The Brief

The story first appeared on The LA Local.
Editor’s note: This is part of our “My LA” series — a look at how changing demographics are shifting culture in LA’s historic neighborhoods and communities — told by the people from those communities.

It’s Jan. 11, 2025, and I’m sitting in a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles fighting the overwhelming urge to cry.

I just learned my house survived the Eaton Fire, but I can’t shake the tremor in my friends’ voices who lost theirs. The fire is 15% contained — four days into what would become the second-most destructive fire in California history.

Across from me sits Francisco Sánchez, associate administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration under President Joe Biden, who oversees the Office of Disaster Recovery and Resilience. Sánchez flew in from Washington, D.C. to see the devastation caused by the Eaton and Palisades fires.

In disaster-response circles, he’s something of a legend. He helped coordinate the rapid conversion of the Houston Astrodome to house families displaced by Hurricane Katrina. But he’s also about to lose his job. The Trump administration is set to take over the federal government in nine days.

I run through the facts about Altadena. One in five residents is Black. One in four is Latino. The median age is 45.

We talk about resiliency and rebuilding. We talk about neighbors banding together to collectively bargain with contractors. We talk about the Army Corps of Engineers choosing not to conduct soil testing in Altadena — the first time it has declined to do so after a major fire in two decades.

But it’s the last thing Sánchez tells me that stays with me a year later.

“You have to fight like hell to make sure what happened in Hawaii doesn’t happen to you,” he said. “They will turn Altadena into condos, if you let them.”

Firefighters battling a blaze in Altadena

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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Breathing was difficult

In the spring, the calls began.

Neighbors scattered across Los Angeles County started receiving offers from real estate agents and private equity firms that had quietly moved into the region.

Before the fire, private acquisitions accounted for about 5% of home sales in Altadena. Four months later, they accounted for nearly 50%.

What Sánchez warned about was already happening. Breathing was still difficult on my block.

The Eaton Fire began as a wildfire but quickly became an urban fire. The Los Angeles Times compared the toxicity levels in our area to New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks.

I worried about neighbors — mostly people of color — whose homes survived but who had little choice but to return quickly because they lacked sufficient insurance coverage.

I worried about the air we were breathing. But no one seemed able to tell me who was responsible for monitoring it.

At the disaster center on Woodbury Road, sympathetic county officials told me the state of California oversaw air quality. I called my state senator, Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez.

Pérez, a newly elected Democrat and former mayor, took my calls — and those of my neighbors — seriously. She contacted the governor’s office and spoke with the team responsible for air quality in Altadena.

The response she received was: “It’s complicated.” That might have been the understatement of the year.

The My LA series looks at how changing demographics are shifting culture in LA’s historic neighborhoods and communities — told by the people from those communities.

Moments of grace

Months passed.

It became heartbreaking to watch Altadena residents leave LA altogether because they couldn’t afford to live anywhere else in the city. It was even harder to watch my neighbor across the street sell his home after placing an “Altadena Is Not for Sale” sign on his lawn.

Still, amid the devastation, there were moments of grace.

Volunteers from across Los Angeles flooded the greater Pasadena area to help after the fire. Residents leaned on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), mutual aid networks, family members, local churches and the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation. 

I volunteered at — and relied on — community donation centers myself. One of the most meaningful was the Pasadena Community Job Center, which served the region’s undocumented population.

Even though my home didn’t burn, I had to evacuate after high levels of lead were detected inside.

From wherever I was staying, I drove an hour to attend town halls, join community meetings, ask questions at disaster centers and speak with elected officials.

Nearly half of Altadena — an unincorporated foothill community long known for its diversity and working-class stability — had burned.

Firefighters battle to save a home

Only one firetruck

Months later, Sánchez called again.

He was no longer a federal employee, but he still checked in on me and my neighbors. He suggested I attend a Crisis Management Academy at Hayes Boone in downtown LA, where he sat on the board.

I pulled my suit from a vacuum-sealed remediation bag and went.

By chance, I sat next to Rick Crawford, the emergency and crisis management coordinator for the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court and a former battalion chief with the Los Angeles Fire Department.

I told him I lived west of Lake Avenue — historically the predominantly Black, Latino and working-class side of Altadena.

Nineteen of the 20 deaths from the Eaton Fire occurred there and only one firetruck was initially sent to that side of town.

Evacuation notices arrived hours later than they did in wealthier neighborhoods east of Lake Avenue — if they arrived at all. My family never received one.

I asked Crawford if he believed racism explained the disparity. He told me something worse might have happened.

The night before the fires, he said, officials knew a severe wind event was coming. Yet staffing levels were not increased.

“Business as usual,” he called it.

When the Palisades Fire ignited, city resources were quickly stretched. The city turned to the county for help. When the Eaton Fire exploded, the county deployed the firefighters it had left to protect Altadena.

By the time flames reached west of Lake Avenue, resources were gone.

A failure of preparation turned into a failure of response — one that hit my side of Altadena hardest.

The Fair Oaks Burger restaurant became a community rallying point

The sounds of construction

One year later, Altadena is still waiting.

Friends who lost their homes are waiting for settlements from Southern California Edison Co., which investigators believe caused the Eaton Fire, to determine whether they can rebuild at all.

Trial is scheduled for January 2027. A judge recently ordered Edison to produce witnesses when called, criticizing attempts to prolong the discovery process for attorneys representing fire victims. A grand jury is also considering whether to indict the utility company in connection with the 19 deaths in Altadena.

Those of us who have returned do what we can to support one another — and the small businesses trying to survive.

In those days, my business meetings happened at Miya, Unincorporated Coffee or Fair Oaks Burger.

Community advocates — including Altadena for Accountability and Altadena Rising, along with Pérez — pushed the California Department of Justice to open a civil rights investigation into the evacuation response in West Altadena.

Walking along Altadena Drive, I thought about the homes and gardens that had once lined the street.

Reconstruction has begun, slowly. The sound of construction — loud, constant — is an inconvenience. But it’s better than the eerie silence that followed the fire.

On Mariposa Street, I passed the empty space where Amara Kitchen and Altadena Hardware had once stood.

Next door, something new appeared. Betsy, the restaurant from chef Tyler Wells — who also lost his home in the fire — was drawing diners from across LA for its live-fire cooking.

It lifted my spirits to see people coming to Altadena again. But as a local resident, I still struggled to get a reservation.

Maybe that was the first glimpse of what rebuilding might look like: those with money and privilege dining easily, while the rest of us remain on the waiting list.

The rebuild is slow. The pain is enormous. But the resilience of Altadena is fierce.

We fight for accountability, truth and justice. We fight for the right to rebuild our town as it once was. Most of all, we fight for one another.

Because, as labor leader Mary Harris “Mother” Jones once said: “Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.”

Is your neighborhood changing? We want to hear your story. Whether you’ve lived on your block for forty years or four, we want to know: What does “home” mean to you right now?Share a brief memory or a thought on how your neighborhood is changing with us at pitches@thelalocal.org. We’ll feature some of our favorite responses in our newsletter, and if your story sparks something deeper, we may reach out to commission a full-length piece (yes, we pay our writers!)

The post ‘Pray for the dead, fight for the living’ — How Altadena is battling to rebuild without being displaced appeared first on LA Local.

Selling bonds. Awarding tax credits. Overseeing pension funds. Investing idle cash for maximum return.

These are the roles of California’s treasurer, a job that evokes someone with a fondness for green eyeshades and a favorite Excel function.

But in California — as in most other states — it’s a job that goes to a politician.

That may leave voters wondering: What’s the best combination of skills, experience and values for such an exceedingly wonky job?

Ask the six candidates and you’re liable to get six different answers.

California’s next money manager should be a detail-oriented former diplomat, according to Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis.

For State Sen. Anna Caballero, Kounalakis’ chief Democratic rival, the better option is a wily elected official from a working class community with experience running a government bureaucracy.

The two Republicans, Jennifer Hawks and David Serpa, both believe it should be someone eager to check the fiscal impulses of California’s overwhelmingly Democratic political establishment.

Board of Equalization member Tony Vazquez thinks a long-time elected tax commissioner is a good fit. Glenn Turner, a former crystal and Tarot card seller-turned mental health activist, believes the role calls for someone with a radical political vision.

Not even turn-of-the-century Gov. Hiram Johnson, one of modern California’s political founding fathers, knew what makes a good state treasurer. The job, he complained to the Legislature in 1911, is “merely clerical” and its “qualifications naturally can not be well understood.”

The June 2 race is largely a rivalry between the top Democrats.

Kounalakis vs Caballero

There isn’t much reliable public polling, but as measured by name recognition, high-caliber endorsements and campaign cash on hand, this is Kounalakis’ race to lose.

That’s in part thanks to her current role as lieutenant governor — a job that commands statewide name ID and governing experience, even if its list of responsibilities is relatively short.

Kounalakis’ personal fortune has also surely helped her become a top candidate. The daughter of developer Angelo Tsakopolous, founder of Sacramento-based AKT Development Corporation, she has nearly nine times as much money parked in her campaign account as the other five candidates combined.

Kounalakis entered Democratic politics as a major donor, helping her secure an ambassadorship to Hungary under President Barack Obama. Those fundraising connections also have paid off this cycle: She is endorsed by former first lady Hillary Clinton, former U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

From left, state Sen. Anna Caballero and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis.

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Fred Greaves and Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

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CalMatters

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Kounalakis wouldn’t be the first to take this path to the treasurer’s office. Phil Angeledes, who served from 1999 to 2007, is also an AKT alum whose political career was partially funded by Tsakopolous.

Though Kounalakis initially ran to replace Newsom as governor, she switched to the lower-profile treasurer’s race last summer amid flagging prospects in a crowded field. But Kounalakis, whose campaign did not respond to requests for an interview, has since argued that her experience as a developer and her self-professed technical orientation make the role of treasurer a better fit. She told the San Francisco Chronicle that she craved a technical role after so many years as a diplomat “standing in front of a podium with a visiting dignitary.”

Kounalakis’ decision was an unwelcome development for state Sen. Anna Caballero. A longtime state legislator who served as Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency secretary under former Gov. Jerry Brown, the Merced Democrat was the presumptive favorite until then. Caballero has the upper hand by at least one metric: She has raised more money than Kounalakis since the beginning of this year, even if her campaign account is dwarfed by the war chest the lieutenant governor has amassed over the years.

Both Kounalakis and Caballero are termed out of their current roles.

The competition between the two top Democratic hopefuls is fierce, even if they don’t seem to disagree about much.

Both want the state to simplify the application process for affordable housing subsidies — which is already in the works with the governor’s new housing agency. Both support recent treasurer’s initiatives to direct state funds toward renewable energy projects and to administer a retirement savings program for workers whose employers don’t offer pension or 401k accounts. Both expressed enthusiasm about a proposal to require state banks and other financial institutions to lend more in lower income neighborhoods and communities.

Where there is daylight between the two, it is more a matter of emphasis than major disagreement. Caballero, for example, avidly promotes the use of hydrogen and dairy gas as gasoline alternatives and said the treasurer could foster private-public partnerships in those industries. As a member of the State Lands Commission, Kounalakis is an avid advocate for off-shore wind power development.

Who will make the top two?

Though Kounalakis and Caballero are the two most formidable candidates, it’s far from certain that both will make it to the November ballot. One of the top two spots could easily go to a Republican under California’s system in which the top two vote-getters advance.

California’s Republican establishment has been doing everything possible to make that happen. The California Republican Party formally endorsed Jennifer Hawks, a Bay Area party activist and former private school administrator, over fellow Republican David Serpa. Reform California, the conservative fundraising and get-out-the-vote organization run by Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, also endorsed her.

“There’s a risk of splitting the vote,” DeMaio noted in a live-streamed conversation with Hawks. “We need to make sure that we have someone in the general election that we can be proud of.”

What does the treasurer do?

The day-to-day work is mostly done by professional staff and it doesn’t vary much with changes at the top. That doesn’t afford their elected boss much room for creativity or innovation. Bill Lockyer, the state’s treasurer between 2007 and 2015, said the job’s main role is to ensure that work is done with Californians in mind — that the “professional staff is managing responsibly.”

Still, there are occasional opportunities to do more with the job. Lockyer pointed to his decision to invest in international renewable energy projects through the World Bank — a first for the state — as one of his most important achievements. When Angeledes held the office, he used the treasurer’s posts on the boards of the state’s two major public employee pension funds to inveigh against investment banks and to champion the rights of shareholders. Other Democratic treasurers have acted as fiscal foils to Republican governors.

Since the days of Hiram Johnson, the post has also occasionally been derided as a sinecure for career politicians awaiting their next move.

That, said Caballero, is decidedly not why she wants to be treasurer. Pointing to her work on housing policy and rural economic development, she said everything in her legislative career “relates back to what’s in the treasurer’s office.”

Adding a not-so-subtle dig at Kounalakis: “I’m not on a stepping stone up to something else.”

Not that the treasurer’s office has been a particularly effective stepping stone: Angeledes, Kathleen Brown, and, more recently, John Chiang all attempted post-treasurer’s office runs for governor. None succeeded.

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

Inglewood’s Citizen Police Oversight Commission hasn’t met in almost nine years — its web page no longer exists, and its roster of commissioners, supposed to be 11 strong, appears only to have five names. 

This may be a violation of the city’s own code, one expert told The LA Local.

The commission didn’t do much in the first 15 years that it did meet, multiple sources told The LA Local, after the city stripped its investigative authority in its early days. The commission hasn’t met at all since 2017, when meeting minutes recorded Lee Denmon, the commission’s chair, optimistically pitching a shift to a public safety focus.

“We didn’t have any teeth,” Denmon told The LA Local in April. “This commission was formed to fail.” 

Even with limited power, police commissions are one of only a few venues where community members can bring grievances against a local police force. An active oversight commission can serve a range of roles, from hiring police chiefs to recommending disciplinary actions against officers. It’s this type of accountability and transparency that activists and family members of Bryan Bostic, who died in Inglewood police custody, have been calling for since his death on March 10.

Every one of the Inglewood commission’s monthly meetings was canceled between late 2017 and 2022, according to city records. Since then, the city hasn’t even bothered to post a notice of cancellation. 

“It just kind of fizzled out,” Denmon said.

Inglewood Mayor James Butts told The LA Local the city no longer has a police commission and that it doesn’t have any members. 

“It was toothless. It had no subpoena power,” said Butts, the former Santa Monica police chief. “If you want to have a good police department, you have a good police chief and, if possible, you have members of the council that have police management experience. That’s the best police oversight that you can have.”

Inglewood code uses mandatory language for its police commission, expert says 

Inglewood’s Citizen Police Oversight Commission hasn’t met in almost nine years — its web page no longer exists, and its roster of commissioners, supposed to be 11 strong, appears only to have five names.

Civil rights attorney Peter Bibring said the city may be violating its own code, which calls for the Inglewood police chief to report use-of-force investigation results to an 11-member body.

“The ordinance used mandatory language,” said Bibring, who formerly led the American Civil Liberties Union of California’s work on policing, then spent two years with the Los Angeles County Office of the Inspector General. 

“The city can’t just stop following the requirements of the municipal code because they don’t think it’s important anymore,” he said.

Inglewood Police Chief Mark Fronterotta and Interim City Attorney Rick Olivarez did not respond to a series of interview requests from The LA Local. 

The city’s website still lists commissioners for each of its four council districts: Carol Willis in District 1, David P. Stewart in District 2, Adrianne Sears and Matthew Chinichian in District 3 and Councilwoman Dionne Faulk in District 4. The LA Local attempted to reach out to Chinichian, Stewart, Sears and Faulk but did not receive a response, and did not find contact information for Willis.

Councilmembers Gloria Gray, Eloy Morales and Alex Padilla did not return requests for comment. Padilla is a former police officer and police use-of-force investigator. 

Inglewood’s city code does not give its police commissioners the same tools as others, such as the city of Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, who are responsible for setting policy and hiring top officers. 

But Bibring said even limited oversight commissions can be effective. They provide a forum for members of the public to raise concerns with police actions and for police to report the results of misconduct inquiries, he said.

“Commissions don’t necessarily need power to hire and fire to provide some measure of transparency that can be really meaningful,” Bibring said. “They provide an important window into what the department is doing.”

Police commission issues in Inglewood go back more than a decade

Inglewood’s Citizen Police Oversight Commission hasn’t met in almost nine years — its web page no longer exists, and its roster of commissioners, supposed to be 11 strong, appears only to have five names.

Inglewood officials first considered an ordinance to form a police oversight commission in 2002, according to city records. The first version of the commission had power to investigate complaints against the department with help from an independent police misconduct investigator appointed by the city. 

But two years later, after pushback from the city’s police unions surfaced legal concerns, records indicate the city killed the commission’s investigatory power.

Daniel Tabor was an Inglewood councilmember in 2008 when Inglewood police fatally shot four different people in the space of just a few months. But Tabor — today the vice president of the LA Board of Police Commissioners —  said he doesn’t recall Inglewood’s commission doing much. 

“It doesn’t have the same level of authority or responsibility or resources that we have in Los Angeles,” Tabor said. 

The U.S. Department of Justice launched a civil rights probe in the wake of those shootings and found flaws in Inglewood’s police oversight. Commissioners told the LA Times in 2009 they felt frustrated and powerless. 

Controversy continued to simmer for the next 15 years. The commission was already canceling many meetings in 2016 when police fatally shot Kisha Michael and Marquintan Sandlin. The city later fired the officers involved in that shooting.

Inglewood purged a batch of police records in 2018, days before a state transparency law took effect, and remains locked in a years-long court battle with the ACLU over the release of other police records. A judge ordered the city last winter to post police misconduct records online. 

The Inglewood Police Department has been under fresh scrutiny after Bostic’s still-unexplained death in Inglewood police custody in March. Beyond the department’s own investigation, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office is investigating the police use of force, and the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office is still looking into Bostic’s cause of death.

Activist Najee Ali said he believes the city would have “without question” been more transparent if it had an active police oversight commission. 

But Denmon, the former commission chair, said the commission would only have made a difference if it had more power.

“The only way it works is if someone is going to make (police) cooperate with the commission,” Denmon said.

LAist and The Los Angeles Sentinel contributed to this report. 

The number of Californians without health insurance could double from 2 million today to 4 million by 2030, according to a report from the state Legislative Analyst's Office. It’s the state budget office’s preliminary attempt to quantify how federal legislation known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will reshape healthcare access statewide.

The One Big Beautiful Bill is driving nearly 90% of the projected coverage loss, according to the LAO report. It's mostly Medi-Cal enrollees who are expected to be dropped when new work requirements take effect in 2027. The remaining 10% are largely people leaving the state's health insurance marketplace, Covered California, after enhanced federal premium subsidies expired last year.

What's the impact to coverage?

L.A. County officials estimate that recent Medi-Cal changes could put coverage at risk for hundreds of thousands of residents and cost the health departments about $800 million a year. A UC Berkeley Labor Center analysis projected more than 1 million Medi-Cal enrollees could lose coverage by 2028.

The LAO report also warns that county indigent health programs for uninsured residents will soon face a surge in demand they’re not prepared to meet. Those county programs had enrolled about 850,000 people statewide before the federal government expanded Medicaid coverage in 2014. Total enrollment is currently 10,000 statewide, but the trend is going to reverse, according to the report.

What's the impact to health-care providers?

More uninsured people means hospitals and clinics provide more services without getting paid. The LAO projects that uncompensated care costs at hospitals could grow by several billion dollars statewide by 2030. Clinics face steeper losses because they run on smaller budgets and depend more heavily on Medi-Cal revenue.

The LAO also projects premiums on the individual health insurance market will rise as healthier people drop coverage.

What are proposals to help?

The LAO itself doesn’t recommend new spending and instead urges lawmakers to track what happens to hospitals, clinics and county programs before taking action. But both L.A. County and state officials are pushing tax efforts to combat federal cuts.

L.A. County voters will decide June 2 on Measure ER, a half-cent sales tax that would generate about $1 billion a year for hospitals and clinics. ANovember statewide ballot initiative would impose a one-time 5% tax on Californians worth over $1 billion and direct 90% of proceeds to Medi-Cal.

California regulators say State Farm has illegally delayed, underpaid and denied claims from policyholders affected by the 2025 L.A. fires — something fire survivors have said for months.

The California Department of Insurance announced Monday that it has taken the first step in the process to bring the allegations to a public hearing before an administrative judge. That could result in the state’s largest home insurer paying up to about $4 million in penalties, and suspension of its license for up to a year, meaning it could not write new policies in California during that time.

“Our investigation found that State Farm delayed, underpaid, and buried policyholders in red tape at the worst moment of their lives,” state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said in a statement.

The state analyzed 220 randomly selected claims — out of more than 11,000 filed with State Farm in response to last year’s fires — and found hundreds of violations in more than half them. Attorneys for the state called it a “troubling pattern” in their filing.

State Farm denied the allegations and called the state’s move “politically motivated” in a lengthy statement posted to its website.

Every Fire Survivors Network, a coalition representing thousands of L.A. fire survivors, pressured the state for months to investigate State Farm’s handling of wildfire claims.

Joy Chen, who co-founded the group after her home was damaged in the Eaton Fire, said the state’s action is far from enough.

“It’s just very disappointing to see our regulator issue a report that shows his own failures over the last 16 months,” she told LAist.

Only a few dozen homes have been rebuilt so far in both Altadena and Pacific Palisades since the fires destroyed more than 16,000 buildings, mostly homes, in those communities and nearby areas.

A survey by the nonprofit Department of Angels last year found that nearly three-quarters of L.A. fire survivors reported delays, denials and low payouts of their claims across all insurers.

“What we need is for all State Farm contracts to be enforced so that Los Angeles families can have the money that we need to move forward with getting back home,” Chen said.

The state’s alleged violations carry a fine of up to $5,000, and up to $10,000 if the violations are found to be willful. The case will be heard by a state administrative law judge, who will provide a recommendation to Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara on a possible penalty.

The Insurance Department said people with homeowners policies from any insurer can report problems with their claims at insurance.ca.gov or by calling (800) 927-4357.