The Brief

When the Eaton Fire reached the backyard of the MonteCedro retirement community in the early hours of Jan. 8, many residents woke up to the smell of smoke and the sound of people knocking on doors.

Residents waited for directions on what to do. Should they shelter in place? Should they head for the exits?

Some told LAist later that they figured staff at the Altadena facility would take the lead. But something went wrong. The retirement community is among the region’s most upscale — the average entrance fee is around $1 million, according to public finance documents.

“We assumed that there’s some kind of plan, but I never saw it, and didn’t think to investigate it when I moved in,” said Linda Bergthold, an 84-year-old who lives at the care facility.

She was among the residents moved to safety during the fire.

According to state authorities, two women were left behind during the dawn evacuations of nearly 200 residents.

Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies found both women at the property hours later. One was walking her dog outside the building's entrance as nearby houses burned. The other, Jean Bruce Poole, then 100 years old, was wandering the dark hallways of the third floor, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

“I think there could be some protocols put in place that they would know who's where and who's not accounted for,” Poole’s son, John Ward, told LAist.

The California Department of Social Services, which licenses residential care facilities, including assisted living facilities, cited MonteCedro in September for failing to follow its own emergency evacuation procedures and leaving residents behind during evacuations.

Neither MonteCedro, nor the nonprofit Episcopal Communities & Services that runs it, responded to multiple interview requests for this story.

In a Jan. 29 statement, Episcopal Communities & Services said that fire personnel and MonteCedro staff “made two complete tours through the building, triggering fire alarms and inspecting every residence.”

“However, two independent living residents were not encountered and did not make it to the buses," the statement read.

At least one other residential care facility, the Terraces at Park Marino in Pasadena, also was cited for not evacuating all residents.

MonteCedro withstood the Eaton Fire. The Terraces did not. The facility was destroyed shortly after firefighters rescued a woman from the third floor who was initially left behind during the evacuations.

Both facilities have appealed the citations, according to state records. MonteCedro’s appeal has not been made public. Administrators for both facilities avoided fines by submitting required plans to fix the problems.

MonteCedro administrators said at a meeting with residents in February that they were working alongside first responders and weren’t the only responsible party, according to a recording of the gathering reviewed by LAist. Administrators noted that the two women who were left behind ended up being moved to safety.

Sheriff’s deputies and Pasadena public transit bus drivers worked with MonteCedro staff to relocate residents to the evacuation shelter at the city’s convention center. One night earlier, the Pasadena Fire Department helped evacuate the Terraces.

Both evacuations reveal what can happen at long-term care facilities during a disaster when emergency planning and coordination are found to be inadequate. They also raise questions about where a facility's responsibility ends and first responders’ begins.

State investigators determined that MonteCedro’s executive director, David Weidert, was designated to remain on site during emergencies, but he went home before the fire closed in on the facility. He also failed to call in additional staff despite emergency protocols requiring it, according to the state’s investigative report.

Weidert has since left MonteCedro. Shortly after residents returned in March, an interim executive director was named, according to the facility’s final public fire update on March 11. LAist made several attempts to reach Weidert by phone and email but was unsuccessful.

State licensing authorities also found that four of the five people working the early hours of Jan. 8 had never been trained in emergency procedures.

Some residents say they have seen safety changes within the past few months.

A day after the Eaton Fire devastated the area, MonteCedro's Facebook page posted an exterior shot of a main building, noting the interiors still needed to be inspected.

(

MonteCedro via Facebook

)

Hour by hour at MonteCedro

The official evacuation order for the area that includes MonteCedro was issued at 5:42 a.m. on Jan. 8, according to archived alerts from the L.A. County Office of Emergency Management.

By then, the fire had been burning for more than 12 hours.

Bergthold, who has lived at the facility for seven years, said her daughter called her from Los Feliz the night of Jan. 7 to warn her about intensifying winds and encourage her to prepare for a possible evacuation.

Bergthold packed a go-bag and slept in her clothes inside her apartment.

She said that when she woke up the next morning, the smoke outside was so thick she couldn't see the trees outside her window.

"But I was not told to pack any sort of suitcase by the facility," she said. "I was being proactive. I really wanted to be ready, and I'm glad I was."

Weidert, MonteCedro’s then executive director, left the facility Jan. 7 around 10 p.m., according to statements he made at a post-fire town hall meeting in February with residents and their family members.

By that time winds in the area were at 70 mph, and both the Palisades and Eaton fires had been burning for hours.

According to the state investigation, five employees stayed on the clock past 10 p.m.: a building and safety manager named Bruno Molina, a security guard, two caregivers, and one licensed vocational nurse who was a temporary worker.

Molina did not respond to LAist’s interview requests.

Only the managers and administrators at MonteCedro had gone through emergency training. All but one of them had gone home for the day.

At 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, the executive director called the facility and told Molina that MonteCedro should shelter in place while awaiting official evacuation orders from county authorities, according to the state’s report.

At the town hall, James Rothrock — CEO of Episcopal Communities & Services, the nonprofit that runs the facility — explained the buildings were built to withstand wind and fire, and that evacuating hundreds of residents too soon could have exposed them needlessly to trauma and other health risks.

“The safest place we want to be was inside the building,” he said. At 3 a.m., MonteCedro staff called the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for help, according to the state investigation.

Around 4 a.m., the Sheriff’s Department and L.A. County Fire Department got involved with the MonteCedro evacuation, according to an Eaton Fire response after-action report commissioned by the county.

At 4:15 a.m., MonteCedro authorities made the decision, along with the L.A. County Fire Department, to evacuate 195 residents who had not previously left on their own, according to a Jan. 29 statement from Episcopal Communities & Services.

Around 5:30 a.m., the evacuation began, according to the state report. By that time, eyewitnesses told LAist they saw fire near the back of the MonteCedro property — and neighboring buildings burning.

Most of the residents, some barefoot and in nightgowns, were rushed outside and onto buses by first responders and facility staff.

Two people were missing.

“That should not have happened,” Rothrock said, in the February town hall recording reviewed by LAist.

He stressed that staff members were working alongside sheriff’s deputies, paramedics and firefighters during the chaos.

Rothrock did not respond to interview requests.

Evacuation plans

During the Eaton and Palisades fires, more than 3,000 residents at more than 100 facilities across L.A. County had to be relocated, according to state authorities.

All residential care facilities are required by law to have written evacuation plans, updated annually and filed with the California Department of Social Services.

LAist reviewed copies of plans for more than 70 assisted living facilities evacuated in January, obtained through a public records request. More than 90% of those plans were outdated. And more than one-third of the facilities’ plans were last updated a decade ago or more, despite state law that requires they be filed each year, updated as needed and approved and checked during annual licensing visits.

Disability policy consultant June Isaacson Kailes reviewed LAist’s findings, as well as dozens of plans independently, and said she was “floored by the inadequacy.”

“Some of them were 10 years old,” she said. “Some of them were not fully filled out.”

MonteCedro’s emergency plan, which was signed and approved by the executive director in 2023, set a framework for what should happen during an evacuation, but state investigators said it lacked details about designated staff roles.

It did not list specific transportation plans or relocation sites as required by state law, according to LAist’s review of the document.

And MonteCedro did not follow some of what it had put in writing, state investigators said in the report. For example, the facility’s plan requires it to maintain an emergency contact list for off-duty staff who are supposed to be called in for help during an evacuation. MonteCedro had no such list, investigators said.

Rachel Tate, who oversees the L.A. ombudsman program for long-term care, said many facilities craft their plans for an emergency that’s just affecting their own location.

“I don't think that facilities in Los Angeles County were braced the way they should be for regional incidents where so many people were impacted at the same time,” she said.

Tate said she encourages families to ask residential care facilities or skilled nursing facilities about their emergency plans.

Isaacson Kailes said local officials should do the same.

“Local governments need to recognize that their plans are weak and inadequate, and therefore they need to be planning with these places," Isaacson Kailes said. “Otherwise, people will die.”

John Ward and his mother, Jean Bruce Poole, celebrating her 100th birthday.

(

Courtesy John Ward

)

‘Don’t lose me’

By 7 a.m., most of the MonteCedro residents had arrived at the Pasadena Convention Center, which was operating as an evacuation shelter during the fires.

Jean Bruce Poole had not.

She woke up that morning at the care facility and went about her normal routine, her son told LAist. He said she told him she ate breakfast and took a shower before leaving her room. Then she realized the hallways were dark.

The elevators were down. Emergency lights were out. Sheriff’s deputies found her in a hallway hours later, after first spotting another resident walking a dog near the entrance shortly after 9:30 a.m.

Back at the convention center, MonteCedro staffers were doing a head count around that time, according to the account dated Jan. 29 and posted on their website.

Deputies searched the building looking for anyone left behind, kicking down about 40 doors. They found Poole on the third floor, looking for an exit just before 10:30 a.m., according to timestamps on a deputy’s body-worn camera footage. (The footage obtained by LAist above contains text added by the Sheriff's Department.)

“Don’t lose me,” Poole says in the video.

After Rothrock, CEO of the nonprofit that runs MonteCedro, learned two residents were missing, he went to MonteCedro “immediately,” where he was told that two people had been found and transferred, according to the January statement.

Poole was taken to the convention center and then temporarily relocated to Mt. San Antonio Gardens, a care center in Pomona. Eventually she returned to MonteCedro, where she continues to live, her son said.

Ward said his mother didn’t know how close the Eaton Fire had come until she rounded the corner in a patrol car and saw a nearby church in flames.

Pasadena Transit buses arrived at the MonteCedro retirement community in Altadena before dawn on Jan. 8

(

Courtesy of a MonteCedro resident

)

Looking back, he told LAist, he has some regrets. He said his mother adores MonteCedro — the gourmet meals and access to field trips and concerts. But when it came to safety in an emergency, staff weren’t adequately prepared, he said.

He remembered that his wife told him the previous evening to drive to the care facility to pick up his mother. At the time, the fire was still 3 miles away, and he thought it would never reach her.

“That was a mistake I made,” Ward said. “And it could have been a very serious ending.”

MonteCedro residents and family members told LAist they’re grateful to facility staff who did stick around to help get most people out. That included Molina, the building manager, who they say evacuated residents as his own family home burned down.

“It's extraordinary courage and dedication to us for them to do that,” said Bergthold, the 84-year old MonteCedro resident.

MonteCedro staff told residents they hired a company called Fire & Life Safety Inc. to review its emergency plans and response effort, according to the recording reviewed by LAist. Staff at the meeting said they have no plans to release those findings publicly.

Residents and family members compiled their own list of changes they are demanding from the facility, according to interviews with LAist. The list includes upgrading alarms, new evacuation protocols, more training for staff and better notification systems for residents and families.

So far, residents said MonteCedro has made some of the changes.

Weidert, the previous executive director, retired in February.

Residents at MonteCedro care facility were moved to safety in the early morning hours of Jan. 8, 2025 as the Eaton Fire approached. The facility survived the Eaton Fire.

(

Aaron Schrank

/

LAist

)

The facility hired a new executive director, Adam Peña, in August. Bergthold served on a resident committee that hired the new director.

She said that since he took over, there have been new earthquake drills at the facility, residents were provided emergency go-bags with flashlights and battery packs, and a new resident emergency planning committee was created.

Each floor of MonteCedro’s various buildings now have designated emergency leaders, responsible for coordinating evacuations, Bergthold said.

"I'm very pleased with the actions they've taken," she said.

But she and others say there is still work to be done. They’re hoping for a warning system with flashing lights to help people who are visually impaired.

And they want a stronger transportation plan for evacuating residents from the MonteCedro’s memory care villas so residents don’t have to rely on first responders.

Mostly, they want clearer communication from the people in charge, they said.

This reporting was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. None of our funders have any influence on our editorial decisions.

The most striking view off one of San Luis Obispo County’s winding coastal roads is not the lashing ocean waves of the Pacific Ocean or cows plodding out from the shade of a California live oak tree.

It is two enormous concrete domes that come into focus along a final climb that began 7 miles back at Avila Beach. The land sinks away, and what looks like a small town emerges, showcased in a palette of grays, whites and terracotta.

This is Diablo Canyon, California’s last operating nuclear power plant.

Just years ago, the plant was slated to close, and employees worked to decommission it, until a 2022 about-face by Gov. Gavin Newsom led the state to extend its operations to 2030. Now lawmakers in Sacramento are talking about allowing it to operate even longer, potentially to 2045.

But local groups, some of whom have protested the plant since its construction, are banging the drum ever louder about their concerns for safety or a catastrophic meltdown, as well as the danger posed by spent nuclear waste at a site near several seismic fault lines.

Meanwhile, academics are furiously analyzing how much keeping Diablo Canyon open would cost and if it would support or hinder the state’s clean energy transition. And business groups are lining up in support.

So when PG&E offered press tours earlier this year, KQED accepted. The nuclear power plant has not garnered this much attention in years, but now, once again, all eyes are on Diablo Canyon. What does it look like inside?

Out on the water

PG&E’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant tour started on a boat in a protected marina just south of the reactors. This, and another cove just outside the breakwaters, are the site of a key piece of the plant’s cooling system — and a major concern for environmentalists, who argue it hoovers up and kills marine life and have called it “the most destructive facility” along California’s coast.

Dipping a hand in Diablo Cove, the water is lukewarm, not the frosty standard for the ocean in these parts.

That’s because Diablo Canyon draws 2 billion3-2.5 billion gallons of ocean water daily — enough to fill more than 3,000 Olympic-size swimming pools — into the plant to cool equipment, and discharges the water back into the ocean typically 16 to 17 degrees hotter.

The warmer water makes it feel as if a chunk of Southern California’s coast has been lobbed off and transferred north.

Out on the water, there was a hotbed of animal activity: a floating sea otter and chubby seals sunning themselves on rocks.

There were other species too — sea bass, stingrays, and California’s state fish, the garibaldi, which typically live farther south along California’s coast, but have moved here.

Diablo Canyon staff said the warm water leads to essentially no change to the environment. Because fishing and other activities are not allowed within 2,000 yards of the plant, it’s a “de facto marine sanctuary,” said Tom Jones, a senior director in charge of future planning for Diablo Canyon.

But the California Coastal Commission, the state agency tasked with protecting the coastline and its natural resources, reported in 2025 that the plant’s cooling system kills almost two billion larval fish annually, plus other organisms that aren’t measured.

While adult populations may be abundant in Diablo Cove, the commission wrote that adults often appear far from where they spawn, and their presence here may be the result of productive marine habitats nearby.

The commission also warned that removing eggs and larvae near Diablo Canyon leads to “a significant reduction” of species dozens of miles from the plant.

“These planktonic organisms,” wrote the commission, “constitute the base of the food web in California’s coastal waters.”

To the turbine deck

We donned hard hats and safety equipment and passed through heavy security to enter the “protected area,” which consists of spaces closer to the nuclear reactors.

We entered the turbine deck, an industrial building the size of two-and-a-half football fields. It was hot and loud on the deck, with a slight vibration underfoot.

The steam-driven turbine inside is an enormous semi-cylinder that looks like a horizontal steel pipe cut in half, and spins a generator to produce electricity.

The PG&E guide pointed out the window at a containment dome, where uranium atoms are split apart, releasing huge amounts of heat.

A cascade of effects follows: the heat warms water and creates steam, the steam travels through pipes to turn the turbine, the turbine connects to a generator, which makes electricity that’s then sent across the grid and delivered to about three million Californians.

Nuclear generates nearly 9% of the state’s energy supply, part of an energy mix that includes gas, hydroelectric, solar, wind, geothermal and even small amounts of coal.

While California’s demand for electricity has been flat for years, it’s now growing with the adoption of electric vehicles, people swapping gas appliances for electric ones, and data centers.

The debate to keep Diablo Canyon open is spurred, in part, by this uptick in demand. Maureen Zawalick, senior vice president and chief risk officer at PG&E, said stepping into the turbine deck reminds her of the end uses of all this power: “safety in hospitals, kidney dialysis, stop lights and everything else.”

California is walking its economy across a tightrope.

The state’s growth in the 20th century was built on a foundation of fossil fuels, but leaders see its future as being powered by the buildout of renewables like solar and wind, along with batteries to store excess power.

When heat waves strained California’s power grid and caused rolling blackouts in 2020, state lawmakers and Newsom voted to extend Diablo Canyon’s operation.

Now, as electricity bills continue to rise and demand is forecast to grow, proponents argue that keeping the plant open even longer can help California wobble across the precarious middle of the tightrope.

The simulator

We shed our safety gear and headed to the training building, with classrooms and an exact replica of the control room, called the simulator.

It was cool and quiet again as employees completed a training exercise, manipulating switches, lights and screens on a semicircle of vertical boards. Zawalick said the simulator’s seafoam green walls are meant to inspire calm, but its very existence is due to nuclear disasters that have occurred elsewhere in the U.S.

Simulators became a requirement for all nuclear power plants in 1979 after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania. The partial meltdown was the most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history and was caused by both human and equipment failure.

Practicing in a replica of Diablo Canyon’s actual control room is meant to train workers with the muscle memory to handle a variety of emergencies.

Employees spend 20% of their time in the Diablo Canyon simulator training for everything from planned refueling to routine maintenance to major emergencies.

Spent nuclear fuel

To finish the tour, we drove uphill and farther from the ocean to find dozens of hulking concrete cylinders that contain spent fuel, called “dry casks.”

The nuclear material is the concern of resident groups who fear an earthquake or terrorist attack could destabilize the storage and spew radioactive waste into the ocean or nearby communities. People living nearby are mailed annual emergency preparedness documents and have access to a free dose of potassium iodide, which protects the thyroid gland against radiation.

Linda Seeley has rallied against Diablo Canyon for decades as a member of the anti-nuclear nonprofit Mothers for Peace.

“As much as I would love it if nuclear waste were not toxic and lethal to a thousand generations in the future, that’s not the fact. The fact is that it is toxic,” she said.

Once fuel has been used inside the plant, radiation levels are dangerously high and have the potential to kill an exposed person in minutes.

The spent fuel spends 7 to 10 years next to the reactors in “wet storage,” a large pool of water treated with chemicals. The liquid absorbs heat and decays of the uranium, which has high levels of radiation.

The nuclear material is then packed into the double-lined, stainless steel and reinforced dry casks, roughly 20 feet tall. Each is bolted to a 7.5-foot-thick, steel-reinforced concrete pad designed to withstand earthquakes. The fuel requires special handling for tens of thousands of years.

Diablo Canyon is located roughly 3.5 miles from the Hosgri fault, which presents the main seismic risk to the plant. Another fault, the Shoreline, is closer to the plant, but smaller. Some seismologists are concerned that a quake along the faults could cause a meltdown.

The U.S. government is legally obligated to take ownership of all commercially spent nuclear fuel, but because the government has not yet built a permanent place to put it, the fuel is stored at the power plant.

Current solutions like Diablo Canyon’s dry storage casks, while they may be thorough, are only licensed until 2064 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Zawalick said PG&E is confident in the storage of Diablo Canyon’s spent fuel, though. She pointed out that nuclear power is “the only energy source that knows exactly where every ounce of our waste is.” The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and PG&E monitor the spent fuel on a daily and annual basis. “It’s secured, it’s inspected, it’s audited, it’s sampled. I’m a fan of all energy sources, but I don’t know where solar panels are sent when they’re done, and batteries, and all of that.”

Zawalick pointed to the powerful transmission lines carrying energy created here out to millions of Californians: to illuminate rooms for special and mundane occasions, preserve food in refrigerators, run air conditioners, and warm their shower water.

Order and safety come up frequently on the Diablo Canyon Power Plant tour: background checks, armed guards, seismic protective measures, reminders to hold on to handrails when on steps. The result is a calm and kempt environment, situated on a hillside overlooking the Pacific.

But underneath the serenity lie the inherent risks of nuclear power, especially when sited near seismic fault lines. Diablo Canyon has been the source of passionate debate as long as the idea of it has existed. And any effort to keep it operating longer will be no different.

And with that, the tour was over, and the guides returned to their work. A cow made its way slowly across the access road, with no idea of its contentious neighbor.

We all need a good story to start the week, and this one is the best. Pasadena Humane has rehomed its last dog rescued from the Eaton Fire. Artemis, a German shepherd, is happily in his forever home, and now we can all sleep a little easier. What a good boy!

Music this week includes the last of the free spring lunchtime concerts at the Colburn on Tuesday, May 5. Licorice Pizza has more picks, including Meshell Ndegeocello at Blue Note on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday, Sports are at the Roxy, Saults are at the Teragram, Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman play Disney Hall, and over at the Grammy Museum, there’s a screening of the Ann Wilson documentary In My Voice, followed by a conversation with the Heart legend herself. Thursday, The Dear Hunter will be at the Glass House.

And, happy Cinco de Mayo! Food and drink specials and community celebrations abound on Tuesday.

Elsewhere on LAist.com, you can catch up on Larry Mantle’s recent interview with Mayor Karen Bass, create a route to see the best street murals around L.A., and grab a ticket to see a live taping of NPR’s Wild Card with Rachel Martin and Tracee Ellis Ross at the Crawford on Thursday, May 7.

Events

Spaceballs

Tuesday, May 4, 6 to 10 p.m.
Griffith Observatory 
2800 E. Observatory Road, Griffith Park
COST: MEMBER ADMISSION, $45, MEMBER ADMISSION, $50 WAITLIST; MORE INFO

I don’t even really have to say it, do I? Griffith Observatory is hosting a very special screening of the best spoof of all time ever (don’t @ me), Spaceballs. In celebration of the upcoming sequel, Spaceballs: The New One (tbd if that was necessary), star Josh Gad will be on hand and the evening includes parking, drinks and snacks, and photo ops. It’s currently waitlist-only … may the Schwartz be with you.

Cinemasianamerica

Through Thursday, May 7
Laemmle Royal
11523 Santa Monica Blvd., West L.A.
COST: FROM $11.50; MORE INFO

Just in time to kick off Asian American Pacific Islander Month, director Quentin Lee has put together an exciting screening series at the Laemmle Royal, featuring 30 years of Lee’s work. The Cinemasianamerica series runs through May 7 and includes screenings of Ethan Mao, The People I’ve Slept With, The Unbidden, Rez Comedy, and Last Summer of Nathan Lee. The series will wrap with Comedy InvAsian III, a sneak preview of Lee’s stand-up showcase. Most screenings include a Q&A with Lee and fellow cast members.

Core Samples

Through Tuesday, June 30, by appointment
UCLA Architecture and Urban Design
1317 Portola Plaza, Perloff Hall 1118, Westwood
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

L.A. has a wealth of architectural and modern building feats, many of which we have more access to than any other city, given our (relative!) youth. UCLA’s School of Architecture has some of this history on display, including posters from talks by Frank Gehry and John Julius Norwich and archival materials, including VHS tapes, faculty portraits, 35mm slides of student work, travel photographs, office drawings, and posters. It uses a classroom space to allow visitors to explore, so since the exhibit is also a working teaching archive, you do have to make an appointment.

Netflix Is a Joke Festival

Through Sunday, May 10
Netflix Is a Joke Festival 
Multiple locations 
COST: VARIES; MORE INFO

WANTAGH, NY - SEPTEMBER 10: Comedian Pete Davidson performs onstage during Oddball Comedy Festival at Nikon at Jones Beach Theater on September 10, 2016 in Wantagh, New York.

(

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

/

Getty Images North America

)

Where to even begin with all the incredible comedy listings for this year’s Netflix Is a Joke Festival? Whether you’re a theater person (see: Rachel Bloom guesting with Theater Adult on May 7), a fan of roasts (head to the Forum for the Roast of Kevin Hart on May 10), an SNL superfan (Pete Davidson at the Wiltern on May 9) or a podcast junkie (Girls Gotta Eat at the Palace Theatre on May 7), there’s a show for you. I didn’t even mention the 40th Anniversary of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse with the B-52s and Danny Elfman (May 4) or the Lizzo show at the Greek (May 7)! Pretty much every venue in L.A. has a comedy show this week – it might be harder not to see comedy. So find your favorite (or someone you’ve never heard of!) and get a taste of the L.A. and international comedy scene right here.

Anissa Helou x Now Serving: For Lebanon

Monday, May 4, 7 to 8 p.m.
727 N. Broadway #133, Chinatown 
COST: FROM $11.49; MORE INFO

(

Now Serving

)

L.A. Times restaurant critic Bill Addison hosts this conversation with James Beard-winning cookbook author Anissa Helou at cookbook store Now Serving in Chinatown. Helou’s latest is Lebanon: Cooking the Foods of My Homeland, celebrating the diversity of dishes from the Mediterranean country.

TROLLS: A Field Study 

Through Sunday, October 4
South Coast Botanic Garden
26300 Crenshaw Blvd., Palos Verdes Peninsula 
COST: FREE WITH GENERAL ADMISSION ($18); MORE INFO

(

South Coast Botanic Garden

/

South Coast Botanic Garden

)

Thomas Dambo’s oversized trolls are as cute as they are creepy. Twelve of those giants made entirely of reclaimed wood have made their way across the pond to guard the South Coast Botanic Garden until October. Walk through this fairytale land with admission to the gardens or plan a special guided weekend Troll Trek.

A bill moving through the state legislature would require independent evaluations of any new education initiative that costs at least $500 million a year or $1 billion in one-time spending.

The proposed requirement is part of a larger bill that would restructure the role of the state superintendent, an elected position that currently oversees the California Department of Education.

“That means that as we make massive investments, as have occurred in the last several years, like universal transitional kindergarten, that there is a built-in independent check to tell us what is actually working,” Assemblymember David Alvarez, the bill’s author and chair of the assembly subcommittee on education, said at a hearing a few weeks ago.

While research shows a child’s early years are critical for learning, in February, reporting by LAist found the state had no formal plans to evaluate transitional kindergarten — a new grade for 4-year-olds in the public school system that was fully implemented this year.

 ”For TK, as you've covered well, you know, it's nonexistent,” Alvarez told LAist.

The state has spent billions on the program, including $3.9 billion to administer it this fiscal year.

The amendments to the bill also follow reports from the research group Policy Analysis for California Education, as well as the Legislative Analyst’s Office, that recommend reshaping the role of an elected state superintendent to include evaluation duties. But Alvarez said he thought it was crucial to take the legislation a step further and include a fiscal trigger to make evaluations mandatory, and envisions the requirement to apply to new state spending.

How would reviews work?

The bill as currently written only applies to new initiatives, but the superintendent would have authority to order reviews of existing programs like transitional kindergarten.

"I'm hopeful that as we engage more with the administration on this issue, that there's an interest in evaluating a program like this one of this magnitude and others,” Alvarez said. Other existing programs include the Community Schools Partnership Program, a wrap-around services initiative, and the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program.

The bill would allow for the independent evaluations to be done by outside research organizations.

“I really see this as the opportunity to really cement what I think is a good governance practice, long-term,” he said. “ Resources are limited, and we don't have an infinite number of dollars to do all the work we want to do, so we’ve got to make sure that dollars are being used in the best way that serves the most number of students.”

Have thoughts?

A subcontractor on the LAX Automated People Mover project owes a group of workers unpaid wages and benefits, according to a grievance filed by the union representing the workers.

An arbitrator held a hearing on the matter last December and formally sided with the union in his decision, which was released in March.

The International Union of Elevator Constructors, Local 18, had argued in a grievance filed in May 2025 that subcontractor Alstom Transport USA has been paying people who have been preparing train vehicles for passenger service and testing parts at a lower rate than what’s outlined in a labor agreement governing the project.

The union said in a statement to LAist that it is “satisfied” its claims were backed by the arbitrator and that the decision reflects the power of collective action.

The union added that this isn’t the end of the fight since Alstom has “already shown that they don’t intend to comply with the arbitrator’s award.”

The arbitrator noted in his decision there is some uncertainty as to how many workers would be affected since some of them were hired directly by Alstom and others through third-party firms. The union says there are 28 total workers who, regardless of how they were hired, should be compensated for their work and estimates Alstom owes them millions in wages and benefits.

A spokesperson for Alstom said it is “reviewing the arbitrator’s recommendations.”

“Alstom remains committed to reaching a fair and competitive wage and benefit package that recognizes the valuable contributions of our employees,” the spokesperson said.

LINXS did not respond to a request for comment.

Disputes in large-scale capital projects are not uncommon. This is one of many surrounding the Automated People Mover and not the only one to involve subcontractors working on the project. Earlier this year, LAist reported about how the main contractor, a group of companies called LINXS, is engaged in legal battles with two of its other subcontractors.

Another dispute between the city and LINXS has recently intensified and could also lead to litigation.

The project labor agreement

At the heart of this dispute is the collective bargaining agreement that sets wages for on-site construction work, establishes dispute procedures and ensures there won’t be work stoppages over labor issues on capital projects owned by Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that oversees LAX. The project labor agreement was first forged in 1999 and, in 2020, the airport’s board renewed it for an additional decade.

LINXS agreed that it would be bound to the agreement and “shall require all of its subcontractors … to be similarly bound,” according to a copy of the arbitrator’s decision the union shared with LAist.

The union has claimed that the Alstom employees were doing work that is covered by the agreement and that they should be paid accordingly.

Alstom, according to communications cited in the arbitrator’s decision, said it never signed a document called a Letter of Assent, which formalizes a company’s obligation to follow the project labor agreement, and that, even if it did, its employees’ work isn’t covered.

The arbitrator’s decision

David Weinberg, the arbitrator, said the testing and commissioning work Alstom employees did is covered by the project labor agreement. Weinberg added that Alstom consented to abide by the agreement when it signed a contract to work with LINXS.

“Not signing the Letter of Assent does not absolve Alstom of its contractual obligations to LINXS or to the Union under the [Project Labor Agreement] due to the pass-through provision,” Weinberg wrote in his decision.

Weinberg said that the Alstom employees should get paid the national wage and benefits rate for the International Union of Elevator Constructors for any hours of work completed starting 60 days before the union filed its grievance. Weinberg also ordered Alstom to provide the hours of work completed on-site.

Weinberg said in his decision that if Alstom does not comply, LINXS would be on the hook, though for a smaller amount. LINXS would be liable to pay for any hours of work starting 60 days before Nov. 4, when it became a formal party to the grievance.