The Brief

A lot has been happening with the agency that manages homelessness funding for L.A. city and county.

One of the latest controversies is over public records about alleged wrongdoing at the L.A. Homeless Services Authority.

As LAist revealed earlier, LAHSA leaders and their attorneys at the County Counsel’s Office have repeatedly refused to release public records about allegations of high-level wrongdoing — including whistleblower retaliation — that led to $800,000 in taxpayer-funded payouts to settle the claims.

Legal experts told LAist the documents are being unlawfully withheld.

Courts have repeatedly ruled these types of records must be disclosed to the public under the California Public Records Act, according to David Loy, a public records attorney at the First Amendment Coalition.

The fact that the claims have been settled — and taxpayer money paid out — makes it even more clear that the public has a right to see them, Loy said.

The records “clearly should be available to the public,” he added.

LAHSA argues that several exemptions allow it to withhold the whistleblower retaliation claims Kristina Dixon and Emily Vaughn Henry submitted to LAHSA after they were fired — including attorney-client privilege.

But Loy says none of them apply. For example, attorney-client privilege is about communications between an attorney and their own client — not claims filed by an outside party.

Dan Kim and Alyssa Skolnick, the attorneys representing LAHSA in refusing to release the records, work under the county’s top attorney Dawyn Harrison. They have not responded to Loy’s point-by-point explanation more than a week ago of why he believes they’re unlawfully withholding the records.

So…what does the law say, and what could happen next?

Courts have said the public is entitled to see these types of records

California laws, including the state Constitution, protect the public’s right to get copies of government documents.

Those laws include the Brown Act, which requires officials to disclose legal claims and communications threatening litigation against their agency — like the records LAHSA has been withholding.

The courts have been clear that legal claims, like the ones LAist requested, have to be disclosed to the public upon request, Loy said. He pointed to cases like an appellate court ruling against Poway Unified School District, which found that exemptions like attorney-client privilege do not apply to legal claims.

Legal claims are usually disclosed by local governments without any issue.

In fact, LAHSA itself says it has disclosed all other legal claims to LAist — except the ones over whistleblower retaliation filed by Dixon and Vaughn Henry.

How could the documents get released?

One way is LAHSA’s attorneys could change course and disclose them. But that seems unlikely, particularly after LAist’s repeated requests for disclosure.

Another way is if someone sues and a judge ends up ordering LAHSA to release the records. But such rulings can take months to reach, and can rack up attorney fees that are ultimately paid for by taxpayers.

Yet another way is that a majority of LAHSA’s governing commission could vote to override the attorneys and release the records. The Santa Ana City Council did that years ago with a report about alleged wrongdoing that the city attorney had withheld.

Half the 10-member LAHSA Commission is governed by Mayor Karen Bass and the people she appoints. The other half is governed by people appointed by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.

The commission can hold a special meeting for a vote as quickly as 24 hours after public notification.

Where does the commission stand?

That’s unclear.

LAist reached out to spokespeople for Bass and the five county supervisors, requesting comment from them and the LAHSA commissioners they appointed. They either didn’t respond, or declined to comment.

LAist has tried reaching out to the commissioners directly, using email addresses LAHSA staff provided. But most of those emails bounced back saying messages could not be delivered.

The email account LAHSA staff provided for Bass appears to be an old mayoral account that hasn’t been active for years.

LAHSA falsely said the records were released — then said otherwise

One of LAHSA attorneys, Skolnick, told LAist on Wednesday morning that she was disclosing the records for the two claims LAist asked for. A LAHSA official later said that the records had indeed been disclosed.

But they were not. And after repeated follow ups, Skolnick eventually said the claims will not be released.

Her supervisor, Katherine Bowser, later stood by the refusal to release the records, while declining to respond to Loy’s specific points about the law.

Whether you and your friends are looking for a brunch spot to cater to everyone's palates, or taking a trip to the historic Grand Central Market, food halls make for an easy, affordable place to satisfy cravings — especially in SoCal, where diverse selections of dishes reign supreme.

But these spaces fill a void much deeper than our appetites. They bring new life to old storefronts, factories or even airfields (see list below), and can offer a way to keep dollars within the community by becoming a hub for local businesses.

With that said, here's a short list of food halls where you'll get more than just a killer meal.

For good vibes

BLVD MRKT food hall on the corner of 6th Street and Whittier Boulevard in downtown Montebello.

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BLVD MRKT is an open-air food hall in downtown Montebello that feels like a party. The 8,500-square-foot space currently has five eateries, or "concepts" as they're known in the restaurant industry, and hosts live DJs every Friday night and Sunday during brunch. They also host Open Vinyl Night on the second and forth Tuesday of every month, where patrons get $2 off beers and margaritas from Alchemy Craft if they bring a vinyl record to be played in the BLVD courtyard.

The space is pet-friendly and has growing concepts like Los Taquero Mucho, which offers classic al pastor, grilled chicken and slow-cooked carnitas tacos, as well as specialty flavors like vegan tacos with whiskil sautéed in coconut milk, and Pork Belly Cochinita Pibil Tacos, perfect for those who crave crispy, slow-roasted pork with a hint of sweetness.

Los Taquero Mucho participates in BLVD's incubator program, run by co-founders Barney and Evelyn Santos. The program offers mentorship to local entrepreneurs until they can set up shop permanently.

Pork Belly Cochinita Pibil Tacos with salsa from Los Taquero Mucho at BLVD MRKT in Montebello.

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BLVD MRKT is part of the couple's commercial real estate development firm, Gentefy. Its mission is to invest in retail and hospitality projects that ignite economic development and revitalization in Black and brown neighborhoods.

"Blvd Mrkt is our first project," Barney Santos wrote in a text message. "It was our social proof to prove to banks, investors and cities that a socially conscious business model could exist in a traditionally overlooked area."

VCHOS Pupuseria Moderna also has a spot in the BLVD courtyard, offering handmade pupusas with filling choices such as shrimp with spinach and cheese, and tender beef birria with a side of consommé, onions and cilantro. Coffee lovers can get an Oaxacan Mocha at Cafe Santo, or stop by Cold Pizza for a wood-fired slice.

For eclectic tastes

Rodeo 39 Public Market in Stanton.

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An O.C. favorite, Rodeo 39 Public Market lives on Highway 39, also known as Beach Boulevard, in Stanton. This 40,000-square-foot space is an eclectic mix of more than 20 food and drink concepts and retailers. There are three outdoor patios and five murals, plus an arcade, tattoo shop and photo booth. Food options cover everything from Lil' Breezy's adobo breakfast burritos to Cajun crab fries at The Crawfish Hut.

Mural by artist David Flores outside of Joystix arcade at Rodeo 39 Public Market.

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Rodeo's menu choices make it well-suited for a casual weekend brunch. At its entrance sits Here & There, where you can grab a coffee or matcha latte, or try one of their signature drinks like the Iced Vienna, a combination of milk with caramelly demerara sugar and your choice of matcha or espresso, topped with sweet cream and garnished with sea salt. The result is a drink that's smooth and not too sweet.

Eggyo bulgogi egg sandwich with spicy mayo at Rodeo 39 Public Market.

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Eggyo, a recent addition to Rodeo, offers Korean corn dogs and fluffy egg sandwiches on crispy, house-baked milk bread. Try the bulgogi option with spicy mayo for a savory kick. If you crave a cocktail, venture over to CAPO, which also serves craft beer. Or just sit on one of their sun-filled patios while you decide what to try.

For a page from history

The Hangar in Long Beach.

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The Hangar is a 17,000-square-foot food hall that pays homage to Long Beach's aviation history. It sits on former Boeing Co. land where military and commercial aircraft were built. Today, it serves as a dining destination at the Long Beach Exchange Shopping Center, or LBX, neighboring the city's international airport.

This space currently has a mix of 14 food concepts and two retail shops. Patrons can enjoy local favorites outside their flagship locations, like the Joe's Special bagel sandwich from Cassidy's Corner Cafe, with bacon, egg and the star of the show — tangy jalapeño cream cheese. Fans of spice can try Jay Bird's Nashville Hot Chicken, which offers chicken sandwiches and tenders, and Blazin' Fries, all with six levels of heat.

Historic aviation photos are displayed above food concepts at The Hangar food hall at LBX in Long Beach

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Inside, there are vintage pictures of aircraft that were built at the site, and a wall of clocks showing the time in cities named Long Beach across the country.

A Pan Am Hawaii travel poster (left) and a TWA Spain travel poster (right) at the patio of The Hangar food hall.

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Outside, you'll find patio seating with umbrellas where you can sit and watch the occasional plane fly overhead. Or sit and enjoy the adjacent display of towering Pan Am and TWA posters promoting travel to Hawaii, Spain and Paris.

For fun and work

Mercado La Paloma on Grand Avenue in South L.A.

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Open since 2001, the approximately 34,000-square-foot Mercado La Paloma sits in the Figueroa corridor of South L.A., and is known for its focus on community, art and culture. From rotating art exhibits to colorful tiled tabletops, this space feels like it was made to nurture creativity.

Interior of Mercado La Paloma.

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There are meeting rooms to rent starting at $25 an hour. It's a space where locals can bring their laptop to work or study, or have a long conversation with a friend, with bites from six acclaimed restaurants.

Holbox's Erizo dish at Mercado La Paloma.

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At the Mercado, visit Holbox for Michelin-starred seafood dishes like Erizo — velvety sea urchin laid atop a bed of tender scallop ceviche. The combination is fresh, flavorful and oceanic. Tip: If you can swing it, come on a weekday to avoid a long line, or order ahead.

For something sweet, walk over to Oaxacacalifornia Cafe & Juice Bar for a Spicy Pineapple Juice with a gingery kick, or go for the classic pairing of Hot Oaxacan Chocolate, made with your choice of water or milk, and light-as-air conchas crowned with a solid layer of vanilla or chocolate streusel.

Vinyl records and cassette tapes are nice and all, but when it comes to '80s nostalgia, few things make a bigger statement — or at least take up as much space — as arcade games and pinball machines.

Just ask Chris Campbell, who runs Captain's Auction House in Anaheim that specializes in these refrigerator-sized consoles.

Campbell (he says everyone calls him "Captain") founded the O.C. business in 2008, but he’s been in the trade for more than 25 years, having auctioned off, or directly sold, "tens of thousands" of the machines.

Chris "Captain" Campbell, owner of Captain's Auction House in Anaheim.

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Auctions take place around every four to six weeks — both in-person and online. The priciest pinball he auctioned off was for around $48,000. And he recently sold a 1990 arcade game for $70,000.

Currently, Captain says he has about 1,200 machines in his inventory — housed in about 40,000 square feet of space. On Sunday, a special lot of about 100 machines belonging to musician Ryan Adams will go on the auction block.

Adams, Captain said, is an avid collector. "When he's played concerts, some of the equipment that he has on stage with him are arcade games," Captain said.

Along with the machines, a handful of musical equipment owned by Adams will also go under the hammer, including a vintage Gibson Barney Kessel hollowbody guitar estimated to fetch up to $10,000.

Captain says about his auction house has an inventory of about 1,200 arcade games and pinball machines.

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Captain said the things that get brought into his auction warehouse still blow his mind "almost every day." He's seen his share of Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong — mainstream and highly collectible coin-operated games — but he's also gotten his hands on lesser-known titles like Mazer Blazer. It's a 1983 game where one or two players shoot down aliens to protect a spaceship. It used a special magnifying lens to create its fisheye look.

"What makes it so cool is some of these games were very prototypical. Companies were trying different things," he said. "It's just a different-looking game."

Then there are pinball machines, evolving from their electromechanical beginnings in the '50s, to their early solid-state transition in the '80s, to their ongoing technological evolution today — both multifaceted and singular in all their forms.

 "The one cool thing that melds them all together is the idea of mechanical and electronic playing together," he said. "But the main part of pinball that makes it so nice is it's still very visceral."

One of his wows is the "Black Knight" trilogy — machines made by legendary pinball designer Steve Ritchie that were released in 1980, 1989 and 2019.

Captain said the machines feature super-fast shooting, great gameplay and, for the 2019 version, a soundtrack created by Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian.

"It's not super rare, but it's like one of my favorites because it's an in-your-face pinball machine, you know?" he said.

And Captain's Auction House has all three machines in its possession.

"I'm fortunate enough that I — the captain — get to be around them, play them, know a little bit about them, learn more about them," he said. "And I love to buy, sell and trade just like everybody else."

A rich trove of Asian American and Pacific Islander history lives in academic journals and university library stacks that many students don’t know how to tap into.

A new multimedia textbook developed out of UCLA's Asian American Studies Center is trying to change that.

Called Foundations and Futures, the online platform combines written chapters, archival documents and artwork with videos and podcast clips, geared at students in high school and up, along with their teachers.

“It’s the largest collection of Asian American and Pacific Islander histories in one location — free and open access for anyone with an Internet connection,” said Karen Umemoto, director of the UCLA center and one of the project’s co-editors.

The textbook officially launched this month — Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month — after some six years of development with contributions from more than 100 authors and curriculum developers from across the country.

Designed with the TikTok generation in mind, the platform is optimized for phones and tablets for easy scrolling.

“A lot of young people, of course, are really into TikTok videos and Instagram posts,” Umemoto said. “So we thought, 'Let’s leverage that.'”

Responding to invisibility 

The project was seeded in 2020 when Umemoto and co-editor and fellow UCLA professor Kelly Fong began drafting proposals chapter by chapter.

At the time, California was moving toward implementing an ethnic studies graduation requirement. The professors worried AAPI histories could still be sidelined without dedicated resources.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and a surge in anti-Asian hate incidents.

“There’s so many people who have no idea who we are, where we come from, how we got here,” Umemoto said.

The textbook grew into a $12 million project, supported through a mix of state funding, grants and private donations.

A major boost came in 2022, when the California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus helped secure a $10 million state allocation.

Much of the textbook does focus on AAPI history in California, like the Filipino farmworker movement and Vietnamese refugee communities in Orange County.

But other modules cover Chinese immigrant garment workers in New York and Asian American communities in the South.

Getting into schools

Umemoto said the textbook is for anyone to use as needed, but a major goal is helping educators incorporate AAPI perspectives into existing courses.

“We’re so woefully invisible and underrepresented in educational curricula,” she said, noting that there are few teachers to instruct from lived experience. Just 2% of public school teachers in the U.S. are AAPI.

The plan is to offer everything from two-day in-person teacher workshops to national webinars in partnership with teachers unions.

Even with the project’s launch, organizers say their work continues with raising funds for teacher training, as well as outreach and operations.

The team is seeking another $5 million for the next three years.

"I'm a professor not trained in doing startups or ed tech projects, and so I didn't realize how much it would take just to keep the lights on," Umemoto said.

All the while, the team is building the textbook to 50 chapters. It's currently at 42.

Learning amid polarization

The project arrives amid charged political debates over how race and identity are taught in schools.

Umemoto acknowledged that some critics view ethnic studies as divisive, but she said the goal of the textbook is the opposite.

“We need to learn about each other’s history so that we can build an inclusive society,” she said.

For Umemoto, the work is deeply personal.

She said she grew up knowing her parents and grandparents had been forced into camps during World War II, but did not fully understand the broader history behind the incarceration of Japanese Americans until later in life.

“I grew up thinking everybody was in camp,” she said.

Ultimately, she hopes the textbook helps students better understand both themselves and one another.

“In all my years of teaching, there has not been a student who has left the classroom unchanged,” Umemoto said. “If we want to deal with the problems of polarization, we need to start in the classroom."

This weekend's Long Beach Pride Festival was canceled by the city on Friday — hours before kickoff. The city said festival organizers failed to provide the required safety documentation.

The Pride Parade, managed and funded by the city, will continue as scheduled on Sunday at 10 a.m.

The parade will start at Ocean Boulevard and Lindero Avenue and travel along the Ocean Boulevard coastline to Alamitos Avenue in Downtown Long Beach.

Roads will close and parking will be restricted starting hours before the parade. Streets are expected to reopen by 2 p.m.

No parking on these streets

Between 4 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sunday parking won’t be allowed on:

• Ocean Boulevard from Redondo to Atlantic Avenues
• The immediate side streets on the north and south sides of Ocean Boulevard from Redondo to Atlantic Avenues

And these streets will be closed

The following streets will be closed to traffic during their designated times:

• 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. — Ocean Boulevard between Redondo and Lindero, including side streets on the north and south side of Ocean Boulevard
• 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. — Shoreline Drive between Ocean Boulevard and Shoreline Village Drive
• 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. — Ocean Boulevard between Lindero and Atlantic, including all side streets on the north and south side of Ocean Boulevard
• 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. — Alamitos Avenue between Ocean Boulevard and Broadway

Where you can park

Long Beach Pride says that parking will be available at the Long Beach Convention Center at 400 E. Seaside Way. Accessible parking and viewing will be available at Junipero and First Street, near Bixby Park.

Ride the Metro

Take the LA Metro A Line and exit 1st Street Station in Downtown Long Beach. After you exit, it's roughly a 10-minute walk down Ocean Boulevard to the parade festivities at Marina Green Park.