The Brief

If you’ve been concerned about what may be in your body after this year’s firestorm, there’s a new way you can find out.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is offering free testing to help people check lead levels in their blood. It’s available through May, although it could be extended.

Why does testing matter?

Wildfire smoke, ash and debris can contain harmful substances like lead. Prolonged exposure can lead to serious long-term health issues, according to the California Department of Public Health. Lead can be removed through  chelation therapy — a treatment that binds to metals in the blood and takes them out of the system.

In this case of a wildfire, firefighters are typically at higher risk for that prolonged exposure because they’re in the thick of the debris for extended periods. But children are particularly vulnerable, at risk of learning disabilities and developmental delays as they grow. In adults, lead buildup can cause things like high blood pressure and kidney damage.

While the CDC has guidelines to measure elevated lead levels, there isn’t a known safe level of it in the body. That’s why it’s important to take proactive steps if you were around the fires. Elevated lead levels have already been found in soil downwind from the Eaton Fire.

The county has already started testing people — and the results seem encouraging so far. As of its latest update on April 7, none of its nearly 200 tests came back above the CDC’s blood lead reference value, which is 3.5 micrograms per deciliter.

Where to go to get tested

There are three ways you can get your blood checked for lead:

• Go to one of the county’s temporary mobile testing locations
• Make an appointment through Quest Labs
• Ask your doctor to do it

The county’s testing is being done at these locations and times, though more may be added in the coming weeks.

Typically no one is turned away, according to the public health department, but it does verify whether someone is from a burn area by collecting their address.

Arts and Literacy Festival

• When: Saturday, April 26 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• Where: Virginia Avenue Park at 2200 Virginia Ave., Santa Monica

Eaton Health Village/Pasadena Seventh-Day Adventist Church

• When: Sunday, April 27 from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
• Where: 1280 East Washington Blvd., Pasadena

Malibu Library

• When: Saturday, May 17 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Where: 23519 West Civic Center Way, Malibu

La Pintoresca Park

• When: Saturday, May 24 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Where: 45 E. Washington Blvd., Pasadena

For a free Quest Lab test, you can call (800) LA-4-LEAD to schedule it.

Insurance isn’t required unless you’re using your own provider.

The LA County Library has begun its Summer of Soccer program to bring the excitement of the North American tournament to all Angelenos.

“Soccer has a unique way of bringing people together across cultures and communities,” Skye Patrick, director of the LA County Library, said on the library website.

The program kicked off May 1 with the library system offering limited-edition Summer of Soccer library cards, emblazoned with the library logo, the outline of a soccer pitch and a ball hitting the back of a net.

The new limited-edition Summer of Soccer library cards

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Courtesy LA County Public Library

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The cards are available for free for anyone signing up for the first time and for $1 for people who already have an LA County Library card.

From soccer story time to making circuit boards

There’s a whole range of Summer of Soccer events at branch libraries, from May 20 to July 9.

Highlights include a soccer-themed story time for 2- to 5-year-olds at Graham Library, north of Watts at 3:30 p.m. June 4, while at 3 p.m. the same day, the A C Bilbrew Library west of Compton hosts “Makey Makey for Teens,” which will lead youth through the steps to make their own game controllers and test them on a virtual soccer field. This and other programs repeat at other branches.

All Summer of Soccer events are free and are designed to support youth and families during the summer months when school is not in session.

The LA County Library serves more than three million residents through its 86 libraries and four Cultural Resource Centers, as well as Bookmobiles and other outreach vehicles.

Last weekend, a group of about 20 people chatted and drank wine on the sidewalk outside a small but packed gallery on Wilshire Boulevard. Inside, there was a display of black-and-white photographs showing the tunnels that made the first phase of the D Line extension possible and the workers who brought the vision to life.

Now, after a decades-long history of setbacks, the first phase of the extension will open to the public on Friday.

“ I think it's going to be a critical piece of the transit infrastructure going forward in L.A. and a game changer for those in somewhat of a transit desert,” said Auguste Miller, a transit rider and volunteer with transportation advocacy group Streets for All.

Workers on the D Line extension, standing in front of a tunnel boring machine.

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Kenneth Karagozian

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The exhibition is a celebration of the workers who built the extension, said India Mandelkern, a historian and author who curated the photographs by Ken Karagozian and wrote a book about the extension called Wilshire Subway.

Jenna Durrough, a union carpenter, helped build the concrete forms that became new station platforms and stairways.

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Kenneth Karagozian

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At the 1301PE gallery, which sits just a three-minute walk away from the future Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue station, union carpenter Jenna Dorrough reflected on her time building the concrete forms that became the new station platforms and stairways.

“When you're in the midst of just being a worker and just trying to do your job, you don't realize the bigger picture, like what you're really a part of,” Dorrough said.

The extension

The D Line train currently shuttles people from Koreatown to downtown L.A., largely running parallel to the B Line. The first phase of the extension cost more than $3.5 billion and was mostly funded by a countywide sales tax.

The approximately 4 mile-long extension will add three new stops along Wilshire Boulevard through Miracle Mile until Beverly Hills, providing direct rail access to places like The Grove, Museum Row and Beverly Center.

“Angelenos and visitors alike will love the extended service from Downtown Los Angeles to Beverly Hills, delivering greater access to the iconic and culturally diverse communities, institutions and destinations that define the deep history along Wilshire Boulevard,” L.A. Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins said in a statement.

A trip from downtown L.A. to Beverly Hills will take just over 20 minutes on the new extension, according to Metro.

Unlocking Wilshire Boulevard

Bobby Downs is the general manager of All Season Brewing, a short walk from the La Brea Avenue stop. Downs said the brewery will offer a discount to people who show their TAP cards opening weekend and is preparing a double hazy IPA in celebration. The special brew is aptly called the D.

“Having a Metro coming in from downtown is gonna be beneficial in general for the area,” Downs said, adding that he believes it should alleviate some of the concerns from patrons and locals about parking in the neighborhood.

The extension’s opening coincides with the unveiling of the L.A. County Museum of Art’s new David Geffen museum galleries, which will be accessible via the Fairfax Avenue station.

“Connection, between the past and the present and between cultures, is a major theme within our new building,” Michael Govan, the museum’s director, said in a statement. “Metro's extension in the Miracle Mile will be an incredible resource that will foster greater inclusion and connection within our region.”

Jerry Blackburn, the senior manager and director of public events for the Fine Arts Theatre, said he’s looking forward to the opening of the train, which includes a stop close to the theater on La Cienega Boulevard.

“We’re hoping it will expose more people to the theater,” Blackburn said. The theater hosts private events and 70 mm screenings, including an upcoming Tim Burton double feature this Memorial Day weekend and DC Superhero series this summer.

A vision realized in fits and starts

As Mandelkern writes in her book, early concepts for a Wilshire Boulevard train date back to the 1960s. Familiar roadblocks that face transit planning today, including lack of financing and public support, stymied the initial attempts at building the train.

Construction was set to begin in the 1980s after L.A. County voters passed a half-cent sales tax to partially fund rail projects. Then a methane gas explosion in 1985 destroyed a Ross Dress for Less store on Fairfax Avenue and injured 23 people, leading to a ban on using federal funds to do the tunneling needed for the Wilshire Boulevard subway.

Decades later, Metro asked a panel of tunneling experts to weigh in on the safety of tunneling. The panel’s analysis, published in 2005, agreed that in the 20 years that had passed, tunneling technology improved. The panel concluded that it is “possible to both safely tunnel and safely operate a subway along the Wilshire Boulevard corridor.”

L.A. County voters approved another half-cent sales tax in 2008, which provided the local funding needed to materialize the idea of a train under Wilshire Boulevard. Approximately six years later, Metro held the groundbreaking for the extension with an estimated opening in 2023. Difficult tunneling conditions and contract disputes, among other expected hurdles uncommon to large capital projects, led to some cost overruns and delays.

John Yen, the vice president of operations for Skanska, the prime contractor on the project, said his teams had to work through gluey, asphalt-like tar sands and gassy conditions underground.

“The Fairfax station is actually the first in L.A. Metro history [that] we successfully excavated this tar sand,” Yen said.

Not the end of the line

Two more extensions of the D Line will bring the train through Beverly Hills and Century City to Westwood. Those future extensions are scheduled to open before the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic games.

In the meantime, you can check out the exhibition by Mandelkern and Karagozian until May 14 at 1301PE.

Over the next several weeks, Metro is hosting several D Line station activations, including basket weaving and salsa classes.

On an early spring evening in Glendale, a 37-year-old woman is withdrawn and weak from refusing food and water for several days. Her mother calls for help. She tells a crisis counselor her daughter has been hearing voices, and has expressed needing to “kill” those voices. She will not go to a doctor.

That’s when James Gonzalez and Katerina Cabello pull up. They’re in casual clothes – khakis and jeans, paired with sweatshirts. They sound no sirens in an unmarked white minivan.

Gonzalez and Cabello are one of 75 mobile crisis response teams Los Angeles County runs around the clock. Licensed and trained as first responders for behavioral health crises, these teams of two respond – in person, with backpacks and clipboards – to calls from 988, the crisis lifeline, or the county’s mental health helpline. Gonzalez and Cabello work for Sycamores, a nonprofit agency that contracts with the county.

Across California, demand for these teams — an alternative to badges and sirens for people in their darkest moments — is surging. But just as they’re proving their worth, federal funding that supercharged their growth is set to end. Lacking that boost, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget blueprint proposes changing the service from a required benefit to an optional one, meaning the state does not have to cover the funding gap.

Counties that choose to keep this service will have to pay for it themselves at a price tag of $150 million to $200 million a year. Where counties cannot afford it, crisis teams could decrease or disappear entirely, if the Legislature approves the governor’s budget proposal.

A boost in mobile crisis services

Convincing a person in crisis to accept help is a skill. You have minutes, sometimes less, to earn trust.

When Gonzalez walks into the living room of a client in crisis, he’ll quickly scan the room, looking for family photos, religious artifacts, trophies, anything that can help him connect. He has seen people in various stages of vulnerability: a woman who feels the world on her shoulders after leaving an abusive relationship; a teenage boy feeling so much anger he attacks his father.

Knowing when to be gentle and when to be stern is a skill, too. After more than an hour in Glendale, Gonzalez and Cabello got their client to drink some water and convinced her to go to a nearby hospital for IV fluids – once there she finally agreed to a psychiatric evaluation.

“Mental health can be kind of cruel,” Gonzalez said. “I've dealt with it as a parent. I don't want our consumers to feel that. I want them to feel like we actually did something for them.”

Two days later, he and Cabello followed up on the Glendale call. The adult daughter did not meet the criteria to be placed on a psychiatric hold, but after the team shared treatment options and resources, the mother reported that she was eating and doing better.

From left, peer support specialist Katerina Cabello and clinician James Gonzalez with Sycamores’ mobile crisis outreach team in Altadena on April 27, 2026.

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Jules Hotz

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When in-person help is necessary, teams meet people where they are – homes, schools, and workplaces – and serve everyone regardless of income or insurance status. Though the program started as a Medi-Cal benefit for low-income residents, teams also respond to the uninsured and those with private insurance – counties can bill private insurers for behavioral health emergencies.

In 2023, California made mobile crisis response a statewide benefit when a federal law offered a financial incentive to do so: the federal government would temporarily cover 85% of the costs, up from the usual 50%. At the time, people with mental health and substance use disorder made up one-fifth of all emergency department visits in California – a pressure point the state said mobile behavioral health teams could help address.

Mental health advocates and counties knew the extra federal money was temporary. What caught them off guard is what came next: Rather than cover the gap when the enhanced rate fell, the state plans to make the service optional, funding it only through March 2027 before shifting the burden to counties. “It did come as a surprise to us that this program was on the chopping block given kind of unanimous support,” said Tara Gamboa-Eastman, director of Government Affairs at the Steinberg Institute.

Katerina Cabello and James Gonzalez review the details of a call from the Los Angeles County dispatch in Altadena on April 27, 2026. The pair review the information, begin paperwork and confirm whether a crisis response is needed.

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Jules Hotz

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Gonzalez and Cabello drive towards the location of a crisis call in the Los Angeles area on April 27, 2026. This particular call is approximately a 30-minute drive, but the team can get sent anywhere in the Los Angeles County area.

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Jules Hotz

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State officials say the timing is unavoidable. The expiration of the enhanced federal match coincides with a projected state budget shortfall of nearly $3 billion for the upcoming fiscal year, and $22 billion the following year.

“The Administration has proposed redesigning this as an optional benefit, to be offered at counties’ discretion, as the most sustainable path for the program going forward,” said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the California Department of Finance.

State lawmakers who support preserving this service challenged the department in a recent hearing. “We've invested so much money into creating and uplifting an infrastructure to not fully continue with it,” Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a San Fernando Democrat said. “Is that a waste of our money?”

Counties weighing options

In San Joaquin County, when a young woman was in mental distress because she couldn’t afford her rent, the local crisis team visited her multiple times to stabilize her. They also helped her find affordable housing. “No other team can be as persistent as a mobile crisis team,” said Fay Vieira, San Joaquin County’s behavioral health services director.

The funding changes could force San Joaquin to revert to fewer teams available only from 8 a.m to 5 p.m. Her biggest concern is losing credibility with a community the county has spent the last two years courting.

“We made vehicle purchases and put money into advertising,” Vieira said. “You can tell from our referral numbers that people are using this.” Crisis calls in the county have increased 15% this year compared to last, she said.

In Monterey County, the story is similar. The county started limited mobile crisis services in 2015 but struggled to grow them until the federal boost. “We had been trying to look at expanding for years because we saw the value,” said Melanie Rhodes, the county’s behavioral health director. “We saw the people we were helping.” Without continued funding, she said, the county could be forced to scale back.

Rural San Benito County rolled out its mobile crisis program just last year – it took officials there months to find an outside provider who could come in and offer the service. The program there is just starting to gain steam.

“We know that we cannot afford it without the federal dollars,” said Rachel White, San Benito County’s behavioral health director.

The pressure is hitting counties that are already absorbing other rising healthcare costs. Starting in July, counties will have to direct a third of their mental health budget toward housing chronically homeless people. In the coming year, they will also have to restart health programs for people who will lose their Medi-Cal coverage under rules related to the federal spending law President Trump signed in 2025.

Even for the state’s biggest county this is a pinch. Since the state mandate took effect just over two years ago, Los Angeles County has doubled its mobile crisis teams.

Officials at the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health said they do not know yet if they’ll have to make cuts, but having to absorb the additional costs will stifle their plans to expand and better meet demand.

“It's definitely going to hurt,” said Reuben Wilson, head of alternative crisis response at Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. “We've been trying to reduce our response time so we can get there quicker; law enforcement becomes more and more reliant on us. We're really in a growth period, and it seems really premature to be pulling the support.”

A promising alternative for help

National research has shown that behavioral health professionals responding without police – like county crisis teams – do a better job than law enforcement of keeping people out of emergency rooms and connecting them to mental health care.

“Involving clinical teams in the community can prevent expensive emergency department care and get people connected to mental healthcare after the crisis incident is resolved,” one small-scale study of crisis response teams in Michigan found. A separate California analysis found that alternative crisis response programs reduced the number of unnecessary psychiatric holds.

A bulletin board with staff photos hangs in the office of Sycamores’ mobile crisis outreach team in Altadena on April 27, 2026.

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Jules Hotz

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CatchLight/CalMatters

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California’s own data is incomplete. Since January 2024 the Department of Health Care Services has approved more than 73,000 claims for in-person mobile crisis encounters through Medi-Cal alone – and because of typical claims lag, actual use is likely higher. Counties collect volume and some demographics data, but no statewide analysis of outcomes exists. That won't be possible until the state begins collecting results data, something expected to start later this year.

As counties await the Governor’s final budget, the calls keep coming in.

Gonzalez and Cabello had not heard of the proposed funding change. They’re not sure what it would mean for Sycamores, or teams like theirs. What they do know is that people are hurting.

At one recent call, Gonzalez and Cabello found a dad and uncle restraining a 19-year-old man who had been experiencing outbursts of rage. Police responded first, but couldn’t resolve it. The situation called for help like Gonzalez and Cabello. They talked the young man down.

“Dad called and thanked us,” Gonzalez said. “He said no one has been able to help him like that.”

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

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

Selling bonds. Awarding tax credits. Overseeing pension funds. Investing idle cash for maximum return.

These are the roles of California’s treasurer, a job that evokes someone with a fondness for green eyeshades and a favorite Excel function.

But in California — as in most other states — it’s a job that goes to a politician.

That may leave voters wondering: What’s the best combination of skills, experience and values for such an exceedingly wonky job?

Ask the six candidates and you’re liable to get six different answers.

California’s next money manager should be a detail-oriented former diplomat, according to Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis.

For State Sen. Anna Caballero, Kounalakis’ chief Democratic rival, the better option is a wily elected official from a working class community with experience running a government bureaucracy.

The two Republicans, Jennifer Hawks and David Serpa, both believe it should be someone eager to check the fiscal impulses of California’s overwhelmingly Democratic political establishment.

Board of Equalization member Tony Vazquez thinks a long-time elected tax commissioner is a good fit. Glenn Turner, a former crystal and Tarot card seller-turned mental health activist, believes the role calls for someone with a radical political vision.

Not even turn-of-the-century Gov. Hiram Johnson, one of modern California’s political founding fathers, knew what makes a good state treasurer. The job, he complained to the Legislature in 1911, is “merely clerical” and its “qualifications naturally can not be well understood.”

The June 2 race is largely a rivalry between the top Democrats.

Kounalakis vs Caballero

There isn’t much reliable public polling, but as measured by name recognition, high-caliber endorsements and campaign cash on hand, this is Kounalakis’ race to lose.

That’s in part thanks to her current role as lieutenant governor — a job that commands statewide name ID and governing experience, even if its list of responsibilities is relatively short.

Kounalakis’ personal fortune has also surely helped her become a top candidate. The daughter of developer Angelo Tsakopolous, founder of Sacramento-based AKT Development Corporation, she has nearly nine times as much money parked in her campaign account as the other five candidates combined.

Kounalakis entered Democratic politics as a major donor, helping her secure an ambassadorship to Hungary under President Barack Obama. Those fundraising connections also have paid off this cycle: She is endorsed by former first lady Hillary Clinton, former U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

From left, state Sen. Anna Caballero and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis.

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Fred Greaves and Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

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CalMatters

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Kounalakis wouldn’t be the first to take this path to the treasurer’s office. Phil Angeledes, who served from 1999 to 2007, is also an AKT alum whose political career was partially funded by Tsakopolous.

Though Kounalakis initially ran to replace Newsom as governor, she switched to the lower-profile treasurer’s race last summer amid flagging prospects in a crowded field. But Kounalakis, whose campaign did not respond to requests for an interview, has since argued that her experience as a developer and her self-professed technical orientation make the role of treasurer a better fit. She told the San Francisco Chronicle that she craved a technical role after so many years as a diplomat “standing in front of a podium with a visiting dignitary.”

Kounalakis’ decision was an unwelcome development for state Sen. Anna Caballero. A longtime state legislator who served as Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency secretary under former Gov. Jerry Brown, the Merced Democrat was the presumptive favorite until then. Caballero has the upper hand by at least one metric: She has raised more money than Kounalakis since the beginning of this year, even if her campaign account is dwarfed by the war chest the lieutenant governor has amassed over the years.

Both Kounalakis and Caballero are termed out of their current roles.

The competition between the two top Democratic hopefuls is fierce, even if they don’t seem to disagree about much.

Both want the state to simplify the application process for affordable housing subsidies — which is already in the works with the governor’s new housing agency. Both support recent treasurer’s initiatives to direct state funds toward renewable energy projects and to administer a retirement savings program for workers whose employers don’t offer pension or 401k accounts. Both expressed enthusiasm about a proposal to require state banks and other financial institutions to lend more in lower income neighborhoods and communities.

Where there is daylight between the two, it is more a matter of emphasis than major disagreement. Caballero, for example, avidly promotes the use of hydrogen and dairy gas as gasoline alternatives and said the treasurer could foster private-public partnerships in those industries. As a member of the State Lands Commission, Kounalakis is an avid advocate for off-shore wind power development.

Who will make the top two?

Though Kounalakis and Caballero are the two most formidable candidates, it’s far from certain that both will make it to the November ballot. One of the top two spots could easily go to a Republican under California’s system in which the top two vote-getters advance.

California’s Republican establishment has been doing everything possible to make that happen. The California Republican Party formally endorsed Jennifer Hawks, a Bay Area party activist and former private school administrator, over fellow Republican David Serpa. Reform California, the conservative fundraising and get-out-the-vote organization run by Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, also endorsed her.

“There’s a risk of splitting the vote,” DeMaio noted in a live-streamed conversation with Hawks. “We need to make sure that we have someone in the general election that we can be proud of.”

What does the treasurer do?

The day-to-day work is mostly done by professional staff and it doesn’t vary much with changes at the top. That doesn’t afford their elected boss much room for creativity or innovation. Bill Lockyer, the state’s treasurer between 2007 and 2015, said the job’s main role is to ensure that work is done with Californians in mind — that the “professional staff is managing responsibly.”

Still, there are occasional opportunities to do more with the job. Lockyer pointed to his decision to invest in international renewable energy projects through the World Bank — a first for the state — as one of his most important achievements. When Angeledes held the office, he used the treasurer’s posts on the boards of the state’s two major public employee pension funds to inveigh against investment banks and to champion the rights of shareholders. Other Democratic treasurers have acted as fiscal foils to Republican governors.

Since the days of Hiram Johnson, the post has also occasionally been derided as a sinecure for career politicians awaiting their next move.

That, said Caballero, is decidedly not why she wants to be treasurer. Pointing to her work on housing policy and rural economic development, she said everything in her legislative career “relates back to what’s in the treasurer’s office.”

Adding a not-so-subtle dig at Kounalakis: “I’m not on a stepping stone up to something else.”

Not that the treasurer’s office has been a particularly effective stepping stone: Angeledes, Kathleen Brown, and, more recently, John Chiang all attempted post-treasurer’s office runs for governor. None succeeded.

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