The Brief

L.A. City Council President Paul Krekorian is pushing back hard on a city-commissioned analysis that found a major homelessness enforcement policy championed by himself and other council members has been ineffective.

Following a Saturday evening statement from Krekorian, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) officials said they stand by their findings.

The LAHSA analysis was meant to feed into a broader report to the council about its 41.18 zones approach that is now eight months overdue. It was completed in November and delivered to the city’s legislative analyst, where it stalled and its info has not been provided to the full council.

LAist obtained a leaked copy of LAHSA’s analysis and published an article about the findings on Friday.

In the sharply-worded statement, Krekorian vigorously disputed LAHSA’s analysis and LAist’s coverage of it.

Krekorian disputed that the information was hidden from the public, alleging LAHSA’s November report had inaccuracies — and possibly “deliberately misleading” info — that still need to be sorted out.

“The information LAHSA provided…was clearly faulty and incomplete at best, and perhaps even deliberately misleading,” wrote Krekorian, who co-authored the 41.18 zone approach that was examined by LAHSA.

He said LAHSA hasn’t been responding to legitimate questions about it from the city’s legislative analyst — something LAHSA officials dispute.

“LAHSA has failed to respond to these basic questions,” Krekorian said, adding that the joint city-county agency “continues to dodge its responsibility to respond to the [legislative analyst]’s legitimate inquiries.”

LAHSA says they "offered impartial analysis"

LAHSA officials say that’s false, and disputed allegations that the report was faulty or deliberately misleading.

“LAHSA offered impartial analysis based on the available data. Our goal is always to provide honest assessments that will allow elected officials to make informed policy decisions,” said Paul Rubenstein, LAHSA’s head of external affairs, in a text message to LAist.

“LAHSA has responded to all questions to date from the [legislative analyst] regarding the report,” he added.

LAist asked Hugh Esten, Krekorian’s spokesperson, if he has any documentation supporting Krekorian’s allegations about LAHSA not responding to questions. Esten said he didn’t, and that he didn’t know if Krekorian did either.

Any such documents, Esten said, would be held by the legislative analyst, Sharon Tso. Tso didn’t return a text message Saturday requesting that info.

In an interview Friday evening, Tso said she had unanswered questions for LAHSA but declined to say what they were. LAist also has asked Rubenstein for documentation of questions being answered.

LAHSA is a joint city-county agency, and half of its governing commission is appointed by L.A.’s mayor and confirmed by the city council.

A spokesperson for L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who chairs L.A.’s governing commission and the Board of Supervisors, said no concerns about the LAHSA analysis were raised with the supervisor.

“No one brought this to the Supervisor’s attention — no one at LAHSA and no one on the Council,” said Horvath spokesperson Constance Farrell in a text message to LAist, when asked about the council legislative analyst’s alleged questions and concerns.

What the city analyst told LAist

Tso declined to give a timeline for when her long-overdue city report would be completed and turned over to the full council and public.

“I am being diligent…That’s all I can tell you,” Tso said. She also declined to answer questions about any exchanges with council members about the underlying data or the report. “My conversations with my council members are my conversations.”

She said council members haven’t been demanding the information be disclosed immediately.

“There hasn’t been this screaming demand that we need to have something now,” Tso said.

Strong reactions from city hall

LAist’s article Friday generated strong reactions around City Hall.

In a statement responding to the article, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez called 41.18 a "complete and total failure."

"Our office still has not officially received this report, but we know that encampments swept with 41.18 nearly always return, and we spend millions of dollars every year on this ineffective criminalization of homelessness," he said.

About the data

Rubenstein noted that LAHSA’s analysis acknowledged data quality issues around 41.18. The report says that’s largely because the council didn’t ask for data tracking for 41.18 zones when it created the policy back in 2021, under the motion Krekorian co-authored.

As for the 41.18 law, in his statement Krekorian objected to claims that it criminalizes homelessness, and said it’s “not an alternative to housing programs,” like Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe initiative.

“It simply prohibits encampments in specified limited areas,” he said, “that are especially dangerous to the unhoused themselves, or that unreasonably impede the public’s use of the public right of way, or are adjacent to sensitive areas such as schools and child care centers.”

Krekorian, in his statement, specifically criticized the LAHSA report for saying an encampment had been repopulated even if one person returned. LAist is working on a deeper analysis of the data.

It’s unclear how long Krekorian has had the November report from LAHSA. Esten said he didn’t know, and LAist requested Saturday night that he ask the council president that question. An answer hadn’t been provided as of publication time Sunday afternoon.

Esten said it’s common in L.A. for report-backs ordered by the council to take much longer than their 60-day deadlines, and for there to be no public update about the delay.

Advocates have asked for report for months

A leading advocacy group for unhoused people has been calling for the report’s release for months. The full report-back to the council on 41.18’s effectiveness was due by mid-June. Multiple council members told LAist they have yet to receive LAHSA’s November analysis, which states that it “was performed as requested by the Los Angeles City Council” under its April 2023 directive for a 60-day report-back.

In October, the group LA Community Action Network filed a written comment with the council wondering why the report was taking so long.

On Wednesday, it again urged for the report to be published, both in a letter to the council and during public comments at the council meeting.

The 60-day report-back “is now 261 days past due,” wrote Pete White, LA CAN’s executive director, in the letter. He noted that, on average, six unhoused people die each day across L.A. County.

“It is imperative upon the LA City Council to recognize the urgency of this matter.”

Read the LAHSA summary

LAist made a public record request for LAHSA's report and underlying data. LAHSA released both Sunday night. Here's the summary dated Nov. 28, 2023.

Page 1 of 41.18 Efficacy Summary Report

Contributed to DocumentCloud by Megan Garvey (Southern California Public Radio) • View document or read text

Cleanup is just beginning for a contaminated industrial site in South Gate, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials who are leading the effort.

The small southeast L.A. city was built on industry — in the early 20th century it boomed with auto, chemical and other manufacturers.

That legacy also left it with three Superfund sites, areas designated by the federal government as highly contaminated with hazardous waste.

The three sites are all clustered on a large lot framed by Southern and Rayo avenues. A residential neighborhood is nearby.

“This site is less than 50 yards away from a home, so we want to make sure that we clean it to a point where we can feel confident,” said South Gate Mayor Joshua Barron.

South Gate is home to about 90,000 people, the majority of whom are Latino. The median household income is about $74,500 and the state has identified the city and surrounding communities to be disproportionately burdened by pollution and its health effects.

This site, dubbed the Southern Avenue Industrial Area, housed a screw manufacturing business for 30 years, then a carpet adhesive plant. Both businesses are now defunct and the site was designated by the federal government as a Superfund site in 2012.

The pollution at this property was compounded by pollution from companies next door.

One of the two adjacent Superfund sites was used by Cooper Drum Co., a steel drum recycling plant. A group of Cooper Drum’s former customers, including chemical manufacturers and oil companies, are paying for part of that cleanup. The other site, previously operated by an aircraft rivet and conveyor belt manufacturer, is still in the analysis and planning stages.

At the Southern Avenue site where the EPA broke ground Tuesday, analyses commissioned by the agency found widespread lead and other toxic contamination in the soil, as well as a plume of trichloroethylene, a carcinogen, in the groundwater.

Officials say the plume has not affected the deeper aquifer South Gate and other southeast L.A. cities rely on for drinking water.

In 1986, the city closed water wells contaminated by the neighboring Cooper Drum site.

EPA project manager Kelia Liang explains the cleanup effort in South Gate on Tuesday.

(

Erin Stone

/

LAist

)

“ The water is safe to drink,” said Mike Montgomery, superfund director for the EPA. “What we're trying to do is prevent it from becoming impacted.”

EPA officials estimate soil cleanup will take about two months. Groundwater cleanup planning will start in 2027 and could take a year or more. The whole effort is estimated to cost between $45 million and $60 million, primarily through federal dollars.

The summer heat may be sweltering at the moment in Southern California, but predictions about this winter’s El Niño show it could be the strongest on record.

So the LAist newsroom wants to know: What questions do you have? (You can submit below.)

We can tell you now that El Niño is a climate pattern that happens roughly every two to seven years, and is one of the most powerful drivers of the Earth’s weather.

During an El Niño event, the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America warms to above normal temperatures. The warm ocean adds moisture and heat to the atmosphere, influencing atmospheric circulation, temperatures and precipitation on a massive scale.

El Niño typically results in mild weather in the northern United States and wetter conditions in the southern part of the country.

In Southern California, we could start to see the effects of El Niño in the late fall or early winter. Generally, those effects include significant rain and high sea levels and the consequences that come with them, such as flooding, mudslides and coastal erosion.

Forecasters say there is a more than 90% chance of a powerful El Niño event this year, and a 70% chance that it’s record-setting.

That said, uncertainty remains around how exactly this winter’s El Niño will play out here.

So as you gear up for an El Niño winter, ask us your questions and we’ll do our best to get answers in the months ahead.

The company behind the Garden Grove hazardous waste scare earlier this year is planning to resume full operations in late September, subject to an independently monitored, court-approved safety plan.

GKN Aerospace employs 500 people at its Garden Grove facility.

What happened?

GKN Aerospace said in a news release that it had permanently decommissioned the tank that set off the hazmat scare in May and forced some 50,000 nearby residents to evacuate.

Removal of the tank is pending review and approval from state regulatory agencies, according to an emailed response from Salma Elshakre, a spokesperson for the Orange County Health Care Agency, which is overseeing the cleanup.

All of the toxic chemical, methyl methacrylate (also known as MMA), has been removed from nearby tanks as well, Elshakre said.

What about the compensation fund?

This week, the company also announced a forthcoming $100 million compensation fund for affected residents and businesses. GKN expects to release details on how to apply in the coming months.

What's next?

At least 39 lawsuits have been filed against the company in conjunction with the hazmat incident, according to a GKN webpage set up to track the fallout. The company pledged to explain the legal effect of participating in the compensation fund before it is launched.

What's the community reaction?

Garden Grove Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein said in a statement that the city “welcome[s] this progress and will continue to expect GKN to address the broader effects on our community.”

A coalition of community groups called GKN Out of Garden Grove Coalition wants the city to shut down the GKN plant completely. The coalition plans to release a report documenting the company’s alleged history of hazardous waste failures at a news conference Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at 11300 Stanford Ave. in Garden Grove.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges.

Unless challenged or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of so-called B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are now seeking asylum, according to State Department documents obtained by The Associated Press and two U.S. officials. The action will be taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.

“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott.

He declined to comment on the number of visas that might be revoked, saying “as the process will be ongoing, the number of revocations remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis.”

The revocations would not necessarily result in their immediate deportation, the officials said. Most of those with asylum cases currently pending would be recategorized but would lose their status as business or tourism travelers, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the revocations are not final yet.

Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term last year, his administration has steadily ramped up restrictions on visa applicants — demanding more information about their social media histories, requiring the posting of expensive bonds for the processing of visas, and outright banning the issuance of visas to citizens of certain countries.

In a social media post on Monday, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau called out people who he said try to use tourist and business visas to get into the United States and then apply for asylum.

“People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims,” Landau wrote on X. “Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law.” Landau cited the case of a Colombian citizen who came to the U.S. in 2015 on a tourist visa and then applied for asylum.

B1 visas are generally issued for business trips and B2 visas are generally issued for tourism, family visits or medical care. It was not immediately clear from the documents or the officials how many of these visa holders are seeking or have sought asylum in the United States and would be affected by the revocations.

Current applicants for B1 and B2 visas are asked to affirm that they will not apply for asylum in the United States and prove that they intend to return to their home countries.

In the past 18 months, the State Department has revoked about 175,000 visas for people who have been convicted or accused of crimes ranging from drunken driving to rape and robbery, as well as for people who have spoken out publicly against U.S. policies, particularly in the Middle East.

The administration has also moved to crack down on so-called birth tourism, a practice the administration claims is used by foreign pregnant women to come to the United States to give birth so that their child will benefit from birthright citizenship. Trump has tried several times to end birthright citizenship, but those challenges have been rejected by courts, including the Supreme Court.

The State Department documents obtained by the AP suggest screening of current B1 and B2 visa holders began after the State Department received information about asylum requests from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.