Nick Gerda
is an accountability reporter who has covered local government in Southern California for more than a decade.
Published April 17, 2024 5:00 AM
Rhiannon Do in a YouTube video posted in August 2021 by the Steinberg Institute, a mental health policy advocacy group, where she was a legislative intern.
The backstory: Rhiannon Do is the 22-year-old daughter of O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do. LAist uncovered that he directed more than $13 million to a nonprofit that records show Rhiannon Do helped lead over the last two years. The vast majority of the money was directed outside of the public’s view and did not appear on public agendas. Andrew Do did not publicly disclose his family ties before awarding the funds.
What she said: In a brief email exchange with LAist, Rhiannon Do said her role was limited to mental health services and a different meals program from the one under scrutiny. She said she was not a director or officer of the overall nonprofit, and never had any role in its finances. She also says she no longer works for Viet America Society. The comments were her first public statements since LAist’s investigation began in November.
Records show otherwise: LAist has obtained nine different public records that show her in top-level leadership positions at the nonprofit during the timeframe under scrutiny, including president, officer and director. Some were signed by Rhiannon Do herself. In her replies to LAist, she didn’t explain those records after LAist asked about them.
Viet America Society’s lawyer cites “sloppiness” and negligence": There [were] a lot of things that were screwed up,” the nonprofit's attorney said when asked about the documents showing Rhiannon Do leading the group. “It doesn’t make them true,” he said. “It just makes them negligent.”
Do previously did not respond to LAist, but answered some questions by email early this month. She told LAist: “It has been amply shown that I was never an officer or director for VAS.”
She did not provide information showing that was the case.
Do did not answer follow-up questions asking how she explains those records.
Do is a second year law student at UC Irvine, and the daughter of O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do and Cheri Pham, the assistant presiding judge of O.C. Superior Court.
The responses to LAist — signed “Rhiannon Do” — were from an email address that, according to records LAist obtained from the county, Rhiannon Do used to communicate with county staff. In one of those emails, from February 2022, Rhiannon Do represented herself as Viet America Society’s executive director.
The funding being questioned by county staff was tied to COVID-relief funded meals earmarked for residents in need during the pandemic.
Rhiannon Do says her role was limited
Rhiannon Do said that at Viet America Society she worked on mental health services — and was not connected to millions in coronavirus relief dollars that her father directed to the group.
Catch up on the investigation
In November 2023, LAist began investigating how millions in public taxpayer dollars were spent. In total, LAist has uncovered over $13 million in public money that went to a little-known nonprofit that records state was led on and off by Rhiannon Do, the now 22-year-old daughter of O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do. Most of that money was directed to the group by Supervisor Do outside of the public’s view and never appeared on public meeting agendas. He did not publicly disclose his family ties.
Much of the known funding came from federal coronavirus relief money.
Since we started reporting, we’ve also uncovered the group is nearly two years overdue in completing a required audit into whether the meal funds were spent appropriately. A second required audit is 10-months overdue.
And we found the amount of taxpayer money directed to the nonprofit was much larger than initially known. It totals at least $13.5 million in county funding — tallied from government records obtained and published by LAist.
After our reporting, O.C. officials wrote demand letters to the nonprofit saying millions in funding were unaccounted for. They warned it could be forced to repay the funds.
And, last month, we found the nonprofit missed a deadline set by county officials to provide proof about how funding for meals were spent.
“I have worked for the past 3 years to help them stand up a mental health clinic, which was the first of its kind for the Vietnamese American community in Orange County,” she wrote.
The clinic — Warner Wellness Center — received authorizations for up to $3.1 million in county-funded subcontracts, which her father voted to fund without publicly disclosing his close family connection.
County records show Rhiannon Do signed $375,000 of those subcontracts as president of Viet America Society, which does business under the Warner Wellness name. Amid questions about her qualifications to lead a mental health clinic, Rhiannon Do’s father has pointed to her undergraduate internship working on mental health legislation at the Steinberg Institute as her experience.
As for her role at Viet America Society, Rhiannon Do wrote to LAist that she “was later hired to work on a proposal for the Elderly Nutrition Program, a food service program for seniors, which was completely unrelated to Covid and any Covid funding.”
“I was never involved in any of the Covid meal gap programs or have ever played any role in the back office or financial side of VAS,” she added.
Millions have gone unaccounted for
At Supervisor Do’s direction, Viet America Society has received more than $9 million from the county to feed needy residents, plus $1 million to build a Vietnam War memorial. He also joined votes to fund up to $3.1 million in mental health subcontracts for the group, all without disclosing his close family connection.
Supervisor Do has not responded to multiple interview requests from LAist over the past six months. In a November interview with another news outlet, he defended his decisions to award money to his daughter’s group without public disclosure, saying he wasn’t required to disclose his family connection.
At issue, as county officials warned in a series of letters in February: the group has failed to document what happened with the first year-and-a-half of meal funding it directly received from the county, totaling $2.7 million in 2021 and the first half of 2022.
County officials set mid-March deadlines for Viet America Society to provide long overdue proof of how that money was used. The nonprofit missed the first deadline, which covered funding for the first half of 2021.
Then, the day after the March 14 deadline, a lawyer for the group said it was working to provide the county what it’s looking for.
Nearly a month later, the group has not yet provided any more documents, according to county spokesperson Jennifer Ayari. She responded via email late last week to questions from LAist.
The county’s extended deadline for Viet America Society to submit overdue documents is now April 24 at 5 p.m., Ayari wrote.
Those documents include accounting records, a list of who received meals, the dates meals were delivered, delivery addresses and contact info for the people who received meals.
Bridgecreek Plaza strip mall, which has offices for Viet America Society and Warner Wellness in Huntington Beach.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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The timeframe for the meals funding that’s under scrutiny overlaps with Rhiannon Do representing herself as the nonprofit’s executive director, in the February 2022 email to a county executive.
What records show about Rhiannon Do's role
LAist has obtained nine different public records listing Rhiannon Do as one of the group’s top leaders, including instances of her signatures as VAS’s president on county-funded subcontracts. Among the records:
The nonprofit’s original public tax filing for 2022, which marked Rhiannon Do as the only officer and only director during calendar year 2022. It states it was signed under penalty of perjury in October 2023 by Peter Pham, the group’s founder.
October 2023 board meeting minutes for Viet America Society, which showed Rhiannon Do as one of the group’s three directors and officers, and participating in decisions at the meeting. They show her joining a vote with the two other directors — Peter Pham and Dinh Mai – in authorizing Pham and Mai to sign checks from the nonprofit’s bank account.
Rhiannon Do signed as Viet America Society’s president on two county-fundedsubcontracts for mental health outreach services, totaling $375,000.
In her recent email exchange with LAist, Rhiannon Do said she’s parted ways with Viet America Society.
“I am also no longer with VAS or the Warner Wellness Center,” she said, referring to the name the nonprofit has used for its mental health work.
She didn’t respond to a follow-up email asking why she left.
In February, Viet America Society was informed it would no longer be allowed to perform its county-funded mental health work. That work was funded through subcontracts with the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community (OCAPICA) and the OC chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI OC).
Nonprofit attorney: ‘A lot of things that were screwed up’
In a phone interview with LAist this week, Sterling Scott Winchell, Viet America Society’s lawyer, told LAist that Rhiannon Do “was basically just a caseworker.” He attributed the paper trail showing otherwise to “sloppiness” and negligence.
“Contracts were written with the wrong name on them. She never held that title. Things happen,” Winchell said last week in his first interview with LAist.
“I can speculate for you,” he added. “There was a previous entity, and she may have been an officer in that before the funding started. But I don’t know why the contracts and so forth were drafted that way. I think it was just sloppiness."
He didn’t specify what that entity was. But Rhiannon Do and two other VAS leaders were listed as officers starting in mid 2021 for a private company — Behavioral Health Solutions — that operated under the Warner Wellness name before Viet America Society took on the name in late 2022, according to state and county registration records.
Many of the records showing Rhiannon Do in leadership at Viet America Society — including the subcontracts and directors meeting minutes — are dated many months after Behavioral Health Solutions informed the state in early January 2023 that it had shut down.
LAist asked Winchell about the paper trail showing Rhiannon Do in top leadership positions at the group, including president, vice president, director and officer.
“Yeah, I would agree with you. There [were] a lot of things that were screwed up. It doesn’t make them true, it just makes them negligent,” Winchell said.
Winchell was Supervisor Do’s appointee to the county ethics commission from 2018 to 2023. He told the county he was hired in late February to represent the nonprofit.
Winchell recently told the OC Register that the nonprofit has refiled its 2022 tax filing without Rhiannon Do’s name as an officer. An amended version of the filing, marked as received by the state Attorney General’s charity registry on March 25, no longer lists her as an officer. It has a note at the end stating it was amended to “Remove Rhiannon Do out” and that “She is not an officer of Viet America Society.”
Attorney also says answers will come in audit
Winchell said the county’s questions would be straightened out in an upcoming audit commissioned by the nonprofit. That audit was required under its county contract, and is nearly two years overdue.
In its demand letters in February, the county warned that it could make the nonprofit repay the money if it doesn’t prove what happened with it.
Winchell said the nonprofit and the county are working closely.
“We’re working together toward a common goal. Our success is their success. It’s not adversarial,” he said. “I understand that controversy gets clicks. But there’s no adversarial relationship between these parties. We’re working together."
“They fell behind on some administrative issues, so they hired me,” he added of the nonprofit.
Winchell said the audit will provide answers about how the money was spent.
Asked if all of the dollars provided to the group for meals went to providing meals, Winchell said: “That’s my understanding.”
“If it’s not the case, the audit will reveal that,” he continued. “My understanding is that all the money — whatever money’s been used, has gone to where it should go.”
Winchell said he thinks the audit will be completed by the end of June.
A county spokesperson confirmed Tuesday that the county is currently working with Viet America Society on compliance requirements.
In her emailed responses to LAist, Rhiannon Do said there was nothing improper about how Viet America Society’s funding was used.
The “insinuation that there was something untoward with the use of VAS funds is fabricated” and a “false narrative,” wrote Do.
In a follow-up email, she said she never “played any role in the back office or financial side of VAS.”
How to watchdog 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.
"Donald Trump is violating the law and constitution. He's ignoring court orders. He has weaponized the Justice Department to go after his enemies. He is letting loose ice troops in our streets that are getting people killed. I will not be attending the State of the Union. I've never missed one. I have always gone both to inaugurations and to states of the Union, but we cannot treat this as normal," he said in his message.
What's next: Instead, Schiff plans to attend The People's State of the Union, organized by Democratic advocacy organizations MoveOn and MeidasTouch on the National Mall that same night, joining a number of Democratic lawmakers who'll also be skipping President Trump's address to the nation on Tuesday.
It's a musical instrument that weighs over 100 lbs
Robert Garrova
explores the weird and secret bits of SoCal that would excite even the most jaded Angelenos. He also covers mental health.
Published February 22, 2026 5:00 AM
Ariel Campos plays the marimba at a recent marimba salon
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Courtesy Ariel Campos
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Topline:
Local non-profit SoCal Marimbas is dedicated to the promotion of marimba performance. And you can catch live performance at a 'marimba salon' near you.
The backstory: A percussion instrument deeply-rooted in African music, the marimba shows up in everything from atonal avant-garde pieces to modern American pop songs. And yes, many people might know about its clear, playful tones through the iPhone ringtone of the same name.
A marimba club? But with its couch-sized layout of wooden bars and metal resonators, it's not always as accessible as say a guitar or more compact instrument.
Ariel Campos, director of Southern California Marimbas, hopes to change that. He and his colleagues put on regular 'marimba salons' where you can hear a wide-array of music performed on the percussion instrument, from pop to atonal music.
Read on ... to learn about the next event, and find out why Campos fell in love with the instrument.
A percussion instrument deeply-rooted in African music, the marimba shows up in everything from atonal avant-garde pieces to modern American pop songs. And yes, many people might know about its clear, playful tones through the iPhone ringtone of the same name.
But with its couch-sized layout of wooden bars and metal resonators, it's not always as accessible as say a guitar or more compact instrument.
Enter a man and a local non-profit on a mission to bring marimba to the masses.
From his home studio, Ariel Campos remembered one of the first times he really got intrigued by the marimba. He was listening to local radio.
“And I hear Tom Waits ‘Swordfishtrombone.’ That was like before Shazam and all that. And I was like, ‘what’s going on over here?!’” he said.
Campos teaches percussion at Mt. San Antonio College and he’s director of Southern California Marimba, a group dedicated to the promotion of marimba performance.
With its roots in Africa, Campos said American history is rich with the sounds of the marimba. That includes musicians like Clair Omar Musser, who toured with the instrument -- which can weigh hundreds of pounds -- back in the 1920s.
In his studio filled with an array of other percussion instruments, Campos explained that the marimba is usually played with two, four or even six mallets. When I met with him earlier this month, he demonstrated the dexterity needed to pull that off on his own antique marimba: A hulking Deagan marimba he estimates was built in the 1920s.
Campos said he’s also interested in the rich marimba heritage of countries like Mexico and Guatemala, where the instrument is still very much alive.
In Guatemala, where the marimba is the national instrument, it’s not uncommon for three or more people to play the same instrument at the same time, Campos said.
“There’s a great band right now from Mexico. They’re called Son Rompe Pera,” Campos said. “Their slogan is like: cumbia is the new punk. And so they play cumbia punk music on the marimba.”
A working musician who’s played marimba with acts like Brooks and Dunn, Campos has a wide repertoire: from classical to pop songs like the Los Bukis classic, “Tu Cárcel.”
For over a year now, Campos and his colleagues at Southern California Marimbas have brought an eclectic array of live marimba music to audiences in L.A. He calls them ‘marimba salons’ and they even include some of his weirder, more avant-garde creations. For some of his atonal pieces, Campos uses his fingers, bare hands and even a bass bow to bring out the more subtle sounds of the instrument.
Campos said his goal with the marimba salons is to bring the marimba out of the academic setting and into neighborhoods where people can experience it up close.
“It’s the idea of bringing people together, especially now, in these times. We need to build a sense of community. And that can look however we want it to look,” Campos said.
“And I think using the marimba to do that is a great opportunity.”
The next SoCal Marimba salon is coming up on Sunday March 22 at 8pm at Sunspace in Shadow Hills.
Mt. San Antonio College will also host a marimba festival and competition July 25-26. Check out Southern California Marimba’s website for more info as it becomes available.
Keep up with LAist.
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Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published February 22, 2026 5:00 AM
Inside East L.A. Film Shop.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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Topline:
East L.A. Film Shop started in 2020, when owners Frank Ledezma and Jennyfer Gramajo needed to pivot their event photography business as the pandemic shut everything down. So they started to sell film for old-school cameras.
Why it matters: Unlike many pandemic-era businesses, East L.A. Film Shop not just survived, but thrived after COVID 19. And now, the husband and wife team is turning their shop into a community space for the neighborhood and beyond.
Read on ... to learn about their story, and a cool event happening there Sunday.
In early 2020, Frank Ledezma and Jennyfer Gramajo moved into a new storefront for their event photography business on First Street in East L.A.
But like the story of so many small businesses during the pandemic shutdown, the husband-and-wife team soon found themselves needing to pivot.
"We would do events for quinceañeras, baptisms, weddings," Gramajo said. "At that moment, all of our events were canceled."
Unlike the roller-coaster experiences that have defined so many mom-and-pops, though, their East L.A. Film Shop has been a story of unexpected success.
Inside East L.A. Film Shop.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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Selling rolls
Gramajo and Ledezma went from shooting photos to selling film to photographers, during a crazy-making time when there probably wasn't a better way to kill time than to take your camera out and capture a suspended world.
"You couldn't find film. People were still shooting," Ledezma said. "People still wanted to go out and shoot."
The couple was already selling some photo supplies before the pandemic, but not much. After the lockdown, Gramajo said Ledezma asked her if he should pour their savings to go all in on the switch, based off a friend's suggestion, on a wing and a prayer.
"I'm like, 'Well, I think you should just buy a couple of rolls and see how it goes,'" Gramajo remembered.
Frank Ledezma and Jennyfer Gramajo, the husband and wife owners of East L.A. Film Shop.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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East L.A. Film Shop
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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With that, East L.A. Film Shop was born.
The couple started advertising their goods on social media. As word of mouth spread, customers sought them out.
" We started meeting people like at the Jack in the Box parking lot. We would go deliver film like if it was Uber Eats," Gramajo said.
" They were like, 'Oh, go with Frank. They have it in stock. They always have it in stock,'" Ledezma said.
After reopening, the demand for film rolls stayed strong, so much so that East L.A. Film Shop expanded their offering to include film development and other services. Their clientele, Gramajo said, has always run the gamut, from seasoned pros to novices, including an elderly man who needed help loading a new roll into his old camera, or a woman who brought her kid to get a crash course on all the different knobs and buttons.
"Film Foos" hats for sale at East L.A. Film Shop.
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Fiona Ng
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LAist
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Since last year, East L.A. Film Shop has relocated to the storefront next door, a much bigger space to accommodate more equipment and a growing staff.
The extra room also allows the couple to create a community space for music, photo exhibits and more.
On Sunday, East L.A. Film shop is hosting its monthly "Barrios Sunday," where small local vendors are invited to set up shop for the day to sell their goods and get the word out about their business.
The couple is also asking photographers — analog and digital — to post their photos on the walls of the shop. The works will be displayed for a week.
As for Ledezma and Gramajo, they still go out and shoot. It's a kind of second nature — especially for Ledezma, who grew up helping his father, an event photographer himself, on his shoots.
"When I open a fresh roll, like the smell, it takes you back [to] when I was a kid and my dad's like, 'Oh, gimme this roll,’" he said. "You still get that smell of fresh film. You know, it just takes you back."
Barrio Sunday
East L.A. Film Shop 3541 1st St., Los Angeles Feb 22. Sun., 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.
The Sixth Street Viaduct during the opening ceremony in July 2022.
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Pablo de la Hoya
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Boyle Heights Beat
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Topline:
After copper wire theft left the Sixth Street Bridge in darkness for years, the city of Los Angeles has hired a Pasadena-based engineering firm to restore the lighting, a move aimed at improving safety for Boyle Heights and the surrounding neighborhoods.
The backstory? Aging infrastructure, copper wire theft and delayed repairs led to nearly 2,000 streetlight service requests in Boyle Heights in 2024. Nearly seven miles of copper wire have been reported stolen from the Sixth Street Bridge.
Read on ... for more on the history of the Sixth Street Bridge.
After copper wire theft left the Sixth Street Bridge in darkness for years, the city of Los Angeles has hired a Pasadena-based engineering firm to restore the lighting, a move aimed at improving safety for Boyle Heights and the surrounding neighborhoods.
City officials contracted Tetra Tech to relight the bridge, which has been plagued by copper wire theft since its opening in 2022. The outages have frustrated residents and commuters who use the bridge to walk, run, bike and drive between downtown LA and the Eastside.
Aging infrastructure, copper wire theft and delayed repairs led to nearly 2,000 streetlight service requests in Boyle Heights in 2024. Nearly seven miles of copper wire have been reported stolen from the Sixth Street Bridge.
Tetra Tech began working on the project’s design in January and is scheduled to restore the wiring to all lights along the bridge, including along roadways, barriers, ramps, stairways and arches before the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games come to Los Angeles that summer, according to a Feb. 18 news release from Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s office.
The firm – which was selected by the city’s Bureau of Engineering – will fortify the pull boxes, service cabinet and conduits to protect against copper wire theft. Tetra Tech will also install a security camera system to deter vandalism and theft.
“When our streets are well-lit, our neighborhoods feel safer and more connected,” Jurado said in the news release. “The Sixth Street Bridge plays a vital role in connecting Angelenos between the Eastside and the heart of the City.”
Jurado – who pledged to look into fixing the Sixth Street Bridge lights when she was elected in 2024 – said the partnership with Tetra Tech “moves us one step closer to restoring one of the City’s most iconic landmarks as a safe, welcoming public space our communities deserve.”
According to officials, the total contract value with Tetra Tech is $5.3 million, which includes work on the Sixth Street Bridge as well as the Sixth Street PARC project, which encompasses 12 acres of recreational space underneath and adjacent to the bridge.
The PARC project will make way for sports fields, fitness equipment, event spaces and a performance stage. PARC’s grand opening is anticipated later this year.
Because the work for the PARC project and the bridge is connected, the Board of Engineers recommended using the existing PARC contract with Tetra Tech to ensure completion ahead of the 2028 Games, officials said.
The cost for the design work on the bridge alone is roughly $1 million.
On Thursday, Jurado announced that her streetlight repair crew had restored lighting and strengthened infrastructure for more than 400 streetlights across her district, including Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights, and El Sereno. Next, they plan to tackle repairs in downtown L.A.
