath of the fire. In early 2025, both Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass mandated speedier permitting of like-for-like rebuilds — construction that stuck to the rough dimensions and design specification of the home that was there before. Los Angeles county rolled out a self-certification building plan approval pilot program for certain simple projects. Newsom waived building code requirements intended to ease the cost of reconstruction.

“We’ve got planning approvals in three days that would have normally taken three months,” said Tim Vordtriede, an architect who also lost his home in Altadena. The county has “done a remarkable job at making things as efficient and streamlined as a bureaucratic entity can.”

In the weeks after the fire, Vordtriede co-founded the Altadena Collective, a network of designers and architects that provides discounted design services, permitting advice and contractor recommendations to local survivors. He and his co-founders Chris Driscoll and Chris Corbett have also launched a nonprofit called Collective OR that is meant to represent inexperienced and anxious homeowners in negotiations with builders and architects.

The pace of reconstruction may simply benefit from the fact that it’s taking place in Los Angeles County: A mammoth economic hub flush with financial resources and political connections.

“We have access to a really good supply chain, there’s a lot of capital, there’s a lot of infrastructure,“ said Ben Stapleton, director of U.S. Green Building Council California.

That’s in contrast to a town like Paradise.

Since the majority of homes were destroyed in the 2018 Camp Fire, fewer than one-in-five have since been rebuilt, said Colette Curtis, the Butte County town’s recovery and economic development director.

She cautioned against comparing the pace of rebuilding efforts across communities struck by disaster.

“It's impossible to say, ‘they were here by this date so we should also be there,’” she said. “The data set is just too variable.”

Paradise, a remote town with relatively low income, lacked the local services and philanthropic draw of places like Lahaina and the Palisades, she said. But lower land values and the fact that displaced homeowners haven’t had to compete with investors setting aside new units for tourist rentals was a net positive.

Another thing that may give Los Angeles a leg up: It’s a region that’s also heavy on expertise.

At around the same time that Vordtriede was setting up the Altadena Collective, nearby architect couple Cynthia Sigler and Alex Athenson launched the Foothill Catalog, a packet of ready-made architectural and structural plans that have been pre-approved by L.A. County.

With roughly 15 projects either under construction or gearing up to break ground, Athenson said the pre-approval process can shave at least 10% off the total development cost of a custom single-family home.

That’s in part by trimming the approval process. But that's also because prior to the fire, a "custom single-family home" in ALtadena was a luxury product.

The local industry is “set up to serve that client who is building their dream home from scratch, with a very large if not unlimited budget,” said Athenson. Long-time homeowners displaced by fire, many of them on fixed incomes, represent a very different kind of buyer.

As builders, designers and policymakers scramble to rebuild in faster, cheaper and more fire-resilient ways, they may stumble upon a solution that could be of use long after the last home is rebuilt in Altadena, he added.

“Ultimately, we're providing a system for more efficient, affordable housing development,” said Athenson. “I'm excited about proving it in Altadena, and then seeing where it goes beyond.”

So far the county has approved more than two dozen of the catalog’s plans. Athenson said they are now discussing rolling out a similar batch for the Palisades with the City of Los Angeles.

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

A high-profile defense attorney for Nick Reiner, who is accused of killing his famous parents in their Brentwood home, has stepped down from the case and arraignment has been pushed to next month.

Reiner, 32, was expected to be arraigned Wednesday morning in Los Angeles County Superior Court in connection with the deaths of his parents, Hollywood legend Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, last month.

Instead, Nick Reiner’s lawyer, Alan Jackson, revealed to Judge Theresa McGonigle that he was withdrawing from the case.

"Circumstances beyond our control, but more importantly, circumstances beyond Nick’s control have dictated that sadly it's made it impossible for us to continue our representation of Nick,” Jackson told reporters after Reiner's brief court appearance.

The attorney said he is "legally and ethically" prohibited from explaining why he would no longer represent Reiner.

“We know the legal process will reveal the true facts of the circumstances surrounding this case,” Jackson continued. "We’ve investigated this matter top to bottom and front to back.“

He also said, "pursuant to the law in California, Nick Reiner is not guilty of murder,” and, “We wish him the very best.”

The L.A. County Public Defender’s Office will to take over Reiner’s defense.

“This is a challenging time for the entire legal process,” said L.A. County Public Defender Ricardo Garcia. “We ask for your patience, your understanding as we navigate this process through the legal system”

Nick Reiner has admitted in the past to struggles with drug addiction and mental illness. It remains unclear how much of that will factor into the case.

Deputy Public Defender Kimberly Greene, who will represent Reiner in court, said she had only spoken to her client briefly Wednesday morning.

“We’ve had no contact with the family," she said outside court. "I don’t think they were aware this was going on until this morning.”

Reiner, the youngest of the famous couple’s four children, two counts of murder and special-circumstance allegations — multiple murders and use of a deadly weapon — that would make him eligible for the death penalty if convicted.

District Attorney Nathan Hochman has said his office has not yet determined whether it would seek death or life without the possibility of parole. Such decisions are usually made after a preliminary hearing where a judge hears evidence from prosecutors.

Hochman has said he would consider the family’s wishes when making his decision.

On Wednesday, he told reporters the charges would lead to conviction.

“We are fully confident that a jury will convict Nick Reiner beyond a reasonable doubt of the brutal murders of his parents,” he said.

Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Singer Reiner, 68, were found dead Dec. 14 after police were called to their home on South Chadbourne Avenue.

Detectives with the Police Department’s elite Robbery Homicide Division, Homicide Special Section began an investigation and identified Reiner as the suspect, according to police.

The younger Reiner was located and arrested near Exposition Park close to USC at approximately 9:15 p.m., according to police. He remains in jail on a no-bail status.

His arraignment in now set for Feb. 23.

A year after the deadly Los Angeles County fires, California’s property insurance market remains problematic; survivors are suing insurers over delayed or denied claims; and most of the state’s policyholders are likely to see their premiums rise.

Seven in 10 L.A. fire survivors have yet to return home, some in part because of insurance claim delays, according to a new survey released this week by Department of Angels, a nonprofit group that was formed after the fires.

The survey also found that 4 in 10 insurance policyholders have experienced insurability issues, such as huge premium increases and dropped coverage, although state law mandates a one-year moratorium on insurers canceling or not renewing customers’ policies after the governor declares a state of emergency. Those with homes that did not burn down but are still standing are especially likely to have seen big increases in their premiums, according to the survey of 2,443 adults from Nov. 18 to Dec. 2, 2025.

Insurance premiums for everyone, not just fire survivors, were already expected to rise under new rules by Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara. The commissioner, under pressure to improve availability of insurance in the state, last January implemented a plan that aims for quicker rate reviews and allows insurers to use catastrophe modeling and reinsurance costs in setting their rates. The plan took effect just days before the L.A. fires.

Now the response to the fires could also lead to even higher insurance premiums across the board, said Amy Bach, executive director of consumer advocacy group United Policyholders.

“I advocate for disaster survivors, but also for the entire community of policyholders,” Bach said. “For every ‘Eliminate the List’ bill, for every improvement we make to prevent post-disaster trauma around under-insurance, there’s a cost.” She said such actions will have ramifications for both insurance affordability and availability.

“Eliminate the List,” which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law last year, requires insurance companies to pay 60% of personal property coverage limits, up to $350,000, to policyholders who experience a total loss without requiring them to submit a detailed inventory for at least 100 days.

Still, Bach knows that such mandates are necessary to improve survivors’ experiences after a fire, and lawmakers are introducing new bills to address their concerns. Her own group released a survey in November, reporting policyholder complaints that included insurer communication delays, claims payment delays and being assigned multiple claims adjusters.

The Department of Angels survey found that customers of State Farm and the last-resort FAIR Plan — the two largest insurers in California — were the most dissatisfied with their insurers’ response. California’s insurance department is investigating State Farm’s response to the fires, and has taken legal action against the FAIR Plan over its response as well, especially to smoke-damage claims. Those insurers, along with other companies, are also facing policyholder lawsuits.

“Our customer feedback reflects a different experience than what is being reported,” said Tom Hartmann, a State Farm spokesperson, in an email. “We’re supporting more than 13,500 customers affected by the wildfires, more than any other carrier, and have already paid over $5 billion to help them recover.”

Sam Strgacich, left, and his wife Rossana Valverde, right, examine soot damage at their home in Pasadena on April 26, 2025.

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Joel Angel Juarez

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CalMatters

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“We’ve paid almost $200,000 out of pocket to repair our home because of the FAIR Plan’s blanket denials of our remediation,” said Angela Giacchetti, a spokesperson for the Department of Angels who worked on the survey. She’s also a fire survivor whose Altadena home did not burn down but was badly damaged.

“While we are unable to comment on individual policyholders' claims, the California FAIR Plan does not direct where policyholders reside,” said Hilary McLean, a spokesperson for the plan. “The FAIR Plan evaluates every claim on its own merits and pays all covered claims up to the individual policy limits.”

The FAIR Plan said in a press release this week that it has handled about 5,400 claims and paid almost $3.5 billion to policyholders. It also said it “has taken steps to enhance its ability to serve policyholders” by securing a line of credit and reinsurance, helped by a $750 million catastrophe bond made possible by a new law allowing the FAIR Plan to get bond financing through the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank.

The American Property Casualty Insurance Association says insurance companies have paid $22.4 billion of the expected $40 billion in total claims from the L.A. fires.

The Department of Angels survey also found 79% of survivors are facing financial hardships, with more Black, Asian and Latino survivors falling behind on their rent or mortgage payments. In addition, 40% of those surveyed said they were very dissatisfied with the local, state and federal response to their needs.

Newsom said Tuesday that he is working with state lawmakers, the banking industry and others on new loans for rebuilding, and that the state will expand eligibility for the CalAssist Mortgage Fund. The governor’s office did not respond to CalMatters’ questions about whether he plans to propose any aid for renters who survived the fires, and about what else he is doing to continue to press the federal government for long-term disaster funding.

“This report says exactly what we’ve been hearing,” said Michael Soller, spokesperson for the insurance department. “Wildfire survivors want action and they want results.” He said the issues in the survey are top priorities for the department, and among other things pointed to a task force on smoke damage that the department has convened.

A bill sponsored by Lara and introduced by newly appointed Senate Insurance Committee Chair Steve Padilla, the Democrat from San Diego, late Tuesday would require insurance companies to submit to the state their disaster-recovery plans related to handling claims; double penalties for violations of fair claims practices during an emergency; expand upfront claims payments; give policyholders status updates within five days whenever their adjuster is replaced; and more.

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