The Brief

In an election driven by concerns over rising consumer costs, voters in Los Angeles County did something remarkable — they chose to pay more for everyday goods.

At last count, more than 57% of L.A. voters supported Measure A. It will levy a sales tax of half a cent for every dollar spent in order to pay for ongoing local homeless services and new affordable housing efforts.

The tax is projected to raise about $1.1 billion dollars a year. Most of the funding will go toward the kinds of homeless services already funded by Measure H, an existing quarter-cent tax voters approved in 2017.

More than a third of Measure A funding (35.75% to be exact) will be funneled into a new entity called the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, or LACAHSA (pronounced like the Spanish word for home, “la casa”).

LACAHSA board chair Rex Richardson, who is also the mayor of Long Beach, said Measure H was focused primarily on getting people off the street.

“The question now is, where do people go after they go into a shelter?” Richardson said. “This, finally, is a tool that answers that question.”

LACAHSA’s mandate will be to create new affordable homes, preserve L.A.’s existing lower-rent housing and prevent people from losing the housing they already have. LAist sat down with Richardson and LACAHSA’s interim CEO Ryan Johnson to talk about their plans for turning Measure A money into new affordable housing.

Another ingredient in L.A.’s alphabet soup?

LACAHSA is the new kid on the block, joining other agencies long tasked with addressing the region’s homelessness crisis. Funding for shelters and services is already coordinated by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA). Various county and city agencies also play a role in regulating and creating new affordable housing.

“There's a bunch of letter acronym agencies across the county already,” Richardson said. “We didn't want to be one of those. We wanted to be lean and mean and focused on production.”

The difference with LACAHSA, Richardson said, will be its ability to fund new development and homelessness prevention programs — such as rental assistance and free attorneys in eviction court — county-wide, rather than through one-off efforts happening in some cities but not others.

“Things like that really help, and have proven to help keep people in their homes,” Richardson said. “Now there's dedicated funding every year, county-wide, where there's no gaps.”

Coming from private sector to “unclog” the system

Johnson, LACAHSA’s interim CEO, has worked in both for-profit and nonprofit housing development. He was recently the CEO for Fulham Square Capital, an L.A.-based firm that invests in housing catering to moderate-income workers in the Southeast and Southwest.

“That background in the private sector is going to help us bring all of those things together — lower cost per unit, faster financing,” Johnson said. “Voters are saying to us, help us unclog this system.”

Johnson said LACHASA will aim to do that through a number of strategies.

It will provide gap financing to developers who rely on multiple funding sources. It will work on extending affordability covenants and signing new deals to preserve low rents in properties that are naturally affordable. It will also explore welfare tax exemptions for certain developments, and down payment assistance to put homeownership within reach for more families.

“You'll end up with this kind of multi-faceted strategy that reduces homelessness over time,” Johnson said. “Success, to me, is folks feeling like rents aren't going up exponentially overnight, there are cranes in the sky, and there are multiple solutions and opportunities for people.”

LACAHSA Interim CEO Ryan Johnson stands above a housing construction site in Downtown Long Beach.

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How much new housing will be built? 

Johnson and Richardson could not specify how many new housing units LACAHSA will create. They said goals will be outlined in the months ahead, before the tax takes effect in April 2025.

“We are required to put forward a five-year funding plan that calls our shots,” Richardson said. “That is our number one priority.”

In the run-up to the election, The Angeleno Project — a civic group focused on equity issues — commissioned a study from outside consultants that concluded Measure A could help create 18,000 new affordable housing units over the next 10 years.

Jason Ward, co-director of the RAND Center on Housing and Homelessness, believes that outlook is optimistic.

“I'd be surprised if this money could produce 12,000 units over 10 years,” he said.

Ward sees Measure A largely continuing policies that have increased costs. For example, Measure A will subject projects to construction labor agreements similar to those that led to fewer units under the city of L.A.’s Measure HHH from 2016, according to Ward’s research.

“Texas builds three [Low-Income Housing Tax Credit] units for every one unit built in California,” Ward said. “Anything the agency can do to break out of that path can really only be to the good. The way we do it now really strikes me as the way to build the least housing at the highest cost.”

What will accountability look like? 

One of the key concerns voters raised about Measure A had to do with accountability for past spending. Measure H has pumped billions of dollars into homeless services, but the region’s homeless count rose 37% since voters approved that funding.

Johnson said LACAHSA will outline specific goals and be accountable for achieving them.

“We'll have a full strategic plan by June of next year,” he said. “That is going to be our North Star in making sure we're able to provide those solutions and hit those achievable targets.”

Measure A will also create a new Citizens Oversight Committee to monitor LACAHSA’s spending.

What barriers will stand in their way? 

Most of LACAHSA’s board members are elected leaders from local governments across L.A. County. City council members and mayors in various parts of Southern California have been known to fight new housing construction in their backyards.

For example, Norwalk is being sued by the state of California for banning homeless shelters and housing. One LACAHSA board member hails from Beverly Hills, a city currently sparring with Gov. Gavin Newsom over a “builder’s remedy” project that includes low-income apartments.

“The LACAHSA board is made up of the diverse opinions across L.A. County,” Richardson said, including “small communities who may be concerned about the impacts that growth might have on their communities. But also you have communities that have really been leaders.”

Under state law, cities across Southern California have already been given goals for new housing growth, including units affordable to low-income households. Failing to adequately plan for all that new housing can have negative consequences for those cities. Johnson said those state mandates are the stick, and LACAHSA hopes to be the carrot.

“Part of our goal is bringing the smaller cities along with these larger jurisdictions,” Johnson said.

What about DC? 

Measure A’s passage was overshadowed by a much bigger change in this election: the return of former president Donald Trump to the White House. Housing experts say his administration could slash support for new low-income housing across the country, including in L.A.

“I would be absolutely shocked if there was a more generous [Low-Income Housing Tax Credit] program coming down the pipeline,” said Ward with the RAND Center.

LACAHSA’s leaders said they would have preferred federal partners who aimed to expand affordable housing support, but they’re prepared to make the most of Measure A.

“We needed a dedicated long term source of revenue so we could chart our own destiny and not rely on who is in Washington,” Johnson said.

Past and ongoing audits of homelessness spending in California have shown that outcomes are not always tracked, and money in some cases appears to have been used fraudulently. LACAHSA leaders said they understand why some are skeptical about new efforts.

“What I would say to people who are on the skeptical side is: look at what this board is going to do over the next few months,” Johnson said. “We're going to shock you with what we're going to be able to accomplish.”

You may have driven through North County on a scenic detour on the way to San Diego, or even stayed at one of its idyllic coastal communities like Oceanside, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Solana Beach and Del Mar. But you may not have been aware that this sun-soaked corridor has been undergoing a restaurant renaissance in recent years, with both seasoned chefs and newcomers making their mark.

“San Diego was labeled the home of the fish taco for many years,” said William Bradley, the chef of three-Michelin-starred Addison, which opened inside the Fairmont Grand Del Mar resort in 2006. “We didn't have our identity because it was always San Francisco, L.A. and Napa. It was tough for San Diego to show what they can do. ”

Over the past 20 years, Bradley, who grew up in San Diego’s South Bay community of Chula Vista, has witnessed the region’s transformation firsthand. He attributes San Diego’s inclusion in the Michelin Guide California in 2019 as a turning point for the local dining scene.

“They'll find a restaurant that doesn't have all the glitz and glamor, doesn't have the PR machine and a celebrity chef,” he said. “They find these diamonds in the rough.”

In 2022, Addison became the first restaurant in Southern California to earn three Michelin stars, the guide’s highest honor. Neighboring restaurants Jeune et Jolie and Lilo in Carlsbad, along with Oceanside’s Valle, have each earned and maintained a Michelin star in recent years.

“I think we're at a time now that we've got great restaurants, great chefs, and the accolades to support the talent that's here,” Bradley said.

Restaurants will know if they’ve kept, lost, or earned additional stars at the annual Michelin Guide California awards ceremony on June 24.

For road-trippers planning a weekend jaunt down the coast or food obsessives plotting a drive-there-and-back feast on the town, here are seven dining destinations defining North County’s culinary scene right now — listed in alphabetical order.

24 Suns

At 24 Suns, scallop and shrimp siu mai dumplings are paired with pickled blueberries and served in a luscious puddle of buttery fermented habanada.

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At 24 Suns, chefs Nic Webber and Jacob Jordan take an experimental approach to Chinese food, a cuisine with a deep history in California dating back to the Gold Rush.

Ever since the first Chinese immigrants established restaurants in 1849, traditional recipes have adapted to local ingredients and palates, resulting in dishes with a distinctly Chinese American flair, like chop suey and egg foo yong. This nearly 200-year-old culinary tradition continues to evolve inside a squat building in Oceanside that most recently served as a German dive bar (and a strip club before that, according to a server).

Here, the two chefs, who met while working on the line at Addison, serve their take on Chinese food inspired by local micro-seasons. Snow fungus and king oyster mushrooms mimic the slippery texture of a traditional tripe-and-tendon cold appetizer, while plump scallop and shrimp siu mai dumplings are paired with pickled blueberries and served in a luscious puddle of buttery fermented habanada (spiceless habanero pepper). Though the menu at 24 Suns changes often in accordance with ancient Chinese solar terms, Webber and Jordan’s cooking remains dependably earnest with every iteration.

Addison

One of Addison's offerings: garden greens, in the front, paired with chicken liver churros, in the back.

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Arriving at Addison is reminiscent of approaching a stately chateau while navigating through the French countryside. The impeccably manicured 400-acre Fairmont Grand Del Mar — with its Mediterranean Revival architecture full of Corinthian columns, abundant arches, and red clay tile roofs — provides an opulent and tranquil backdrop befitting of the restaurant’s culinary ambition.

Inside a newly renovated dining room overlooking the property’s sprawling golf course, chef William Bradley and his team deliver a three-Michelin-starred fine dining experience that attracts a global audience nightly — everyone’s hungry to experience the chef’s expression of French-rooted Southern California cooking.

A bright shot of pineapple tepache lightly sweetened with piloncillo welcomes diners before the parade of 10 courses ($395 per person), punctuated by exquisite Japanese seafood and more quenelles of caviar than one can count, begins. Nods and winks to local foodways, like a chicken-liver churro and a lemony “fish” taco, give the menu a sense of whimsy and place.

Atelier Manna

Manna's torrija, or Spanish french toast.

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Veteran restaurant-goers (and Anthony Bourdain stans) tend to roll their eyes at brunch, with its tired Benedicts prepared by hungover cooks for tipsy crowds. But chef Andrew Bachelier’s Atelier Manna in Encinitas makes a compelling case for the daytime meal.

After cutting his teeth for over two decades in fine-dining kitchens, including six years at Addison and leading the charge at Jeune et Jolie and Campfire in Carlsbad, Bachelier opened the breezy 25-seat restaurant seeking the ever-elusive work-life balance — and brunch time will never be the same again.

Bachelier’s standout French toast starts with an entire third of a sourdough loaf locally sourced from Prager Brothers that’s steamed until pliable, saturated with sweetened custard, soaked overnight, and baked to order. Ordinary poached eggs get the Turkish treatment under the chef’s care: cradled in herbed yogurt, bathed in chile-garlic butter, strewn with parsley, dill, and mint, and served with toast.

To wash everything down, there are non-alcoholic “vitality tonics” from bar manager Nick Sinutko, including a refreshing carbonated cold brew spiked with red ginseng, cinnamon, and holy basil, and bubbly dragonfruit juice laced with juniper and ginger.

Jeune et Jolie

Jeune et Jolie's interior.

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An inspired four-course pre-fixe menu ($120 per person) unfolds with elegance and ease at Jeune et Jolie , stationed on a quieter stretch of State Street in downtown Carlsbad, in one of the prettiest dining rooms in North County. The Michelin-starred restaurant’s menu is grounded in French tradition and seasonal sourcing, while Paris’s bistronomy tradition informs its sensibility.

Chef Eric Bost, who decamped from Los Angeles to North County when his critically acclaimed restaurant, Auburn, shuttered in 2020, is picking up where opening chef Bachelier left off.

Jeune et Jolie’s choose-your-own-adventure menu allows diners to curate meals to taste, selecting individual dishes from a handful of choices that change often to reflect peak seasonality. In the midst of springtime’s splendor, supple sea urchin tongues topped a crisp English pea tartlette, and caviar, dill, and wasabi accompanied chubby stalks of verdant asparagus.

“This is French cooking through a Southern California lens,” servers tell diners as they settle in for a spirited evening.

Lilo

Lilo's lobster with black mission fig, charred onion and bronze fennel with a sauce of dried chilies.

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There are no bad seats in the house at Lilo in Carlsbad, where 22 diners are seated along a U-shaped counter overlooking hushed, hunched-over, and hyper-focused cooks collectively assembling and delivering the night’s many courses.

Opened by chef Bost in a former boogie board factory after the success of Jeune and Jolie, Lilo serves an intricate tasting menu ($300 per person) featuring a dozen courses that are as beguiling to behold as they are to consume.

Locally caught spiny lobsters, prettied with charred cucumber and blackberry, arrive on an icy vessel surrounded by native plants. A savory-sweet quenelle of orgeat ice cream heaped with kaluga caviar has appeared on the menu since day one. Lilo’s seasonally-driven, technically precise cooking, coupled with warm yet expert hospitality, earned the restaurant a Michelin star just 10 weeks after opening.

Valentina

Valentina's raw local bluefin tuna, steelhead trout, and scallop, served with olive oil, paper-thin red onions, and fried capers.

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While many of North County’s most notable restaurants are chef-and-seasonally driven, Valentina Restaurant in Encinitas bucks the trend and leans into tradition instead.

Named after the daughter of owners Mario and Morgan Guerra, Valentina has garnered a passionate local following for its modern Spanish cooking since opening in 2019. The restaurant’s black and white interior — featuring white-washed booths, subway tile walls, and honeycomb floors — provides a duotone backdrop for a dazzling parade of tapas.

Traditional patatas bravas are reimagined as French potato pavé, daintily dolloped with spicy tomato sauce and chive aioli. A pristine plate of raw local bluefin tuna, steelhead trout, and scallop is served with olive oil, paper-thin red onions, and fried capers, riffing on San Francisco’s Swan Oyster Depot’s winning formula. Artichokes, trimmed of all their fibrous bits, are smashed and seared to golden perfection and served with a rich aioli for contrast. Valentina’s small plates deliver big, bold flavors.

Valle

Valle's patio next to the beach.

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Valle

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For anyone who’s ever dined in and around Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico’s wine country, the magic of the experience rests as much in the surroundings — undulating vineyards and hilly vistas — as what’s on the plate.

The dynamic spirit, characteristic of Baja dining, is brilliantly captured inside chef Roberto Alcocer's Michelin-starred restaurant Valle, located steps away from the Oceanside pier on the ground floor of the Mission Pacific Hotel. Polished service is delivered with ease, while the dining room pulsates with the kind of vibrant energy often missing from fine dining temples.

Valle’s 12-course, $220 menu is a celebration of modern Mexican cooking, full of visual twists (see: charred onion meets glossy caviar in a pitch-black tart), nods to tradition (see: nixtamalized local vegetables served with white mole), and utterly delicious mashups (see: miniature blue corn huaraches embellished with A5 Japanese wagyu). The culinary conversation between San Diego and Baja California is continually evolving with Alcocer as a trusty translator.

The 1986 World Cup couldn’t have come at a better time.

I was a junior at Mission Bay High School in San Diego, and the uncertainty of life after high school was hitting me with a weight most teens didn’t have to bear. I was undocumented, so college admission was unclear at best, while job prospects were dim without a social security number or legal authorization to work.

My mother was undocumented too. We didn’t talk about Plan B — staying in the shadows.

How did I stay motivated and hold on to hope for college, and what would become a decades-long journalism career, without knowing that soon the federal Amnesty bill would regularize me and many others?

I have one of the undisputed stars of Mexican and European soccer to thank: Hugo “Hugoool” Sanchez.

A sports hero who looked like me

Mexican forward Hugo Sanchez waits for a corner kick during the World Cup quarterfinal match between West Germany and Mexico on June 21, 1986 in Monterrey. West Germany advanced to the semifinals with a 4-1 victory on penalty kicks at the end of the extra time period.

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Hugo Sanchez was about a decade older than me and had worked his way up in Mexican soccer. By the mid 1980s his proven goal-scoring skills as a forward had landed him at the famed Real Madrid soccer club in Spain.

Let me back up a bit. I didn’t even like soccer as a kid. My heroes in elementary school slugged on the diamond and threw touchdowns. But then came Sanchez, from Mexico City, where I was born. The weekend sports shows I watched on Mexican TV from Tijuana played his goals over and over.

Mariachi musicians emerge onto the pitch ahead of kick-off at a match in the 1986 FIFA World Cup, held at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, Mexico.

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But the highlight reels were missing something darker. Sanchez was not welcomed with open arms by the Spanish. Instead, he faced prejudice as a lone Mexican in a culture that labeled him an “other.”

At that time, California’s simmering tensions over immigration made me and other immigrants feel something similar.

LAist reporter Adolfo Guzman-Lopez when he was 17 years old, in 1986 in San Diego

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Sanchez’s perseverance and accomplishments were inspiring to me. I put him ahead of my other sports heroes: slugger Tony Gwynn with the Padres and Chargers’ quarterback Dan Fouts. I felt much closer to Sanchez.

Hugoool and the 1986 World Cup

What does that have to do with the World Cup? Everything.

Organized sports were out of reach for me as a kid. My parents were busy working multiple jobs, and they needed me to babysit my younger siblings when school was out. They would have laughed at me if I asked them to drive me to anything other than school.

But seeing Sanchez's prowess on the soccer pitch and anticipating all the goals he'd score for the Mexican national team in the 1986 World Cup, in his home country, motivated me to start playing soccer at weekend pick-up games. I discovered I loved playing.

The 1986 boys soccer team at Mission Bay High School in San Diego. LAist reporter Adolfo Guzman-Lopez wears #20 at left.

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By then I was older, and no longer needed a ride to games, so I tried out for the Mission Bay High School varsity team. I was in good shape, but far behind in soccer-smarts compared to those who’d played as kids in San Diego’s youth soccer leagues. Despite that, I made it. I felt overjoyed; my determination and work paid off. I had some great practice games, one with a chipped goal over the keeper’s outstretched arms, but the truth is that I was on the bench most of the season.

The mascot for the Mission Bay High School Bucanneers.

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The disappointment that I didn't play much during the season didn't lead me to give up on soccer. I had made it on the team, showed up to play, and put in a lot of effort, and that was rewarding in and of itself.

And by achieving this goal, by following Sanchez’s example of perseverance, I had something even more important — a sense of fulfillment.

My life changed rapidly after that. The 1986 World Cup was in June. In November, after passing through Congress, President Ronald Reagan signed the federal amnesty into law.

The varsity letter and the soccer cleats Adolfo Guzman-Lopez used while playing soccer for Mission Bay High School in 1986.

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Soon after, my mother and I received our green cards. That allowed me to file for a Social Security number, which meant I could apply to college. I was accepted to U.C. San Diego, where I got bit by the journalism bug while working for Voz Fronteriza, one of the student newspapers. That led to where I am today, decades later, an LAist correspondent.

I’ll be watching this World Cup thinking of my 1986 self, the crossroads I faced, and how “the beautiful game” was there to uplift me when I needed it.

Biking on river trails, going on picnics and surfing in the ocean are activities California residents cherish every summer. But headlines about the use of toxic chemicals in flood control channels around Orange County have created anxiety for those looking forward to their favorite activities this summer.

Dozens of environmental activists and Orange County residents packed the Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting this week to urge the county to halt the routine use of toxins they say poison waterways and wash out into the ocean.

But several supervisors said it wasn’t that simple. The chemical prevents overgrowth in flood control channels, and that overgrowth could lead to backups and flooding, affecting neighborhoods and businesses during heavy rains.

Controversy over the chemical use led to an announcement last month by Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley, declaring that chemical usage would be halted for the moment. The issue then came before the board this week for further discussion.

Supervisors decided to study the issue and revisit it in the months ahead, and directed the OC Public Works department to evaluate methods for clearing overgrowth of vegetation that crowd flood channels, and look for alternate methods of doing so.

Brent Linas, founder of the Orange County Creek Team, which has succeeded in bringing the environmental issue to the public’s attention through salty Instagram posts and other social media tactics, blasted what he described as the board’s inaction.

He feels that the board is “deeply dysfunctional” and plans on using the meeting as momentum to spread awareness about the chemicals' negative effects on the environment. “There’s palpable outrage in Orange County right now around this and we fully intend to tap into that,” Linas said.

Foley also plans to reintroduce public noticing requirements at the next meeting June 23. The notices would alert residents to the planned use of any pesticides and herbicides. “Orange County residents deserve transparency to help make informed decisions about where their families recreate,” Foley said in a statement released the after the meeting. “I remain encouraged by the overwhelming public support in exploring nontoxic solutions for our waterways.”

How to watchdog your local government

One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention. Your city council, board of supervisors, school board and more all hold public meetings that anybody can attend. These are times you can talk to your elected officials directly and hear about the policies they’re voting on that affect your community.

• Read tips on how to get involved.
• The Orange County Board of Supervisors meets on alternating Tuesdays at 9:30 a.m. at 400 W. Civic Center Drive, Santa Ana. You can check out the O.C. Board of Supervisors full calendar here.
• Learn how to submit a public comment to the O.C. Board of Supervisors.