The Brief

A newly filed lawsuit seeks to force L.A. city leaders to stop an alleged "covert thwarting" of a controversial housing development in Venice that the city council first approved two years ago.

The suit was filed late Wednesday in L.A. County Superior Court by the law firm Public Counsel on behalf of the advocacy group L.A. Forward and three Venice residents.

The suit centers on Venice Dell, a hotly contested project that’s one of the largest planned Westside housing proposals for unhoused people and people with low incomes. City leaders approved an agreement in June 2022 to develop the 140-unit project, before subsequent approvals allegedly stalled amid community pushback.

The project appeared to be “experiencing a delay in processing” by the city, according to a February 2024 letter from the state housing department to the city.

The suit alleges two top city elected officials — Councilmember Traci Park and City Attorney Heidi Feldstein Soto — have covertly and illegally thwarted the project since taking office in late 2022, despite the city’s stated goals to expand affordable housing across L.A.

The lawsuit claims Park and Felstein Soto are discriminating against people of color and people with disabilities in violation of fair housing laws and equal protection under the state Constitution.

It also claims that halting work on the project has a disproportionate impact on people of color’s ability to access housing.

“Most alarmingly, Councilmember Park and the City Attorney seek to defeat the Project not by democratic means in the City Council, but to use their offices to tie the Project up in red tape outside of public view,” the suit alleges.

Public Counsel, the law firm that filed the suit, won a key ruling last year in different case that ramped up pressure on federal officials to build more veteran housing at the Veteran’s Affairs campus in a sprawling campus in West L.A.

[Click here to read the lawsuit.]

A spokesperson for Feldstein Soto said the city attorney does not comment on pending litigation, and a spokesperson for Park said the council member was not available to comment. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ office did not immediately have comment.

A centerpiece of L.A.’s strategy to end homelessness has been the construction of permanent supportive housing projects like Venice Dell. More than 1,000 newly built permanent housing units have opened up citywide since Bass took office in late 2022, largely funded by the Proposition HHH bond measure city voters approved in 2016. Venice Dell is not expected to be funded by HHH, but has been approved for funding from other city sources.

“When we allow opposition to kill affordable housing in wealthy, predominantly white communities, we are allowing for a perpetuation of the segregation patterns in this city,” Faizah Malik, a lead Public Counsel attorney in the case, said in an interview with LAist. “So we need our city leaders to be really stepping up to fight for this affordable housing, especially in areas like the Westside.”

The suit seeks a court order banning the city from further delaying the project.

Why this matters

Venice Dell is one of West L.A.’s highest-profile and most contentious homeless housing developments proposed in recent years.

It would create 140 apartments on a city-owned parking lot along Venice Boulevard between Dell and Pacific avenues just 800 feet from the beach. Sixty-eight apartments would be permanent supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness, with education and employment services. Another 34 units would be affordable for low-income households, and 34 would be specifically for low-income artists. The project would include eight staff on site, as well as community rooms for tenants.

The controversy

The agreement to develop the property was approved in June 2022, though it’s been held back for years by lawsuits and an alleged halting of city work on it after Park and Feldstein Soto took office in late 2022.

Many Venice residents, along with Park, have opposed the project. During her 2022 election campaign, Park sent a letter to Joe Buscaino, an L.A. city council member at the time, saying the project will do little to address homelessness. She added that it would “forever change the character of the historic Venice Canal community.”

A majority of the locally-elected Venice Neighborhood Council has repeatedly voted to oppose the project over the years. They’ve cited “substantial unresolved environmental issues,” including risks from rising sea levels, when voting 11 to 2 to oppose the project last September.

Supporters, meanwhile, call Venice Dell an unprecedented opportunity in West L.A. to create housing and support services that help bring people off the streets and into housing with support services.

The L.A. Times editorial board, which has supported the project, recently criticized the city and Feldstein Soto for slowing down permit approvals and called on Bass to facilitate its approval.

What’s alleged

The lawsuit alleges that after taking office in late 2022, Feldstein Soto has been using her role “to not only stop City departments from signing off on the remaining necessary approvals for the Project, but to prevent City staff from communicating with the Developers on Project details.”

“The City’s obstruction and delay of Venice Dell have made housing unavailable in a manner that discriminates — in both intent and impact — against persons of color and persons with disabilities,” it adds.

“The city is publicly adopting policies that are furthering affordable housing, but allowing some elected officials to covertly thwart those same policies,” said Malik, the plaintiff’s attorney, in her interview with LAist. “And that is a hypocrisy that is at the core of our case — that we're allowing a few city officials, a few neighborhoods to be able to opt out from participating in all the housing solutions that we need to address our homelessness crisis.”

Tell LAist: What's the state of homelessness in your neighborhood?

Similar to yesterday, low clouds will keep the coast and some valleys cooler in the morning followed by afternoon sun. Come Friday, a warmup will take over the weekend.

L.A. County beaches will see temperatures in the mid 60s to low 70s, while Orange County beaches will be mostly in the low to mid 70s. More inland for areas like downtown L.A. and Hollywood temperatures there will reach upper 70s to low 80s.

Highs in the San Gabriel Valley will stick around the upper 70s to mid 80s. Meanwhile, the San Fernando Valley and the Inland Empire will see temperatures around the low 90s.

In Coachella Valley, temperatures will reach the upper 90s.

Josh Groban reminded audiences of his musical — and comedic — skills when he performed at this year’s Oscars with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, as host Conan O’Brien acted out how ungracious he would be if he won an Oscar himself.

While the “I Won” performance was operatic, if you were wondering if it was a nod to actor Timothée Chalamet’s recent dismissive comments about the cultural relevance of ballet and opera, Groban says it was decided on before those remarks went viral.

“We were ready to do that regardless,” Groban told LAist, adding, “I think that having these moments that were like a tip of a hat, not so much like in the face of Chalamet, but more like in the direction of just supporting these arts and showing these arts on a popular culture stage, I think was great.”

Backstage at the Oscars, Groban said he talked to ballet dancer Misty Copeland, who performed later in the show and whom he counts as a friend.

“She's in her incredible costume that she had this historical, wonderful outfit that she wore for her Sinners piece,” Groban recalled. “And I'm in this, you know, medieval outfit, and I just gave her a hug. And I'm just like, ‘How lucky are we that this is our job?’ Like, this is the best that we get to do this. So wonderful that we got to kind of — her more than me — loosely rep those worlds.”

While Groban is no stranger to awards shows, either as a performer or nominee — he has multiple Grammy, Tony and Emmy nominations and almost one for an Oscar (“Believe,” the song he performed for The Polar Express, was nominated for best original song, but only songwriters are credited in the category) — he’s so far never won.

It’s something that he and his fellow 2018 Tonys co-host Sara Bareilles poked fun at with a musical number dedicated to “the people who lose!” And were he to win now, Groban joked,  “I would probably, at this point, 25 years in, react exactly the way Conan did.”

A new album and ‘a call to keep us where the light is’

The idea for Groban’s new album was inspired in part by another performance of his last year, for AFI’s tribute to director Francis Ford Coppola.

Coppola asked Groban to perform “Brucia la Terra,” the Sicilian ballad from The Godfather Part III, for the event, and it’s now one of the songs included on Cinematic, out May 8.

“To be looking out at many of my cinematic heroes and just to kind of be reminded of the incredible brilliance of that score, that put a spark in my head of like, ‘Oh, these songs are wonderful and I love singing them,’” he said.

The first song Groban has released from the album is “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” from The Lion King, featuring the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles.

That song, Groban said, “which on the face of it is a beautiful hit Disney song, in today's climate, we were really thinking about uplifting and how can we take some of these songs and really use them as a call to action, a call to keep us where the light is, a call to allyship.”

Groban says he felt such a strong connection to each of the songs on the album, from movies like Casablanca and Stand By Me, “that I knew I would sing my face off, I knew they'd be songs people would want to sing in the car, the surprise for me was the depth of the emotion that went into [them].”

“Moon River,” from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, was especially personal for Groban because it features his father, Jack Groban, playing a trumpet solo: “He played trumpet in college and gave it up for 45, 50 years, and I got him to dust it off,” Groban said.

And being able to have his dad play on a song of his “for the first time ever, was one of the most emotional days in the studio I've ever had.”

‘We need to be reminded of our humanity’

While Groban got his first “big break" at just 17 years old, singing with Celine Dion as a fill-in for Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli during the 1999 Grammy Awards rehearsals, what led up to it was his arts education at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts (LACHSA).

As a shy kid who had a hard time making friends in school, Groban says seeing what his music teachers saw in him, “was so life affirming for me.” And it led him to found the Find Your Light Foundation, that supports K-12 arts education programs in schools.

“ At a time when our humanity is being tested more than ever,” Groban said, “we need to be reminded of our humanity through these programs. And especially our young people, learning about the beauty inside themselves and the beauty inside others through the arts, I can't think of a more vital time than now.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Since 1977, Richard Santillan has been to every Opening Day game at Dodger Stadium. 

“The tradition goes from my father, to me, to my children and grandchildren. Some of my best memories are with my father and children here at Dodger Stadium,” Santillan told The LA Local, smiling under the shade of palm trees near the entrance to the ballpark Wednesday morning. He was there to protest the team less than 24 hours before Opening Day.

Santillan, like countless other loyal Dodgers fans, is grappling with his fan identity over the team’s decision to accept an invitation to the White House and owner Mark Walter’s ties to ICE detention facilities.

More than 30 people joined Santillan on Wednesday morning for a press conference held near 1000 Vin Scully Drive to convey a message directly to the team. 

“We are demanding the Dodgers stop participating in funding of inhumane treatment of families and do not go to the White House to celebrate with the criminal in chief,” Evelyn Escatiola told the crowd. “Together, we have the power to make a change.”

Escatiola, a former dean of East Los Angeles College and longtime community organizer, urged fans to flex their economic power by “letting the Dodgers know that we do not support repression.”

Jorge “Coqui” Rodriguez, a lifelong Dodgers fan, spoke to the crowd and called on Dodgers ownership to divest from immigration detention centers owned and operated by GEO Group and CoreCivic.

Jorge Coqui H Rodriguez speaks at a press conference outside Dodger Stadium on March 25, 2026, to demand the Dodgers not to visit the White House following their 2025 World Series win.

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J.W. Hendricks

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The LA Local

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In a phone interview a day before the protest, Rodriguez told The LA Local he did not want the Dodgers using his “cheve” or beer money to fund detention centers. 

“They can’t take our parking money, our cacahuate money, our cheve money, our Dodger Dog money and invest those funds into corporations that are imprisoning people. It’s wrong,” Rodriguez said. 

Rodriguez considers the Dodgers one of the most racially diverse teams and said the players need to support fans at a time when heightened immigration enforcement has become more common across L.A.

The team’s 2025’s visit to the White House drew ire from the largely Latino fan base, citing the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on immigrants. 

In June, the team came under further scrutiny when rumors swirled online that federal immigration agents were using the stadium’s parking, which immigration authorities later denied in statements posted on social media accounts.

The team again came under fire after not releasing a statement on the impacts of ICE raids on its mostly Latino fan base at the height of immigration enforcement last summer. The team later agreed to invest $1 million to support families affected by immigration enforcement.

When he learned the Dodgers were pledging only $1 million to families in need, Rodriguez called the amount a  “slap in the face.” 

“These guys just bought the Lakers for billions of dollars and they give a million dollars to fight for legal services? That’s a joke,” Rodriguez said. “They need to have a moral backbone and not be investing in those companies.”

According to reporting from the Los Angeles Times, former Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershawsaid last week that he is looking forward to the trip.

“I went when President [Joe] Biden was in office. I’m going to go when President [Donald] Trump is in office,” Kershaw said. “To me, it’s just about getting to go to the White House. You don’t get that opportunity every day, so I’m excited to go.”

The Dodgers have yet to announce when their planned visit will take place. 

Santillan sometimes laments his decision to give up his season tickets in protest of the team. His connection to the stadium and the memories he has made there with family and friends will last a lifetime, he said. On Thursday, he will uphold his tradition and be there for the first pitch of the season, but with a heavy heart.

“It’s a family tradition, but the Dodgers have a lot of work to do,” he said.