The Brief

One of the biggest landlords in Los Angeles has been turning away people seeking apartments under the Section 8 housing assistance program in many of its buildings, in apparent violation of state law, a Capital & Main investigation found.

Jamison, a group of family-run real estate companies, has been lauded for its civically active CEO and its efforts to turn underused office space into housing. But Jamison stands out among other large L.A.-area landlords Capital & Main investigated for its near nonparticipation in the Section 8 program, the largest housing assistance program in the country, the investigation found.

In a statement, a Jamison company spokesperson said “the management companies overseeing Jamison’s portfolio accept and welcome tenants utilizing Section 8 vouchers.”

Section 8 is a powerful tool for fighting homelessness and the housing crisis across the nation. But it is especially needed in L.A. County, where wages haven’t kept pace with rising rents. Housing Choice Vouchers, as they’re officially known, subsidize rent for about 85,000 households in L.A. County that don’t earn enough to afford a market-rate rental.

At its best, Section 8 and its federally funded assistance vouchers offer a way out of poverty for low-income residents — affordable rent in a community of their choice.

But too often the program fails to deliver on its promises. Four in 10 voucher holders in the U.S. never find housing at all, even after years on Section 8 waiting lists, according to a 2021 study by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

*   *   *

Terri Reynolds, who oversees programs at the nonprofit Asian American Drug Abuse Program to help clients in the L.A. area find housing, said they’re “so happy” to obtain rental assistance. But they are often disappointed, she said, “because landlords don’t want to mess with Section 8.”

The reluctance of landlords to participate is one of the Section 8 program’s biggest problems, even though a state law bars them from rejecting tenants because they use vouchers.

Dan Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, said red tape and hard-to-understand rules make Section 8 “an administrative nightmare” for some of his members, who are mostly mom-and-pop landlords.

Capital & Main investigated seven of L.A. County’s largest landlords to determine whether they open their doors to Section 8 tenants. Unlike smaller landlords who might be unfamiliar with the rules, these multifamily real estate giants have abundant administrative resources to interpret and comply with state law.

Capital & Main’s findings are based on data collected by testers hired by the news organization to pose as Section 8 voucher holders. From late 2024 to early 2025 the testers contacted leasing agents to ask about available apartments in 65 buildings owned or operated by Jamison, Equity Residential, Essex Property Trust, AvalonBay Communities, G.H. Palmer Associates, Prime Residential and Greystar. The tests were limited to buildings where advertised rents were low enough for Section 8 recipients to be able to move in. Testers asked leasing staff at each building if they accepted Section 8 vouchers, and if so, what income and creditworthiness criteria each used to qualify applicants.

Jamison buildings were the only ones where leasing agents said they could not rent to Section 8 tenants. Of 21 properties that testers contacted, agents at 15 said they could not accept vouchers. At one property, an agent described income requirements that would automatically exclude voucher holders. Agents initially said they would accept Section 8 at five of the properties, but either described minimum credit scores that would exclude many voucher holders, or did not respond to follow-up inquiries.

Capital & Main contacted Jamison with its key findings and a list of questions. In its statement earlier this month, the company spokesperson said many of the issues raised were “completely wrong and/or misleading” but did not comment on many of the specific problems the reporting found.

Last fall, a tester called to inquire about an apartment at Jamison’s Atlas House in L.A.’s Koreatown with some attractive amenities, including state-of-the-art appliances, a swimming pool and hot tub. But they were told the building was not accepting Section 8 vouchers. “We are actively seeking approval to begin accepting Section 8 vouchers, and when that approval goes through, we will publicly make an announcement,” the representative said.

But the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles has no such approval or inspection process, said its Section 8 director, Carlos Van Natter. “We would not inspect the whole building,” Van Natter said, adding that the agency only inspects individual apartments to ensure habitability after a landlord has accepted a tenant’s rental application.

At the Sienna on Serrano and the Roya, both relatively new Koreatown buildings that offer features like modern kitchens, gyms, pool decks and even a karaoke room, leasing agents also said they were awaiting city approvals for their Section 8 participation, which they said they expected within a few months.

*   *   *

The cold shoulder for Section 8 voucher holders clashes with company CEO Jaime Lee’s community-spirited reputation. Last year the Los Angeles Times featured Lee on its L.A. Influential list and named her one of the “bosses, elected officials and A-list names calling the shots from the seats of power” alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom and Archbishop José Gomez.

And in public comments, Lee has bemoaned the city’s housing shortage and positioned her family’s company as part of the solution. Lee, who is a member of the LA28 Olympic organizing committee and was appointed to the powerful California Coastal Commission by Gov. Newsom in September, has said the company offers apartments for people at a wide range of income levels.

What Jamison appears to lack is Section 8 tenants, who are among the lowest earners and the hardest to house; in Los Angeles, for example, most make less than $53,000 per year for a single person. Section 8 tenants pay about 30% of their incomes in rent and the government covers the rest.

Between 2021 and 2024, only one Section 8 tenant moved into a Jamison property, according to records Capital & Main obtained from the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles under the California Public Records Act.

The Jamison spokesperson’s statement did not address the lack of Section 8 tenants in its properties, but said that the management companies overseeing its portfolio “take proactive steps, including engaging a broker and non-profits, to help identify individuals and families who hold vouchers or qualify for income-restricted Affordable Housing units.”.

But the findings raised concerns for L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who, as a state senator, authored the 2020 state law that makes it illegal to reject tenants because they pay rent with government assistance.

“It’s disappointing because the law is the law,” Mitchell said.

Jamison’s three dozen or so residential buildings in the L.A. area were built since 2013, and thus too new to be covered by local rent control laws or the state’s maximum 10% per year limit on rent increases. Under the Section 8 program, however, the company would be required to get housing authority approval for annual rent hikes.

Jay Lybik, a real estate expert who until recently was the CoStar Group’s National Director of Multifamily Analytics, said that given state and local rent caps, Jamison may exclude voucher holders so that it can freely raise rents on its units.

Lybik, who now directs market research for Continental Properties, said Jamison “most likely needs to hit certain return hurdles for their investors and will need to be squeezing every percentage of rent growth. Thus, they don’t want to be hampered by the lower yearly increases allowed.”

*   *   *

Jamison is one of the fastest-growing multifamily developers in Los Angeles. In just 12 years, the company has accumulated a residential portfolio that includes more than 6,000 units — including both ground-up construction and office-to-residential conversions. At least 2,500 additional units are either planned or under construction.

The company has benefited from L.A.’s lucrative apartment market with its low vacancy rate and through-the-roof home purchase prices that send highly paid workers into the rental market. Jamison has also been able to maximize profits by participating in the city of L.A.’s builder incentives. Under these programs, developers can include more apartments in a building than the zoning code allows or get waivers from parking or open space requirements. In exchange, developers set aside a small percentage of apartments for lower-income renters. The company has built some 250 affordable units.

Another reason for the company’s rapid-fire growth in residential real estate: a stockpile of aging Koreatown office buildings Lee’s father, David Lee, amassed beginning in the 1990s — before the area became a destination for nightlife, dining and traditional Korean spas.

“They were lucky,” said Johnny Choi, a first vice president at commercial real estate firm CBRE and an expert in the Koreatown market. “They were able to purchase property at a time when prices were a lot lower.”

Among David Lee’s acquisitions were the former headquarters of iconic U.S. corporations that pulled up stakes after once-prestigious Wilshire Boulevard lost its luster in the 1990s. The former Texaco Oil and U.S. Borax buildings are now the Crosby Apartments and the Westmore, respectively. Jaime Lee has said these conversions and the company’s other residential developments help address L.A.’s housing shortage.

But the city’s largest unmet need — according to records from California’s state housing agency — is for housing that L.A.’s poorest people can afford. Section 8 is the only program that meets those needs on a large scale.

*   *   *

Capital & Main conducted additional tests a few months later to see if the Roya, Sienna, Atlas House and other Jamison buildings had begun accepting vouchers as some leasing agents had previously said.

In a March 2025 call, a representative initially told a tester that the Jamison buildings she inquired about would accept Section 8, but only if tenants earned at least two-and-a-half times the monthly rent. When the tester said those income requirements would disqualify her as a Section 8 participant, the representative promised to double check on the company’s rental criteria and call her back, but she didn’t. Capital & Main’s tester continued trying to get an answer. When she finally reached another agent, she said that none of the 15 Jamison buildings the tester inquired about were accepting Section 8 vouchers, offering the same reason as before: They were awaiting “inspections” and “city approvals.”

Leasing representatives for five other Jamison buildings said they accepted Section 8 vouchers. But three insisted all applicants, including voucher holders, meet specific credit scores. Two didn’t respond to follow-up calls. That requirement appeared to run afoul of another state housing law. Since January 2024, it has been illegal for landlords to reject Section 8 applicants solely based on their credit history. Landlords must also consider pay stubs or other verifiable evidence of their ability to pay their share of rent.

If a large landlord turns Section 8 tenants away, “it would be a major resource that our folks can’t access,” said Section 8 director Van Natter.

Jamison proved to be an outlier among the seven companies Capital & Main tested. It was the only big landlord that categorically rejected voucher holders in many of its buildings.

At the six other companies, agents at all 44 properties said they accepted Section 8, but 22 said they would reject voucher holders for poor credit. Four would not say whether poor credit history would exclude Section 8 applicants and two others didn’t respond to follow-up calls about income and credit criteria.

*   *   *

On the other end of the spectrum was G.H. Palmer Associates, which appeared to roll out the welcome mat for Section 8 tenants, despite owner Geoffrey Palmer’s Scrooge-like reputation and long-documented resistance to government mandates. A 2022 Forbes magazine profile called Palmer “the real estate billionaire who hates affordable housing.” But in Capital & Main’s tests, only one Palmer leasing agent out of seven properties contacted would not accept alternative evidence of ability to pay rent in lieu of credit history, the highest rate of compliance among the seven companies investigated.

Palmer owns thousands of apartments in the Santa Clarita Valley and the Inland Empire, and is perhaps best known for a collection of hulking faux Italianate apartment buildings in downtown L.A., some of them hugging busy freeways. In contrast to other companies whose leasing agents couldn’t immediately respond to testers’ questions about Section 8, G.H. Palmer’s were knowledgeable and responsive.

Palmer, a prolific donor to Republican Party candidates, earned his anti-affordable housing bona fides by winning a court battle against the city of L.A. over a requirement that developers in downtown L.A.’s Central City West area include affordable apartments in their market-rate buildings. The California Court of Appeal ruled in Palmer’s favor in 2009.

But more Section 8 tenants moved into Palmer buildings in Los Angeles between 2021 and 2024 than any of the six other companies Capital & Main investigated, even those with far more units, city housing authority records show. And in other areas of L.A. County, G.H. Palmer had more Section 8 renters in its buildings than the other six companies, according to county housing authority records covering the same years.

Palmer did not respond to Capital & Main’s questions about the company’s participation in the Section 8 program. “He’s not going to talk to you,” said a staffer at Palmer’s Beverly Hills office.

Palmer’s Section 8 stance may be a straightforward case of scrupulous adherence to the law. But it could also be a matter of economics. Unlike Jamison with its portfolio of newer buildings, many of Palmer’s buildings are older and covered by state rent caps. So the need to obtain housing authority approval for annual rent hikes might not threaten the company’s bottom line. It could be that tenant stability and on-time rent payments are a greater priority for Palmer’s business model. Lybik, the real estate expert, noted that Section 8 tenants tend to stay in their apartments longer than unsubsidized renters. And the lion’s share of their rent is reliably paid by the federal government.

Whatever the reason, Palmer’s welcoming response to Section 8 applicants was unusual among the large property owners Capital & Main investigated.

*   *   *

The typical experience for tenants is far more frustrating and obstacle-ridden, according to housing authority data that shows it is difficult for Section 8 voucher holders to find landlords who will accept their vouchers.

“I had so much discrimination,” said Jennifer St. Jude, a Section 8 voucher holder and social work student at the University of Southern California, who finally landed a four-bedroom house in the Santa Clarita Valley with her two adult daughters. “It took me a year and a half, and I not only got lucky, I killed myself to get this house,” St. Jude said.

In 2024, the latest year for which data is available, Van Natter of the L.A. city housing authority reported that about 40% of Section 8 voucher holders failed to find housing before their subsidies expired — even after languishing for years on waiting lists. The program gives participants 180 days to find a landlord who will accept their vouchers before they must return them to the housing authority.

Yukelson with the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles argued that part of the problem is landlords have a hard time getting rent increases approved and with customer service at some local housing authorities.

“You need to be like a dog with a bone. You need to be aggressive,” he said.

*   *   *

City and housing authority officials have tried to increase Section 8 usage with financial incentives for landlord participation and regular informational seminars.

Last year, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass met with property owners to urge them to give the program a try. “We have so many people on our streets with vouchers in their hands,” she said at the public event. “They just need somebody willing to give them a chance.”

A spokesperson for Mayor Bass had no comment on Capital & Main’s findings and did not respond to an interview request.

But Kevin Kish, who heads the California Civil Rights Department, the state’s fair housing enforcement agency, said Capital & Main’s findings “highlight a need for more education, more outreach and more enforcement”. Statewide, a single attorney and three investigators enforce anti-discrimination laws that protect people who use rental assistance, Kish noted.

“I think that we’re using all of the tools available to us,” Kish said. He added: “That’s the hard limit on what we can do. Those are the resources we have to conduct enforcement.”

But as Capital & Main’s testers learned through dozens of calls, emails and texts, housing laws on paper don’t necessarily make it easier for Section 8 tenants to get to yes, especially when it’s in big landlords’ financial interest to say no.

This reporting was supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

Annakai Hayakawa Geshlider, Arlen Levy, Jeremy Lindenfeld, Maison Tran, Emily Elena Dugdale and Lita Martinez contributed to this story. 
Copyright 2025 Capital & Main.

Two of L.A.’s top elected officials are publicly clashing over one of the public’s top issues — the future of homeless services spending — as city council members weigh pulling $300 million a year out of the troubled L.A. Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA).

It started just after Wednesday’s meeting of the city council’s housing and homelessness committee, where members discussed the possibility of directing the city’s homelessness spending to the county’s new department. Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement urging the council not to redirect the funds too quickly without a plan.

“The county’s decision to establish its own department and withdraw from LAHSA has created a funding and operational gap, which the city must immediately address in order to ensure life-saving services for unhoused Angelenos are not disrupted,” Bass said.

County supervisors decided last April to withdraw their funding — over $300 million a year — from LAHSA and shift it to a new county department starting this July.

“The last thing we need is a new department and more bureaucracy,” the mayor said, adding the county had been “prioritizing bureaucracy rather than services.”

County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath responded shortly after with a statement of her own, saying the mayor “is living in the LAHSA twilight zone.”

“When the mayor created a new program — spending hundreds of millions of your dollars without prior City Council approval — she called it ‘strategic,’” said Horvath, referring to Bass’ Inside Safe program.

“Now, when the County withdraws hundreds of millions of your dollars from an agency that failed multiple audits, she calls it ‘more bureaucracy.’”

Audits released in late 2024 and last spring found LAHSA failed to properly track the hundreds of millions of dollars the city and county entrusted to it per year.

“Angelenos know the truth: The current system doesn’t work,” Horvath’s statement said. A spokesperson for Bass didn’t respond to a request for comment on Horvath’s criticism.

‘Wasted precious time’

Wednesday’s discussion by the homelessness committee came a year after city and county officials received staff reports about potential alternatives to LAHSA.

County supervisors made their decision last April. The city council is about a year behind in starting its discussion of the options.

City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who introduced the motion two years ago requesting the city report up for discussion Wednesday, said at the meeting the council had “wasted precious time.”

 ”This is a leadership failure,” Rodriguez said. “If you care about the people that are being lost in the street, then you should care to work with urgency and decisive action.”

She has criticized the committee’s chair, Nithya Raman, for waiting more than 300 days after the report was finished before bringing it forward for discussion.

Raman did not respond to the criticism during the meeting or in response to a request for comment from LAist.

At Wednesday’s meeting, council members were told in their official staff briefing that the city lacks officials dedicated to homelessness policy and that it would likely take a year and a half to bring oversight of the spending in house to direct city control.

Homelessness Bureau not ready

Bass’ statement pointed to a forthcoming Homelessness Bureau, a team in city government she said will focus on oversight and accountability over homelessness spending.

Raman said the bureau is not yet ready to monitor homelessness spending or advise the council.

“We have not hired a single person for the bureau yet,” said Raman, who championed the bureau a year ago. City council approved the bureau’s funding nine months ago, for the fiscal year starting last July.

Rodriguez criticized the council’s decision last spring to pursue the bureau instead of discussing options to shift funding from LAHSA. The bureau, she added, still does not have “ an overarching goal, which addresses the concerns around governance” of homelessness dollars.

Raman recently announced she’s running for mayor against Bass, something Horvath openly considered but opted not to do. She is instead running for re-election as supervisor.

The committee plans to hold one more discussion in the coming weeks, before deciding next steps. Any changes to funding would have to go to a vote of the full city council.

The historic Original Pantry Cafe in downtown Los Angeles is reopening under a new partnership with nonprofit Hope the Mission.

The more than 100-year-old diner on Figueroa Street is expected to open in May or June in collaboration with the North Hills-based organization that provides meals, shelter and services to people experiencing homelessness.

When The Pantry first announced its closure last March, thousands of Angelenos from its loyal multi-generational customer base flocked to the restaurant for one last meal.

But now, the greasy spoon will start serving customers again under a new model. All profits will go toward supporting the unhoused community, according to Ken Craft, founder and CEO.

“This creates an opportunity for people to know 'I'm going to go enjoy an incredible meal at an iconic location in Los Angeles, and it's going to be doing good for the city of Los Angeles,'” Craft told LAist.

What’s new

Hope the Mission isn’t a total stranger to food service.

The organization provides nearly 9,000 meals each day and operates 33 shelters and interim housing sites in the region, including five shelters within a few miles of The Pantry.

One of its mottos is that everybody and everything gets a second chance — the historic diner included.

“It is very symbolic of the work that we do where oftentimes lives get beat down, they get worn out and they feel like their usefulness is done,” Craft said. “And so I look at The Pantry and I say, ‘No, your best years are yet to come.’"

The tagline of The Pantry when it reopens under the new partnership will be “a second serving”, as a nod to that second chance.

But the nostalgic draw of the diner is not lost on Craft.

The Original Pantry Cafe in 1979.

(

William Reagh

/

Los Angeles Photographers Photo Collection

)

The Original Pantry Cafe, on the northwest corner of Figueroa and 9th streets, in 1978.

(

Security Pacific National Bank Photo Collection

/

Courtesy L.A. Public Library

)

He said Hope the Mission is going to honor the history and legacy of the space (logo and several layers of flooring included) while giving it a new lease on life.

The organization’s chefs have been working on an updated menu. Craft said it’ll include some of the classic food customers came to love, including pancakes and hash browns, along with a new dessert line and some healthier options.

The overall goal is to replicate the feeling people had when they ate at The Pantry decades ago, with the same style and much of the same staff, while the diner evolves into the next philanthropic chapter. Craft said he wants to make sure The Original Pantry Cafe gets back on the map.

“Not only will you get an amazing meal and a wonderful experience, you're going to be actually investing back into the community,” he said.

The counter was full on The Pantry's last day open in March 2025.

(

Dañiel Martinez

/

LAist

)

The scene on the last day of The Pantry's operation in March 2025.

(

Dañiel Martinez

/

LAist

)

Officials are working to reopen The Pantry between May 1 and June 1, Craft said. All the business’ profits will go toward supporting people experiencing homelessness through Hope the Mission’s shelters, services and meal programs.

What’s old

Kurt Petersen, the co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11, the union representing the restaurant’s workers, told LAist they’ve come to an agreement with Hope the Mission so that all the staff who lost their jobs when The Pantry closed will be able to return to their previous positions.

Petersen said the union also reached an agreement that will provide free family health insurance, legal services and training funds for those workers.

“The folks who've been there 10, 20, 30, 40 years — they're really listening to them about what this needs to be in order to be a beloved institution going forward for Angelenos, “ he said.

“At the same time, they have some thoughts about how it should be run and hopefully the marriage of those two concepts will bring The Pantry forward so that it'll be open another 100 years,” Petersen continued.

José Moran, who worked at The Pantry for more than 45 years, told LAist he’s excited to start serving Angelenos again.

José Moran said he's "very happy" to be going back to work at The Pantry.

(

Courtesy UNITE HERE Local 11

)

“I feel great, I feel very happy,” Moran said. “I never thought I was going to work again there.”

Moran described the restaurant staff as a “family” — both figuratively and literally. His brother, Jesus, also worked at The Pantry a little longer than José.

Moran said he’s been missing his brother since they stopped seeing each other every day when the diner closed. But now, they’re both looking forward to coming back to the greasy spoon.

José and Jesus Moran were both servers at The Pantry for more than 45 years. José Moran said they're both looking forward to returning for the reopening.

(

Courtesy UNITE HERE Local 11

)

How we got here

The diner shut its doors last year after more than a century of serving breakfast staples.

The owner at the time, the Richard J. Riordan Administrative Trust, told LAist’s media partner CBS LA that the restaurant was never profitable and that selling the property would help keep the foundation’s charitable mission. The trust took over ownership after former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan, who bought the restaurant in 1981, died a few years ago.

But UNITE HERE Local 11 said the trust abruptly closed the diner after staff insisted that any new owners must protect their jobs and honor the union.

Kurt Petersen, the co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11, said the staff who lost their jobs when The Pantry closed will be able to return to their previous positions.

(

Courtesy UNITE HERE Local 11

)

“I saw some of the guys crying, and because, you know, we all got families and we have to support them,” Moran said. “I know how they were feeling, because I was feeling too the same. At the beginning, that was very sad.”

Last September, the union announced a “landmark agreement” with the new owner, Leo Pustilnikov, who’s also a real estate developer.

Petersen said because the staff fought for their jobs with the support of residents and city officials, they are now going back to work with an operator and owner who share the mission that The Pantry needs to be one of the great restaurants in Los Angeles.

“So this is all good news,” Petersen said. “and God knows we need good news right now.”

Pustilnikov told the Los Angeles Times last fall that he planned to reopen The Pantry on New Year’s Eve, pending the necessary permits and licenses. Petersen said there were some delays when a car crashed into the building shorty after.

The restaurant’s website still reads “temporarily closed” as of Thursday.

Pustilnikov didn’t immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

How to get involved

Hope the Mission is also launching a fundraising campaign with opportunities for the community to support The Pantry’s reopening.

There are various donation levels, with people giving $100,000 or more getting the chance to name a drink or item from the menu. Craft said they’ve already had a few takers.

Gifts of $50,000 or more will get to sponsor a booth at the diner, with the donor's name or business displayed on the table.

People who donate $5,000 or more will have their name permanently displayed on a sign inside The Pantry.

“We're looking to the business community and people that love L.A. to partner with us in helping to make sure that it's a successful launch,” Craft said.

You can learn more here.

Monterey Park voters will decide in June whether to ban data centers citywide, setting up a potential legal battle with the developer behind a proposed project.

The City Council on Wednesday unanimously approved placing a measure on the June ballot that would ask voters to amend the city’s General Plan to prohibit the facilities.

The council, also by unanimous vote, directed staff to begin drafting a city ordinance banning data centers ahead of the June election that could potentially take effect before then. It also extended a 45-day moratorium on data center development to January 2027.

City Attorney Karl Berger said the multi-prong approach would give Monterey Park the strongest legal footing.

“I like the belt, suspenders and girdle approach to most things just to make sure that everything's buckled down,” Berger said.

The council votes come after months of mounting resident outrage over a proposal to build a 250,000-square-foot data center in a business park — a project they fear would bring high energy use, noise and limited economic benefit.

Many said they did not learn about the project until the end of last year through word-of-mouth and social media, and faulted city leaders for failing to properly inform them.

Developer HMC StratCap has threatened litigation over the council’s moves toward banning data centers.

On Wednesday, before the council voted, Bryan Marsh, an HMC StratCap executive, gave public comment to boos from the audience, saying the company purchased the land in December 2024 after the “city provided assurances about the viability of data center development.”

He urged the city to work with the company on finding “alternative land uses” for the property.

“Forcing a ballot proposition with a special election in June 2026 severely degrades our ability to work together,” Marsh said.

The council appeared unmoved. Berger, the city attorney, said the developer currently does not appear to have a legally vested project.

There is an application on file, he said, but no public hearing has been scheduled. Berger added he had been authorized by the council to initiate litigation against HMC StratCap if the company were to file suit.

Opponents of the data center rejoiced over Wednesday’s votes and expressed relief that they had mobilized against the project before HMC StratCap’s application had advanced any further.

“The City Council has listened and is listening,” said Hrag Balian, a resident who helped found the group No Data Center in Monterey Park! “ I feel very optimistic that data centers are going to be banned from Monterey Park in the foreseeable near future.”

A group in South Pasadena gathered Wednesday to urge their city council to end its contracts with Flock Safety, the controversial surveillance company that operates AI-powered automated license plate readers in thousands of communities across the U.S., including many in California.

The small town has 27 Flock cameras that monitor the cars that come and go in the community of around 25,000 people — one of the highest densities in the region, according to the mayor. That information is temporarily stored in a database that's shared with law enforcement agencies across the state.

The South Pasadena City Council is now taking a deeper look at its contracts with Flock, after reports that some local law enforcement agencies in Southern California illegally shared license plate reader data with federal immigration agents. Those included the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, which South Pasadena shares its data with.

"I’m deeply concerned for the safety of our community. Flock has proven to be careless with our data," Olivia Ramirez, a South Pasadena resident, told the city council in public comment Wednesday. “Continuing to work with Flock will erode public trust and, as a consequence, will harm public safety.”

The speakers are part of a growing movement, as residents across California push local law enforcement and city governments to reconsider their ties with the Flock over concerns about surveillance and how their data could be used in the federal government's mass deportation campaign.

How other communities are responding

Santa Cruz killed its contract with Flock in January following reports that the city's data was accessed by agencies outside of California and shared with ICE. Last month, Mountain View Police Department shut off its Flock cameras after an audit found that federal agencies had accessed its data in 2024. Other local governments in the Bay Area have followed suit.

The Oxnard Police Department also suspended its use of Flock license plate readers last week, after an audit revealed that data from the city's cameras was made available to federal law enforcement agencies between February and March of 2025 through a "nationwide query" setting, against the city's wishes and state law. A California law prohibits sharing license plate reader data with agencies outside of the state.

Flock acknowledged the incident in a blog post this week, saying that out-of-state law enforcement agencies' access to some of its camera networks was "inadvertent" and it was not possible in some cases to determine the cause.

The post also said that Flock had strengthened its protections, including by excluding federal agencies from national and statewide lookup networks, and implementing guardrails that keep California agencies from accepting or initiating data sharing with federal agencies or out of state entities.

"Flock sincerely regrets the confusion and mistrust this has created within several communities," the blog post reads. "Flock takes full accountability for this situation, and has made changes and improvements to significantly enhance agency ability to effortlessly comply with applicable laws, regulations, and community norms that govern information sharing."

That wasn't good enough for Sam Gurley, who rallied with his neighbors in South Pasadena on Wednesday night.

“It isn't until they get caught that they say, 'Hey, I know that this is a law in California. We got caught, let's fix it,'" said Gurley, who said he became alarmed when he learned that Flock cameras were deployed. " Now that I have a better understanding of how the system, the city use and share this data with each other, I'm more terrified than I've ever been."

How Flock works

Flock has contracts with more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies around the nation that use its cameras and license plate readers. The cameras are sometimes attached to street poles — including one on Fair Oaks Avenue in South Pasadena near the entrance to the 110 Freeway, where cars streamed by the nondescript camera under a small solar panel on Wednesday evening.

There are 27 Flock cameras installed around the city of South Pasadena.

(

Libby Rainey

/

LAist

)

Flock cameras "continuously scan and record images" of vehicles' license plates numbers, color, and make, according to a report put together by city staff in South Pasadena. The cameras record the date, time and GPS location every time a car passes by. According to Flock's website, the cameras also pick up other identifying features of cars, like stickers and roof racks.

The technology automatically cross references license plate numbers with law enforcement databases and alerts the police department if it detects a vehicle connected with a criminal investigation, according to the report.

Flock's database also allows law enforcement agencies to search the location of vehicles outside of their own city. Flock stores the data for 30 days and then automatically deletes it, although cities can adjust the length of time they retain the data. Flock emphasized to NPR that cities control how the data they collect is shared.

Law enforcement agencies have hailed the technology for helping them locate suspects and stolen vehicles. At a February city council meeting, South Pasadena Sergeant Andy DuBois called the Flock cameras a "force multiplier" for officers trying to solve crimes.

" It allows agencies to share relevant information in a secure and regulated way. By participating in this network, we benefit from broader technological coverage without needing to add additional staffing," DuBois said.

Nick Hidalgo, senior staff attorney with ACLU of Northern California who has done work on automated license plate readers for years, called the technology a "dragnet.”

"What they are collecting is a person's location — because any license plate information can be connected very easily to a driver," he said. "You can capture a ton of information about where a person lives, works, etc. We're talking about truly sensitive information here."

A deeper look at the law

In California, state law SB 34 prohibits agencies from sharing information gathered by automated license plate readers with out-of-state and federal agencies. Police departments also must keep a record of their queries of the system. Another state law, SB 54, limits California law enforcement agencies from assisting with immigration enforcement.

In 2023, the state's attorney general Rob Bonta issued two bulletins to state and local law enforcement on complying with those laws when using automated license plate reader data.

"The majority of California law enforcement agencies collect and use images captured by ALPR cameras, but few have appropriate usage and privacy policies in place," a press release from Bonta's office said at the time.

Last year, Bonta sued the city of El Cajon in San Diego County, saying it had shared data from its system of Flock automated license plate reader cameras with more than 100 out-of-state law enforcement agencies. The mayor of that city responded with defiance, saying it shares data with other states because "crime doesn't stop at the border."

Flock Safety says that it does not work with ICE or any agency within the Department of Homeland Security. It also emphasizes that it is local agencies that own the data that their cameras collect, not Flock.

South Pasadena faces a deadline

The city of South Pasadena pays around $83,000 annually for two contracts with Flock – one which sunsets this month, on March 19. The council has until March 18 to decide whether or not to auto-renew the contract for two more years.

If the city decides to terminate the contract, it will have to repay a federal grant of around $45,000 it used to install 14 cameras. The city could also decide to end its second contract with Flock before its March, 2027 end date. That would cost the city a $6,500 termination fee, but it would receive a refund for the unused days of service, according to a city report.

South Pasadena Mayor Sheila Rossi told LAist that she's concerned about Flock's system and reports about data being shared out of the state of California. She also told the city council in February that South Pasadena had a far higher density of cameras than many surrounding communities, saying it reached "the category of surveillance."

South Pasadena says it's implementing changes to its camera policies, including requiring monthly audits of how the system is queried and requiring agents that search the data include a case number.

Councilmembers in February also raised the idea of reducing their system's data retention to less than 30 days. The state of New Hampshire requires law enforcement agencies to delete automated license plate reader data after three minutes if it does not yield a hit with criminal investigations.

Rossi said the council will look into options including contracting with other automated license plate readers and canceling one of the city contracts with Flock.

" Cities have a responsibility to make sure the safeguards around these tools keep pace," she said.

Susan Seager, a First Amendment lawyer and South Pasadena resident, said she wants the cameras gone, period.

" I don't trust Flock and I don't trust our federal government, and I want to be able to trust our local police department," she said. "I don't think our little small city should be part of that surveillance state."