The Brief

A federal judge this week ordered a much faster timeline to add homes for unhoused veterans on the sprawling West L.A. VA campus, directing officials to add dozens of pre-built tiny homes before winter and hundreds by spring. It comes amid a brewing showdown between the judge and UCLA over his shutdown of the university’s baseball stadium there.

“This is an emergency. It's as simple as that. It demands our attention every single day until we reach an agreement or an impasse,” U.S. District Judge David O. Carter said at a hearing Monday where he issued the new orders.

“I'd minimally like to see a start and break this iceberg, if you will, of getting some kind of housing in immediately for the veterans,” he added, saying he wants housing up before the rainy season.

What he ordered

Following up on a broader ruling last month following a trial, Carter issued two emergency orders Monday to speed up the creation of temporary “modular” housing on the campus — essentially, tiny homes that are built ahead of time in factories.

One order requires the VA to hire a vendor within 30 days that would install 50 homes within a month and a half of being hired, and install 200 to 300 homes within 120 days of being hired.

That puts the outer time limits at late December for the first 50 units and early March for the rest of the 200 to 300 homes.

The order dramatically accelerates the pace that VA officials are required to build housing under Carter’s previous order last month. That ruling requires 750 temporary homes on the campus within 12 to 18 months and an additional 1,800 permanent homes there within six years.

The second order Carter issued Monday requires VA officials to provide him with information by this Friday to help decide where temporary homes can be built on the campus. Specifically, he ordered information on what kind of utilities — like water and power — exist on several parcels of land there, including UCLA’s baseball stadium.

Carter said he would be holding daily hearings in the case.

“We're in continuous session now,” he told attorneys in the case on Monday. “I hate to be the downer on this, but I will be sitting here each and every day.”

Showdown with UCLA

In his ruling last month, Carter also found that federal Veterans Affairs officials had a series of illegal leases on the campus — specifically, UCLA’s baseball field, the private Brentwood School’s athletic facility, an oil drill and a private parking lot.

He ordered the baseball field closed off, until UCLA comes up with a plan that he’s satisfied primarily benefits veterans, as federal law requires for leases on the land.

UCLA then proposed to nearly double the rent it pays the VA — to $600,000 per year — and show the judge how UCLA offers free and low-cost healthcare to veterans.

That didn’t sway Carter, who has not accepted UCLA’s request to re-open the field.

Things escalated on Monday.

UCLA’s attorney filed a notice with Carter that the university was appealing Carter’s shut down of the stadium. It’s the first known time an appeal has been filed in the two year-old lawsuit.

UCLA hasn’t yet filed its arguments for why the appeals court should overturn Carter’s order. It’s not due until late December, according to the court’s online records.

After being informed of it at Monday’s hearing, Carter said UCLA didn’t follow the proper procedure to appeal.

Earlier in the hearing, Carter asked if UCLA had an attorney at the hearing, and no one spoke up.

“They don't attend hearings that have an effect on them. I find that difficult and wonder why they aren't constantly here,” Carter said.

He called the university “complicit” and “not innocent,” pointing to what he described as UCLA getting to use the land “literally for free up until the 1990s” and past findings from a federal inspector general that the lease was illegal.

At a previous hearing on Friday, Carter told lawyers in the case that he wouldn’t be focusing on the leases if VA officials find land elsewhere on the 388-acre campus for the housing he’s ordered.

“As long as it's represented to me [by the VA] that I've got limited space on this campus — until somebody comes up with enough room for an additional 1,800 and 750 [units], then I'm looking at UCLA and I'm looking at Brentwood and I'm looking at every single piece of property,” Carter said.

Carter is both a veteran of the Vietnam War, and an alumnus of UCLA’s law school.

The fate of Brentwood School’s athletic facility

While Carter ruled last month that the Brentwood School’s athletic facilities were under an illegal lease, he indicated Monday he was close to accepting a deal for the school to keep using them.

Under the proposed deal, the school would pay $5 million to support veteran services, and expand the hours of the day when veterans can use the facilities.

There were, however, a couple of sticking points as of Monday.

One was who would get to decide how the $5 million is spent.

The plaintiff’s attorneys want Carter to decide.

But the VA’s lawyers said federal law requires any money raised in connection with the campus be paid to the VA to manage. The plaintiff’s attorneys said the VA has shown it cannot be trusted to properly manage funding.

The other sticking point was when the millions would be paid. The school wanted to wait until the overall lawsuit reaches its final conclusion and all appeal opportunities are over, while the plaintiff’s attorneys say that could take years.

They both agreed that a major roadblock to reaching a deal around Brentwood school is that the VA’s lawyers won’t say if they plan to appeal Carter’s rulings in the case.

Carter pressed the VA’s lawyers on who was making decisions about the VA’s actions in the case.

“I mean, who's the wizard behind the curtain here? Can anybody share with me?” the judge said.

“This is frustrating,” he added.

Without naming names, the attorney representing the VA said decisions are made after being sent “up through the chain” at the U.S. Department of Justice and the VA.

Background on the case

The lawsuit was filed in November 2022 on behalf of unhoused veterans with disabilities. It came after the VA got years behind schedule in following through on a previous settlement deal from 2015 to build more housing at the campus.

What’s next

Unless Carter’s orders are overturned or changed in some way, federal officials are now required to follow through on it.

It remains to be seen whether the Biden Administration will appeal Carter’s rulings in the VA case.

It’s about the size of a park bench and made of steel and wood. The bench’s arm rests are formed by the letters “L” and “A” in a design that’s unmistakable to any sports fan. But the welder-artist who created it says it’s not a Dodgers bench.

“This is about civic pride, L.A. pride. I made a design statement saying that it has nothing affiliated with the Dodgers,” said Steve Campos.

Campos grew up near Dodger Stadium, raised by parents who were die-hard Dodgers fans. So much, that they named him after Steve Garvey but that legacy doesn’t keep him from confronting how the Dodgers benefitted from the mass displacement of working-class people from Chavez Ravine after World War Two. That’s why he calls it an L.A. Bench, and not a Dodgers Bench.

The logo may be synonymous with the city's beloved baseball team, but the design of the interlocking letters was used by the L.A. Angels minor league baseball team before the Dodgers moved to L.A. in 1958.

“The monogram was here before the Dodgers,” Campos said.

A second-generation welder

Welding is the Campos family business. His father created gates and security bars for windows and doors for L.A. clients. That was the foundation for the work Campos has done for two decades since graduating from Lincoln High School, L.A. Trade Tech College, and enrolling in a summer program at Art Center in Pasadena.

The inspiration for the L.A. Bench came last year while he was playing around in his shop creating versions of the L.A. logo. A friend he hangs with at Echo Park Lake asked Campos to make him a piece of furniture.

“I was trying to figure out what my friend Curly wanted. He liked Dodgers and drinking and getting into fights, so I was like, 'Let me make something with the LA monogram,'” he said.

Welder-artist Steve Campos created whimsical steel sculptures with the LA logo.

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Courtesy Steve Campos

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It didn’t design itself. He said he had to lengthen the legs on the “A” and lean the back of the “L” in order to make the bench functional. In the process, he’s made a piece of furniture with a ubiquitous logo that he’s embedded with his own L.A. pride, as well as city history past and present.

LA civic pride travels to Japan

Campos vacationed in Japan the last week of April and took advantage of the trip to reach out to people who may be interested in the L.A. Bench. He was caught off guard by people’s reaction when he showed them pictures of it.

“They look at it and they go, 'Oh, Ohtani bench,'” he said.

For them, it’s still a bench embedded with pride, he said, but centered around Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, an icon in his native Japan.

Campos has made four L.A. benches and is selling them fully assembled, he said, for $2,500 each — taking into account his labor and how costly the raw materials have become. For now, he’s offering the metal parts as a package for $500, which requires the buyer to purchase the wood for the seat and the back — an easy process, he said.

While he has no plans to mass produce the L.A. Bench, he does have one goal in mind that shows how hard it is for him to separate L.A. civic pride and the Dodgers.

“I would love to get a couple of them installed at Dodger Stadium,” he said.

The Venice Boardwalk after sunset has generally been a no-go zone for tourists and locals alike, as the beachside bars and restaurants close on the early side and safety is often an issue. Now, a group of artists is out to bring some vibrancy to the creative neighborhood with a series of new installations that will include live evening performances – and even a “Venice Opera House.”

“Let's play with light and let's play with sound and give people a reason to come to the Boardwalk after sundown,” said artist and entrepreneur Stefan Ashkenazy, who is curating the project and owns the buildings housing them. “I mean, let's just be open 24 hours a day.”

The concept doesn’t have an official name yet, but he’s been calling it “See World.”

Artist James Ostrer's space looks out from a bed through the fence to the ocean at Venice Beach.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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William Attaway, a longtime Venice artist, created a gallery space filled with various paintings and sculptures.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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The pair of modern buildings on the Venice Boardwalk at Thornton Ave. – with their big balconies, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and seven open garage-style retail spaces – have sat mostly empty since Snapchat vacated their beachside offices in 2019. Ashkenazy recently bought the building and recruited artists to fill those front-facing spaces with creative work until a full-time tenant comes in.

Over the past several weeks the installations have been created in real-time, in public.

All of the projects are loosely along the theme of “home,” with each artist claiming a “room” in the two buildings that stretch across a full block on the Boardwalk. Several local Venice artists are featured, including William Attaway, whose intricate mosaic work is recognizable on the Venice public restrooms along the beach. Attaway’s space features a floating larger-than-life-sized statue and various works in a mini-gallery. In the next room is Robin Murez’s pieces, featuring carved wooden seats from her beloved neighborhood Venice Flying Carousel.

Ashkenazy is no stranger to wild (and wildly successful) art ideas. He’s the owner of the Petit Ermitage hotel in West Hollywood, a longtime haven for visiting artists, and the founder of the decade-old Bombay Beach Biennale, where artists install all kinds of work in an annual event near the Salton Sea. Many of the artists from that community are featured at the Venice project.

A "Venice Opera House" will host pop-up music events throughout the summer.

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Laura Hertfeldz

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LAist

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny's paintings on the wall of his Venice space.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny and London-based artist James Ostrer have brought some of their work in the Bombay Beach Biennale to the Venice project. Their windows on the Boardwalk both speak to a child-like sense of wonder and creativity.

“I think it's just kind of exploring and playing a little bit, to have the freedom to be able to do that,” Haberny says of his imagined child’s bedroom space, which includes a fort made out of puffy cheese balls. “It's a big space, too.
It's beautiful.”

Ostrer is experimenting with a performance art idea where he sits in bed amongst a room full of his own artwork, which he describes as “happy art with an edge.” Looking out at the ocean from the bed, he’s invited passersby to sit and have chats with him about his work or anything else they want to talk about.

“It’s a very intimate space, so you have a different kind of conversation,” he said. “I use art to channel human creativity, and [talk about] dark things.”

While there are open fences that block off the spaces, they aren’t sealed up at night. Both Ashkenazy and the team of artists seemed open to the idea that anything could happen and that the installations are a conversation with the public – and with that comes some risk.

Greg Haberny (right) works with his assistants on an installation featuring kid-inspired graffiti art and a "cheesy puff" fort.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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“I don't really know if I [would] say worried, but I guess it's just the cost of doing business,” Haberny said. “I don't really make things to get damaged or broken, sure. But I have done [things like] burned all my paintings and then made paint out of ash.”

While he’s felt safe – and even slept overnight in the installation – Ostrer has been collaborating with a local female artist who performs in a pig mask in front of his installation some nights. Watching her perform, he said, has taught him about the vulnerability of women in public spaces like the Boardwalk. “I've started to, on a very fractional level, have seen how scary that is. Because I've sat in the bed behind her performing at the front here… the way in which men are approaching her and shrieking at her … it's shocking.”

Ashkenazy says he will keep the artists in the space, potentially rotating new ones in, until a fulltime tenant takes over.

“This is an experiment … and after acquiring the building, the intention wasn't, ‘let's open a bunch of public art spaces,’ he said. “It is kind of …what the building wanted and listening to what the Boardwalk needed. Let's play, let's have the artists that we love and appreciate have a space to play and engage and give the locals and the visitors to the Boardwalk something to experience.”

A new trail across the beloved natural area of Elephant Hill in Northeast Los Angeles is officially opening this weekend.

The route is years in the making, and it's a big milestone in the decades-long conservation efforts to preserve this local jewel in the community of El Sereno.

The hiking trail connects one side of Elephant Hill to the other — from the corner of Pullman Street and Harriman Avenue all the way across to Lathrop Street.

It's 0.75 miles in total, but packs a punch.

"It's a pretty straight shot, but because of the terrain — the trail is kind of twisty and curvy. There's switchbacks — and great views," Elva Yañez, board president of the nonprofit Save Elephant Hill, said.

People have always been able to access the 110-acre green space, but Yañez said the new trail provides a safe and easy way to navigate the steep hillsides.

The El Sereno nonprofit has been working for two decades to preserve the land. Illegal dumping and off-roading have damaged the open space over the years. And the majority of the 110 acres are privately owned by an estimated 200 individual owners.

Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) joined the efforts in 2018, spurred by a $700,000 grant from Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District, in part, to build the trail. The local agency received some $2 million in grants from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to add to the 10 acres of Elephant Hill it manages and conserves. This year, MCRA acquired an additional 12 parcels — or about 2.4 acres.

And the spiffy new footpath — with trail signage, information kiosks and landscape boulders — is not just a long-sought-for victory but a beginning in a sense.

"We know that it means a lot to the community," Sarah Kevorkian, who oversees the trail project for MRCA, said. "We're wrapping up the trail, but it really feels like the beginning of all that is to come."

A hint of that vision already exists — for hikers traversing the new route, courtesy of Test Plot, the L.A.-based nonprofit that works to revitalize depleted lands.

"They're able to see at the end of the trail, at the 'test plot' — exactly what a restored Elephant Hill would look like," Yañez said.

Here's a preview:

A coalition of residents from across the San Gabriel Valley are mobilizing over a battery storage project and possibly more industrial development in the City of Industry they say could pollute communities next door.

A protest is scheduled today in neighboring Rowland Heights, targeting a 400-megawatt battery energy storage facility sited on about 9 acres that was approved by the City of Industry leaders in January.

Such Battery Energy Storage Systems, or BESS, are used to keep the power grid stable, especially as output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind fluctuate. But fires involving lithium batteries at some sites have heightened environmental and public health fears.

Because of the City of Industry’s unusual, sprawling shape stretching along the 60 Freeway, it borders on more than a dozen communities, meaning what happens there can have far-reaching impact.

“Pollution does not end right at the border,” said Andrew Yip, an organizer with No Data Centers SGV Coalition. “Pollution travels.”

Some local activists with the Puente Hills Community Preservation Association have challenged the approval of the battery facility under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Beyond environmental concerns, locals have also been frustrated with how decisions are made by officials in the City of Industry, a municipality that’s almost entirely zoned for industrial use and has less than 300 residents.

Organizers say they’ve struggled to get direct responses from city officials whom they say have replaced regular meetings with special meetings, which under state law require less advance notice.

A city spokesperson has not responded to requests for comment.

The so-called Marici Energy Storage System Facility would be run by Aypa Power. The fact that the battery storage developer is owned by the private equity giant Blackstone, a major investor in AI and data centers, has only fueled concerns that a battery storage facility would lay the groundwork for data center development.

A request for comment from Aypa was not returned.

Today’s protest is taking place at Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights across the street from the Puente Hills Mall, a largely vacant “dead” mall, which activists fear could be redeveloped into a data center and bring higher utility costs and greater air and noise pollution.

Yip pointed out that industrial developments make a lot of money for the City of Industry.

“But none of these surrounding communities receive any of those benefits,” Yip said. “Yet we have to put up with all the harmful effects and impacts from this city that does all this development without really reaching out.”