The Brief

When a stranger called offering Dulce Volantin some financial help, she was skeptical.

"Sounds kind of shady," she recalls thinking.

At the time, Volantin and her partner, Valarie Zayas, were renting a bed at a place on Venice Beach in Los Angeles. "Dormitory-style living," Zayas says. The women had met in prison a few years before, after each had been involved with gangs, and they were over-the-moon happy to have found love. But Volantin had suffered bad bouts of mental illness that required hospitalization. Zayas was hustling temp jobs to supplement Dulce's disability aid.

They'd slept in their car, then lost it. Stayed with family for too long. Then started donating plasma and selling some of their clothes to pay for motels. "By the seventh day, you don't have anything in your pocket no more," Volantin says.

Despite her doubts, she returned that phone call — and it turned out to be not only for real, but also life changing.

Valaria Zayas (left) and Dulce Volantin (center) walk down the hallway of their apartment building with case manager Hannia Centeno.

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The call was from the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, part of a first-of-its-kind experiment to try and curb homelessness numbers, which keep going up despite massive spending. On average, for every 207 Angelenos who exit homelessness every day, 227 others fall into it.

Los Angeles is housing more people than ever, and building lots more low-income housing, yet it can't keep pace with this ever-rising number of people who end up in cars, tents and shelters.

"It's a bucket with a hole in it, so we've got to do something ... to fill that hole," says Dana Vanderford, who helps lead the department's Homelessness Prevention unit.

With that goal, the pilot program is using artificial intelligence to predict who's most likely to land on the streets, so the county can step in to offer help before that happens.

Dana Vanderford leads the Homelessness Prevention unit within the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services in Alhambra, Calif. "We have clients who have understandable mistrust of systems," Vanderford says. They've "experienced generational trauma. Our clients are extremely unlikely to reach out for help."

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The program tracks data from seven county agencies, including emergency room visits, crisis care for mental health, substance abuse disorder diagnosis, arrests and sign-ups for public benefits like food aid. Then, using machine learning, it comes up with a list of people considered most at-risk for losing their homes. Vanderford says these people aren't part of any other prevention programs.

"We have clients who have understandable mistrust of systems," she says. They've "experienced generational trauma. Our clients are extremely unlikely to reach out for help."

Instead, 16 case managers divide up the lists and reach out to the people on them, sending letters and cold calling.

It's surprisingly hard to offer people thousands of dollars over the phone

Elizabeth Juarez, case manager at the Homelessness Prevention unit, cold calls potential clients to enroll them in the program. She says when people's lives are unstable their numbers and addresses often change. When she does get through, she finds many people facing eviction or dealing with domestic violence.

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Sitting in a spare office one recent morning with her laptop and cellphone, case manager Elizabeth Juarez starts dialing. A major challenge is that the county never reaches half the people on its lists. Juarez says when people's lives are unstable their numbers and addresses often change. When she does get through, some people are facing eviction or dealing with domestic violence. Every now and then she'll reach a person who's already lost their housing, so then she has to tell them that they no longer qualify for the prevention program.

While most people need rent help, Juarez says that's not always the most urgent problem. She's used the allocated money for payday loan debt, appliances, laptops and, recently, an e-bike for someone whose mental illness made it difficult to take public transportation.

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Some actually decline the help, telling her others need it more. And then there are the skeptics. "They kind of just give you the runaround," Juarez says. "Maybe they're not trusting, and I totally understand." She'll call back a couple times just in case they come around.

On this morning, though, it isn't long before Juarez gets someone on the phone. She is cheerful and patient with the man, knowing it can take a minute to process what's happening. She explains how the program offers a case manager to work with people for four to six months. They'll help figure out how to spend $4,000 to $6,000 dollars in aid, money which he won't have to pay back.

"Straight to a bank account?" the man asks. No, Juarez explains, it goes to third-party vendors to cover bills like rent, utilities, groceries or other monthly expenses. She tells him the main reason is to avoid jeopardizing any public benefits that might be cut if someone's income increases.

The man mentions he's renting from a relative and recently had a seizure. Yes, he says, he'd like to sign up.

While most people need rent help, Juarez says that's not always the most urgent problem. She's used the allocated money for payday loan debt, appliances, laptops and, recently, an e-bike for someone whose mental illness made it difficult to take public transportation.

"We discuss, 'How is your living situation?' '' she says. "So while somebody might be physically housed, is it safe in there? Do you have a bed? Do you have what you need in your home to thrive and feel stable?"

A sudden death pushes a retired grandfather's finances over the edge

Ricky Brown is a new client in the prevention program. The 65-year-old was a handyman but went on disability after injuring his back when he was in his 40s. He was barely getting by in a one-bedroom apartment in L.A.'s Crenshaw neighborhood, making ends meet on his income from Social Security and odd jobs. Then his ex-wife died suddenly a year ago. She'd been raising their three grandsons, because Brown's daughter and her husband are addicted to pills. Now, he's taken in the boys and it's been a financial blow.

"I had a little money put away, but boy ... I went through it," he says. "Because these kids eat."

On a recent morning, county case manager Fred Theus visits to work out a plan. They sit in Brown's living room, where there are now bunk beds for the three boys and large plastic bins overflowing with their clothes and sneakers. 11-year-old Ziare is hanging out with his phone while his brothers are at after-school homework time.

Homelessness Prevention Unit case manager Fred Theus visits newly enrolled client Ricky Brown in Los Angeles. Brown desperately wants to find a bigger place so his three grandsons don't have to sleep in the living room.

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Theus ticks off a list of needs: car repairs, paying back due rent and utilities, restoring food aid for the boys. They were cut off a year ago, though Brown has no idea why. Theus guesses it may have been a paperwork snafu.

Then the biggest challenge: Brown is desperate to find a two-bedroom place for the boys. "They want to play," he says. "They want open space and they can't get it."

Theus says it will be difficult to find anywhere Brown can afford, so they'll have to try for a housing voucher to bring down his expenses. That, combined with boosting his income through food stamps and cash aid, are the best hope for making him self-sufficient.

Ricky Brown says he feels blessed that the homelessness prevention program reached out to help him. Still, he says, "I stay worried about a lot of stuff every day."

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"That's our main goal," Theus says, "to make sure they are able to take care of themselves after we're done."

But there aren't nearly enough federal housing vouchers to meet the need, and Theus says wait times have gotten longer as cities try to help the growing number of people who are unhoused. Even scoring a voucher is no guarantee. In fact, Brown had one a decade ago, but he had to move when that building was sold. He wasn't able to find another landlord willing to accept the voucher before the time to use it ran out.

Brown says he's been blessed with this program and calls Theus a "lifesaver." But at night, it doesn't keep his mind from racing with a thousand worries.

"I might have to lose [the boys]," he thinks. "Or, you know, we're going to be on the street. That's the main thing I think about is the street. ... I stay worried about a lot of stuff every day."

It's not clear yet whether this experiment can keep people housed long term

In just over two years, L.A.'s pilot prevention program has worked with 560 people. Data shows a large majority have stayed housed so far, but the program is conducting a more formal long term study. This is the view of downtown Los Angeles from former client Dulce Volantin's rooftop.

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In just over two years L.A.'s pilot prevention program has worked with 560 people. Data shows a large majority have stayed housed so far, but the program is conducting a more formal long term study. It includes a randomized control trial that's tracking people with similar needs who do not receive assistance.

Key questions are whether a few months of help and a few thousand dollars can make a lasting difference. And whether they are targeting the right people, meaning those who would actually end up on the streets but for this intervention.

"For example, here in Los Angeles, you might have 2 million people on public assistance, all of whom seem vulnerable. But only 1% to 2% of them will ever experience homelessness," says Janey Rountree, executive director of the California Policy Lab at UCLA, which developed the program's AI prediction tool.

Rountree expects to publish the study results in 2026, which is also when the program's funding runs out; most of its $31 million budget came from pandemic aid. She hopes there will be a strong case that it should be scaled up, and can be a model. In fact, San Diego County has already voted to create its own similar program using predictive analytics.

Depending on its long-term results, Los Angeles' proactive approach could add much needed evidence for what works to prevent homelessness, says Beth Shinn, an expert on the issue at Vanderbilt University and also an adviser to the L.A. program.

"Much of the public equates eviction prevention with homelessness prevention," she says. But while being evicted can certainly have devastating consequences, Shinn says research has not linked it to a significant rise in unsheltered homelessness. She says housing vouchers have shown the strongest success for keeping people housed, at least for families. A small-scale prevention program in New York City has also had good results.

But Shinn says the analytics driving Los Angeles' program are targeting people at much higher risk for losing housing. "You may have more failures there," she says, but the reward could also be greater. "You make the most difference for the people who are at highest risk."

An out-of-the-blue phone call that meant "the world"

Dulce Volantin (left), Valaria Zayas and their dog, Zoey in their apartment. Their building has building with on-site case management.

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When asked what this program has meant for her and her partner, Dulce Volantin chokes up as she says, "The world, the world." After months of searching with their case manager, the two women were lucky to get accepted at a subsidized apartment building with on-site case management for Volantin's mental health needs.

When they enter the door to show visitors, their little dog Zoey yaps in excitement. It's a cozy space with family photos and inspirational quotes on the walls. "Slowly but surely we started decorating the place, cause it came furnished," Volantin says.

Valaria Zayas points out photos of family in their apartment in Los Angeles.

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Valarie Zayas says the newfound stability helped her land a good job with the transit system. "I have a clear head" she says. "I don't have to worry about where our next meal is going to come from."

Across the street from their building is a park where people spend days on the green lawn and sleep in tents. Volantin says it hurts her heart to see.

"We give them whatever we have in our pockets, food, anything that we could, because we know the situation," she says. "We could have had one bad step and we would have been right there."

Dire water conditions, missed deadlines and uncertainty on the Colorado River are complicating critical water decisions in California.

No single state, water agency or federal official has shown the power, or the will, to break the deadlock among Colorado River basin states over how to share the dwindling supplies.

Years of fraught negotiations have failed to yield consensus even as major reservoir storage plummets to record lows — ratcheting up the tensions, and the stakes, for the states’ negotiators.

Now, key agreements for managing the river are expiring at the end of this year. These include agreements reached in 2007 that lasted nearly two decades, which took fewer than three years to craft.

This round of talks has already taken longer — and, so far, produced nothing so durable.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the federal steward for the river under the Department of the Interior, last week released a 10-year framework that establishes rough parameters for managing the river, but imposes no specific long-term plan.

The federal provisions include cuts of up to 40% to the shared supply of California, Arizona and Nevada in the lower basin. They also allow releases from Lake Powell, which collects flows from the upper basin, to dip low enough that they risk violating a legally required threshold for water deliveries to downstream states.

These dramatic cuts are an upper limit for future operations. The federal government plans to roll out more detailed management plans every two years if the states continue their impasse.

The agency will release the first of those plans any day, imposing cuts in the downstream states of California, Arizona and Nevada — an estimated 10% cut to California's supply through 2028, or roughly 440,000 acre-feet a year.

No mandatory cuts are expected in the upper basin states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico, according to those involved in negotiations. The Los Angeles Times first reported the split.

It reflects the limits of federal power and political will: The Interior Department can force cuts in the lower basin, but has no comparable authority to impose cuts in the upper basin states — the limits of which the Congressional Research Service said are the subject of “ongoing debate.”

This isn’t the long-term plan that California’s water suppliers were hoping for.

Building anything to store, move or make more water typically takes decades and billions of dollars. Without longer-term certainty about how states will share the river’s water supply among 40 million people, millions of acres of agriculture and two states in Mexico — cities and irrigation providers are struggling to plan how to close the gaps.

“A cut is never fun, but you can deal with it. But not if you say, ‘Well, we have a cut here, and then maybe a cut in two years, and maybe another cut in two more years,’” said Bill Hasencamp, Metropolitan Water District’s manager of Colorado River resources.

“We need to plan for our future. And this deal does not let us do that.”

The future of Southern California’s water 

In California, where the availability of water is never certain, nature-defying engineering keeps dry parts of the state flush with water even when little falls from the sky.

Much of that engineering converges around one Southern California supplier: the Metropolitan Water District. The giant wholesaler imports water from Northern California and the Colorado River to supply cities and other retailers serving 19 million people across six counties.

Metropolitan’s imports are so central to the region that when its Northern California supplies dropped to a trickle during the most recent drought, 6 million Southern Californians faced unprecedented water restrictions in 2022.

Southern California isn’t facing such serious shortfalls again yet. But uncertainty over the Colorado River compounds the risks the next drought will bring.

“There's a good chance it'll be as bad as it's been, and there's a reasonable chance that it'll be worse,” said Hasencamp’s colleague, Keith Nobriga, whose job as an operations manager at Metropolitan is helping the district prepare for the future amid climate change.

The uncertainty also throws a wrench in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration’s water machinations to the north. Metropolitan's board will play an outsized role in deciding the fates of Sites Reservoir and the Delta tunnel because of the district's water needs and spending power.

Both multibillion-dollar projects, decades in the making, aim to send more of Northern California’s water south. Metropolitan is also planning a large-scale water recycling and reuse program, called Pure Water Southern California, with the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts.

Metropolitan has already committed hundreds of millions of dollars to the Delta tunnel’s planning costs and about $31 million for Sites Reservoir. The board hasn’t committed to receiving water or contributing to construction for either yet, though board votes on whether to approve the tunnel and recycled water project could come as soon as next year.

Subtracting one part of the equation, such as the Colorado River, could change the calculus for the others. But Metropolitan has to know how much water it stands to lose, and for how long.

The consequences of picking the wrong path could leave Southern California thirsty during the next drought, on one hand, or unnecessarily increase water rates, on the other.

Nobriga compares his job to insurance planning. The costs of nudging these water projects along, he says, are like paying an insurance premium.

“We'll keep these projects alive. We'll keep looking down the road,” he said. “And if it gets to a point where we really think these droughts are imminent, then we'll … construct and pay the big money for one or several of these projects. And we don't know which ones yet.”

Agriculture in limbo

California uses the largest share of the Colorado River’s water among the states. And the Imperial Irrigation District uses the largest share of that to supply half a million acres of alfalfa, grasses, winter vegetables and other crops in the southeast corner of the state.

As climate change and a megadrought plunged the Colorado River into its driest decades in over a century, the Biden administration struck a deal with the Imperial Irrigation District, trading more than half a billion federal dollars for short-term water conservation.

Growers cut irrigation to their alfalfa and other forage crops for weeks at a time, and the district conserved enough water to add more than 12 feet to Lake Mead on the Colorado River, according to Tina Shields, water manager for the irrigation district.

Now, those conservation programs are coming to the end of their funding and regulatory lifetimes. Starting new ones would require new plans and approvals to address the environmental impact of reduced irrigation runoff that feeds the Salton Sea.

Seeking those permits and environmental approvals “needs to be done on a longer term, not on a two-year term,” Shields said. “Because it’ll take us at least a year to negotiate, probably longer, the environmental actions necessary to move forward.”

In the meantime, negotiations are ongoing with other California water users about how they’ll share the coming cuts, including who is going to pay for it, Shields said. The district has not yet committed to anything.

“The district's perspective is: We've done a lot. We're doing a lot. It's challenging to do more,” she said.

Art of the deal

Though the U.S. Department of the Interior has not yet released its plan for the river’s next two years, those involved in negotiations expect that it will call for reductions and conservation in California, Arizona and Nevada similar to what the states proposed in May.

The three lower-basin states then must agree among themselves and with the federal government on how to implement it. After that, individual water suppliers in California will seek approvals from their boards for their share of the cuts.

Jay Weiner, an attorney representing the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe, whose reservation lies on both sides of the Colorado River, compared the plan to a Band-Aid, not a long-term path to sustainability.

“To a large extent,” Weiner said, “it leaves us at the mercy of this coming winter.”

The Trump administration relied on the states reaching consensus rather than imposing terms — an approach that so far hasn't broken the deadlock.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs called for the federal government to step in and broker a deal. But federal leverage looks different in the upper and lower basins. Lower basin stakeholders say there are other strings the federal government could pull upstream, such as forcing water out of reservoirs, but isn’t. And cloistered negotiations and hardline positions among negotiators have driven an impasse.

Arizona negotiator Tom Buschatzke publicly lambasted the upper basin in The Denver Post for failing to propose “One. Single. Gallon.” of mandatory, verifiable reductions. Colorado negotiator Becky Mitchell wrote in The Colorado Sun that had the lower basin states lived within their means, “the reservoirs would not be in crisis today.”

Elizabeth Koebele, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno said that negotiations have been most productive when participants had strong working relationships. Without clear federal leadership, she said, the same conflicts keep resurfacing.

The fraying relationships, she said, could stem from turnover. But years of constant crisis have also worn people down.

“We have been governing in crisis for a long time, and so every time we meet at the table, there's this big problem to solve,” she said. “The house is on fire.”

While the lower basin may sue the upper over deliveries that dip below a legally required threshold, both sides would risk the uncertain outcomes of litigation.

“In essence, this federal action has 40 million people living from paycheck to paycheck on water supply,” said Mark Gold, an environmental scientist and board member of the Metropolitan Water District.

That paycheck comes due again in two years with the same states, and the same asymmetry of power, still in place. Until then, the interior secretary can still force deeper cuts on the lower basin. No one, right now, is willing to force the upper basin to do the same.

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

A new report from the L.A. County Fire Department and Cal Fire concludes that Southern California Edison equipment sparked the deadly and destructive Eaton Fire last year, but gives little insight into how.

That was the main point raised by Pedro Pizarro, the president and chief executive of the utility’s parent company, Edison International, on AirTalk with Larry Mantle on Wednesday.

“The reality is we don't fully understand what the mechanism was that led to that potential sparking,” Pizarro said. “Not sure we will ever understand.”

Pizarro was referring to the report’s finding that an idle tower and grounded lines attached to it had electricity in them at some points on the evening of Jan. 7, 2025. Sparks are seen falling from that tower into dry brush below, according to multiple witnesses and videos cited in the report.

Pizarro added that the report contains lengthy redactions and more than 20 unreleased attachments, which may provide additional background into the why.

“We would want to be able to analyze those when they become available because there may be more helpful information there,” Pizarro said.

The Fire Department declined to release the attachments after an inquiry from LAist, citing ongoing legal actions and personnel privacy. It also noted ongoing investigations by the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office as a reason for redacting nearly an entire section of the report listing penal code and other possible violations.

Meanwhile, on AirTalk, Pizarro described the leading theories Edison has as to how an idle power line could have sparked the Eaton Fire, which killed at least 19 people and destroyed more than 9,000 homes and businesses.

Much of the theory comes down to “high school physics,” Pizarro said. Active power lines near the idle line could have created an electromagnetic force that caused induction, which in turn may have created an electrical current in the idle, grounded line.

Pizarro also pointed to other factors that made the fire go beyond a spark, including high winds and gas lines. In January, Southern California Edison sued Southern California Gas Co., alleging that the gas utility did not begin widespread shutoffs until days after the fire started, thus worsening the conflagration. SoCal Gas has said Edison is attempting “to deflect responsibility and accountability.”

Ultimately, Pizzarro said, preventing wildfires is not only the responsibility of the power companies.

“We have done a lot of work, as have other utilities in the state, to decrease the risk of heartbreaking catastrophes like this associated with utility equipment,” Pizarro said. “But we also know that, unfortunately, the risk will never be zero.”

Lawsuits and compensation

The company is also facing thousands of lawsuits from survivors of the Eaton Fire.

On AirTalk, Pizarro defended the company’s maintenance record of the vegetation beneath those lines.

“We continue to believe that SCE will be able to make a good faith argument that it was a reasonable operator of the system, that it was prudent, and that's the standard under which we're held under state law,” he said.

Pizarro also defended the company’s decision to keep the idle line itself, which could be used in the future as electricity demand rises. He said the company expects their demand load to double by 2045.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Every school day, Vilma Armas watches her 16-year old daughter walk to Miguel Contreras Learning Complex from their apartment near the corner of Lucas Avenue and West Third Street.

It’s the same intersection where The Silver Platter, a historic LGBTQ+ Latino bar, wants to relocate. 

The mother is opposed to the proposal and she’s not alone as many of her neighbors and the Los Angeles Unified School District have raised concerns about opening a bar near six school campuses in the Westlake neighborhood.

“It’s just not a good decision to open that there,” Armas said. “We’re against it for the safety of our children and ourselves, too.” 

Westlake residents Silvia Samayoa, left, and Esperanza Lopez speak with Vilma Armas about a proposal to relocate The Silver Platter on July 27, 2026.

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At a July 14 hearing, city staff with the Los Angeles Department of City Planning heard the proposal to relocate The Silver Platter after their longtime location on 7th Street was slated for demolition for a new housing development. 

Multiple neighbors were unable to speak up during the virtual hearing due to their work schedules, language barriers, age and difficulty navigating the online meeting’s comment system. The bar’s owners have applied for a permit to sell alcoholic beverages and install a 15-foot neon sign at the new location on West 3rd Street.

No decision was made at the hearing. Instead, the zoning administrator left the public record open for 30 days to allow additional written comments before issuing a decision.

City staff are balancing the bar’s cultural and historical significance against concerns raised by the Los Angeles Unified School District and residents about parking, noise, traffic and public safety. 

Supporters argue the bar is an irreplaceable cultural institution and a safe place for Spanish-speaking gay Latinos, transgender Latinas and working-class immigrants.

“This is not a new bar coming to the neighborhood,” said Martha Vasquez, who runs the bar with her mother, Margarita Xatruch. “It is an institution asking to keep its doors open in a neighborhood that it has belonged to for 60 years.” 

Residents say they’re not opposed to the clientele or the bar’s legacy but rather the proximity to where people live, work and where children attend school.

The department will weigh in on the conditional use permit at a later date. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles City Planning Department did not respond to requests for comment on the application’s status.

Why is The Silver Platter proposing to move? 

The Silver Platter has operated since 1963, becoming one of Los Angeles’ oldest and most enduring gathering places for queer and transgender Latinos in Westlake. 

But after more than six decades at 7th Street and Rampart Boulevard, the family-owned bar was forced to find a new home when the property was slated for redevelopment as a mixed-use housing project during the pandemic. News of the proposed development was first reported in Kim Cooper and Richard Schave’s newsletter, Esotouric’s Secret Los Angeles in May 2024.

Rather than leave the Westlake neighborhood, the owners spent months fundraising and searching for another location before settling on 1403 W. 3rd St., about a half-mile from the original location. 

Supporters say remaining in the neighborhood is essential to preserving the community the bar has served for generations. 

Preservation advocates have identified it as a culturally significant site, and in 2025 it was named one of the nation’s Endangered Latinx Landmarks, according to the Latinos in Heritage Conservation.

“The next best thing for this historic institution to remain the important cultural landmark that it is is to stay within the Westlake-MacArthur Park neighborhood,” said Jesi Harris, the applicant’s representative, during the virtual hearing. 

Why neighbors oppose the proposal 

Weeks after the virtual hearing, Roni Lopez stood in the lobby of his apartment building, surrounded by neighbors who gathered to talk about the proposal.

Lopez has lived in the building for more than a decade and was one of the few residents who spoke during the July hearing to voice his opposition. 

Like many of his neighbors, Lopez, a pastor in South Los Angeles, said he is not opposed to The Silver Platter or the community it serves. His concern, he said, is the proposed location. 

Residents remember the previous bar that occupied the ground-floor commercial space was a bad neighbor.

There was the late-night noise, people drinking or lingering on the front steps of the residential building, and bar patrons blocked access to the apartment parking entrance and loitered around the nearby DASH bus stop.

Tenants gather in the lobby of their Westlake apartment building to discuss concerns about a proposal to relocate The Silver Platter next door on July 27, 2026.

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Several residents said the block became noticeably quieter after the business closed and worry another bar would bring back the same problems. 

“The city will be responsible for the decision it makes,” Lopez said. “As you can see, there’s a large community here that does not want that place to open.”

Applicants for The Silver Platter dispute the characterization, describing the bar as a quiet gathering place whose patrons have long depended on its low profile. 

The applicants also said they agreed to several operating conditions, including opening after the school day, installing security cameras, coordinating with nearby schools and other measures.

The LAUSD nevertheless opposes the proposal.

Julissa Hernandez, legislative liaison for the district, said LAUSD recognizes The Silver Platter’s history but is still concerned about a late-night, alcohol-serving establishment adjacent to multiple schools. Hernandez said the proposed site is near six LAUSD campuses.

Esther, Vilma’s 16-year-old daughter, shares those very same concerns. She even wrote a letter to her City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, urging the city to reject the Silver Platter’s proposal.  

“I think it’s really inconsiderate to open a bar that close to not only one school, but an elementary school, and then you have middle schools and other high schools around here,” she said in her letter.