The Brief

The fight over how much new housing should be allowed in neighborhoods rebuilding from the Palisades and Eaton fires is headed to court.

Advocates for increased housing construction filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles-area politicians over their orders banning duplexes in burn zones.

The group YIMBY Law alleges Newsom, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and others acted illegally when they issued orders to suspend the state law SB 9 in certain neighborhoods now rebuilding from the Palisades and Eaton fires.

SB 9 allows single-family homeowners to split their lots and build duplexes, in some cases creating four units where one house previously stood.

In July, Newsom signed an order granting local governments the ability to block the law in high fire risk zones. Bass quickly took up the offer, banning SB 9 projects in the Pacific Palisades.

Other local governments, including the city of Pasadena, Malibu and L.A. County followed suit.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction ordering local governments to begin processing SB 9 applications again, as well as a declaration that Newsom’s order was illegal.

YIMBYs say bans raise barriers to rebuilding 

YIMBY Law Executive Director Sonja Trauss said the bans will make rebuilding harder for some families. She said some may only be able to return by selling pieces of their land, pooling finances with family members to live multi-generationally, or earning extra income from new rental units.

“Making it harder for families to use the single most impactful tool they have left — their land — doesn’t make recovery safer,” Trauss said in a statement. “It raises the barrier of who gets to come back at all.”

Newsom spokesperson Tara Gallegos said in an email to LAist that the Governor's Office was holding firm on the order.

“We will not allow outside groups — even longstanding allies — to attack the Palisades, and communities in the highest fire risk areas throughout L.A. County, or undermine local flexibility to rebuild after the horror of these fires,” Gallegos said.

Newsom’s office had been in discussions with YIMBY Law earlier this week on possible changes to the order to stave off a lawsuit. But Gallegos said Newsom would not “negotiate away” protections for burn zones.

“Our obligation is to survivors, full stop,” Gallegos said. “If defending them requires drawing firm lines, we will draw them."

The lawsuit alleges Newsom’s order violated the California Emergency Services Act, as well as the state Constitution’s separation of powers by overriding the legislature’s decision to apply SB 9 in high-fire-risk zones.

Because the governor’s order was illegal, the lawsuit claims, the local orders banning SB 9 projects in specific neighborhoods were also unlawful.

The complaint says the moves to ban duplexes and lot splits were spurred by “the lobbying influence of a small, highly-connected, wealthy community, and their ability to stop a type of housing they dislike, even in the midst of a generational housing crisis.”

What led to the bans

Some Pacific Palisades residents erupted with anger over news in the summer that seven SB 9 project applications had been filed with the city of L.A. They contended that increased housing density would harm the neighborhood’s character, and would clog evacuations in future emergencies.

L.A. City Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Palisades, blamed the situation on “opportunistic developers” whom she said were using SB 9 to “exploit a devastating disaster for their economic advantage.”

But as the complaint from YIMBY Law notes, SB 9 contains owner-occupancy requirements that bar outside developers from building the densest projects allowed under the law. Applicants must state that they intend to live on the site for at least three years before they can split a lot.

Bass’s office did not comment on the lawsuit, but provided a statement that said she “will continue to work with Governor Newsom and state leaders to advocate for the Palisades community as rebuilding continues."

Officials with the city of Pasadena, which enacted a ban on SB 9 projects in high fire risk zones in September, declined to comment on pending litigation. Officials in the city of Malibu, which was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, did not respond to requests for comment.

How did L.A. County end up banning SB 9?

Soon after Newsom’s order, L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger — who represents Altadena — told LAist she did not intend to ban SB 9 projects in unincorporated parts of the county. At the time, she said, “I don't want to disenfranchise anyone from the ability to rebuild.”

However, a memo on the county’s Planning Department website now says SB 9 projects located in the zones outlined in Newsom’s order are “not eligible” for faster approval under the state law. County officials confirmed that Planning Director Amy Bodek made the decision. They said the ban did not require a vote from the Board of Supervisors.

Most of Altadena is not categorized as a “very high” fire hazard severity zone. But about 23% of Altadena’s single-family lots are in high fire risk zones. County planning officials told LAist they have stopped processing SB 9 applications in those areas.

In a statement, Barger said. “The County is applying lawful SB 9 restrictions in Very High Fire Hazard Areas to prioritize public safety in areas where critical infrastructure is constrained or limited — which I support. But I also believe SB 9 empowers Eaton Fire survivors to rebuild homes that meet multigenerational needs and add lasting value to their communities.”

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

California prisons are increasingly relying on an unusual fire alarm system: humans.

Between 2020 and 2025, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spent nearly $50 million on “fire watch” staffing costs. In recent years, prison employees have spent roughly 270,000 hours monitoring for smoke or fire.

They patrol prisons and visually inspect different areas during their shifts, according to job postings reviewed by CalMatters.

That’s because the majority of California’s 31 prisons have deficient fire alarm systems and it would cost $1.5 billion to replace them all, according to the department’s annual report submitted in January.

In the face of outdated, malfunctioning and inoperable fire alarm systems, the Office of the State Fire Marshal ordered the department to run fire watch coverage until it repairs or replaces its fire alarm systems.

“This process has come at a significant expense to the department in staff costs for fire watch coverage,” corrections officials wrote in a recent $15.2 million budget request to support next year’s coverage.

It’s a drop in the bucket for the department’s $14.6 billion budget, but costs continue to balloon.

The department in June said it was on track to spend roughly $40 million for last year’s fire watch coverage, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. That’s roughly $25 million over its budgeted authority, the office said.

Replacing a single prison’s fire alarm system costs between $3 million and $87 million, according to estimates in the system’s facilities master plan.

Caitlin O’Neil, who monitors the corrections budget as a principal fiscal and policy analyst at the Legislative Analyst’s Office, said the department has historically used correctional officers for fire coverage because the assignment requires keys and access to move about the prison freely. Their fire watch hours are typically coded to overtime.

The base pay for an experienced correctional officer is $9,647 a month, according to a 2024 salary survey.

But O’Neil said the department is exploring whether it can achieve fire watch coverage with a lower cost job classification — recognizing that correctional officers have more capabilities than just looking for fires. According to O’Neil, the department is piloting a fire watch program at Solano State Prison. There, fire watch positions are classified as an “office assistant” and report to a correctional sergeant.

The pay for that position tops out at $4,357 a month, according to a job ad.

Royal Ramey, a formerly incarcerated firefighter who co-founded the nonprofit organization Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program, said fire safety inside correctional institutions is non-negotiable.

“People who are incarcerated, as well as the staff inside these facilities, deserve reliable systems and strong emergency protections that keep everyone safe,” he said. “In situations involving fire emergency response, there can be no gaps in protection. But the priority must also remain protecting lives while continuing to advance permanent and reliable infrastructure solutions.”

But Matt Cate, who was California’s corrections secretary under former Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown, said he was skeptical about the spending because people are paid to stand around and look for a problem that doesn’t exist.

“Large-scale fires in prisons are extremely rare because prisons are made of concrete and steel,” he said. “There’s a fire department attached to each prison and there are people throughout the prison who are there all the time. It’s staffed 24-7.”

According to Cate, the state has “very strict” regulations to manage fire risk in prisons. He said that puts the department in a position of either upgrading its fire alarm systems for hundreds of millions of dollars or requesting incremental cash each year to meet those regulations.

“It’s a little like deciding, do we buy the house or do we rent?” Cate said. “It's ultimately the governor's office and the Legislature who have to decide how much to invest versus how much to plug the problem through adding additional staff.”

Kristen Cowan, who studies the impacts of extreme weather disasters in prisons and jails as an assistant professor at the University of Buffalo, said she did not know it was legal for prisons to have inoperable fire alarm systems.

“This is baseline disaster preparedness,” she said. “It’s certainly concerning to know that that (technology) is missing. It makes you wonder what else is missing in the facilities.”

Cowan said the department’s reliance on fire watch positions in lieu of up-to-date technology could create big delays in fire detection, risking more injuries, deaths and detrimental health impacts from smoke exposure.

“We wouldn’t let anyone else live in a place that doesn’t have a smoke detector,” she said.

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

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

Federal prosecutors filed a motion Monday to drop their case against labor leader David Huerta, a year after he was arrested protesting an ICE raid in downtown L.A. last summer. His arrest was one of the most dramatic moments of last summer, sparking a firestorm of criticism.

The federal government had charged Huerta, who leads Service Employees International Union California, with a misdemeanor, accusing him of obstructing, resisting, or opposing a federal officer during the first day of immigration sweeps across the region. Prosecutors had originally charged him with a felony, which carried a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

The charge against Huerta goes back to June 6, 2025, when he showed up at Ambiance Apparel in downtown L.A., a workplace where federal authorities were executing a warrant. He was arrested and held for three nights in the Metropolitan Detention Center Los Angeles.

In the original criminal complaint filed in June, a federal agent described Huerta and others gathering outside of a gate at the workplace "effectively preventing law enforcement vehicles from entering or exiting the premises through the gate to execute the search warrant."

According to SEIU, Huerta was injured during his arrest and treated at a hospital while in federal custody. The union said that he was exercising his First Amendment right to document law enforcement.

"It has been the objective of my attorneys to defend me against an administration that has violated the very foundation of our civil rights as a society and country," Huerta said in a statement provided by SEIU. "Our motions exposed a case that never should have been brought because it violated my constitutional rights."

Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, said in a statement that the criminal case against Huerta should be fully dismissed by the end of the month. McEvoy said Huerta had "been compliant" with the terms of his bond.

"The Department of Justice does not arrest people for peacefully protesting," he said in a statement.

Long Beach wants to hear from residents ahead of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, when the city will host a total of 18 sporting events.

The 10-minute online survey, which is open through Sept. 30, asks respondents to give their general feelings about the arrival of the games, rank the lasting impact they want to see, provide concerns about attending and rank which free activities they would want to accompany the festivities.

You can take the survey here.

It’s the first step in a series of efforts for residents to provide feedback on everything from parking to the impact on local businesses, said Sean Devereaux, the city’s community engagement officer.

Long Beach just wrapped up a series of World Cup watch parties that city officials hope will be a road map for events surrounding the Olympic and Paralympic games.

From mid-June to mid-July, the city budgeted $800,000 to host 56 public watch parties and its annual Open Streets event during the international soccer tournament. About 50,000 people attended the city’s watch parties, city spokesperson Laath Martin wrote in an email.

The city will know the final amount spent for the events “in the coming days,” Martin wrote.

Most of the watch parties happened on Pine Avenue in downtown Long Beach, but for July’s knockout stage, they shifted to parks — with one event held in every city council district.

Ian McCall, owner of ISM Brewing on The Promenade, said the watch parties boosted sales at his business throughout the tournament.

For the most popular matches — aka, anytime Mexico and USA played — the brewery was “packed to the gills” with fans overflowing from the watch party on Pine Avenue.

On other match days, McCall said sales were still 15-20% higher than usual.

Restaurants and bars throughout Los Angeles also saw a similar boost from the games.

Data gathered from Long Beach’s online survey will help the city hone its approach for the Olympics and “ensure that the games are available to everyone in Long Beach in some capacity,” Devereaux said.

City staff also plan to host in-person meetings and events in various neighborhoods to get more tailored feedback, Devereaux said.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

In Koreatown, a discarded chair or mattress can quickly snowball into a larger pile of trash and debris. 

It’s one reason Los Angeles is launching a dedicated cleanup crew to address the neighborhood’s persistent illegal dumping problem.

The Koreatown Youth and Community Center will operate the rapid response team, expected to launch in September, under a one-year contract with Council District 10. The three-person crew will remove bulky items such as furniture, appliances, electronic waste and other illegally dumped trash from the neighborhood.

The rapid response team will not participate in homeless encampment sweeps. If they encounter bulky items near an encampment, they will notify the city’s sanitation department, according to Pablo Cardoso, director of environmental services at the nonprofit KYCC.

Koreatown logged 17,429 illegal dumping service requests over the past year, according to an analysis of MyLA311 data by Crosstown.

Among the city’s 116 neighborhoods and districts, Koreatown ranked second in illegal dumping service requests, trailing only Van Nuys.

Koreatown’s high population density makes the neighborhood a priority for the targeted cleanup effort, according to officials.

“Given how densely populated Koreatown is, we are launching this targeted pilot program to enhance local maintenance efforts specifically for this community,” Council District 10 spokesperson Devyn Bakewell said.

The council office approached KYCC earlier this year about operating the program, Cardoso said. Officials did not immediately provide the full cost of the program.

Crew members will work eight-hour shifts Monday through Friday, focusing on major corridors bounded by Olympic Boulevard, Pico Boulevard, Western Avenue and Venice Boulevard. Council District 10 will direct crews to priority locations and respond to residents’ requests for service.

“I’m sure you’ve driven around Koreatown and seen bulky items just everywhere,” Cardoso said.

From April through December 2025, the neighborhood logged 12,640 illegal dumping service requests, according to the latest available MyLA311 data compiled by Crosstown. During that same period, the intersection of Fourth Street and New Hampshire Avenue received 206 reports — the highest total for any single location in the city.

Tam Phan, a Koreatown resident who has volunteered with No Harm KTLA since 2022, said her group regularly encounters illegally dumped furniture and other debris during its twice-monthly neighborhood cleanups.

Until recently, volunteers met at 6th Street and Kenmore Avenue. But after that area became noticeably cleaner, they moved to other parts of Koreatown, including around Wilshire Boulevard, Western Avenue and Vermont Avenue.

“We’ve noticed there are lots of stray trash, sometimes food waste that’s fermenting in the sun and lots of furniture that people leave outside their apartments that’s been there for quite a while,” Phan said.

Volunteers typically bring trash bags during cleanups, but recently started bringing large rolling bins to collect more waste. When they come across bulky items they can’t haul away, Phan said they report them through the city’s 311 system.

Once a pile of trash appears on the sidewalk in Koreatown, it’s common for more to follow, according to residents.

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Kristen Muller

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The LA Local

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Phan said she hopes the rapid response team will help address the problem.

“I think most people think it’s the norm to leave something out and the city will miraculously show up and clean it up,” she said. “As the weeks go by, we see the same item there.”

While KYCC’s litter abatement crews have occasionally removed bulky items, Cardoso said this will be the nonprofit’s first crew dedicated exclusively to that work.

“I think this is something that is absolutely needed,” he said. “There’s a lot of illegal dumping that goes on out there and this will be an asset to Koreatown.”

As part of the partnership, KYCC is recruiting local residents to staff the crew. Bakewell said local hiring was a priority to ensure the team is familiar with the community it will serve.

While the current contract runs for one year, Cardoso said KYCC hopes the pilot becomes a permanent resource for the neighborhood.