The Brief

L.A. County’s secretive $2 million payout to its CEO two months ago — first revealed by LAist this week — was to settle her claims that she was harmed by a ballot measure that will change her job to an elected position and by the county’s messaging.

CEO Fesia Davenport had requested the settlement for what she claimed was “reputational harm, embarrassment and physical, emotional and mental distress caused by the Measure G.”

Measure G will transform the CEO job from an appointed position into an elected one starting in 2028. Voters approved it last year after most of the county Board of Supervisors placed it on the ballot.

In letters laying out her claims, Davenport said that while the measure made the case for structural changes, its text impugned her reputation by saying “the lack of strong, elected executive leadership has impacted our ability to address these challenges.”

“It conflates desired structural changes with the desired attributes of the [elected CEO] and by implication the undesirable attributes of the current CEO,” Davenport wrote. The text was put on the ballot by Davenport’s bosses on the county Board of Supervisors.

She also wrote that she deserved compensation from her career as the at-will CEO being cut short by the shift to elected CEO in late 2028, which she said also would lessen how much retirement she’d earn.

Measure G “ends my career as CEO at least two years earlier than I intend,” Davenport wrote.

The changes to the CEO position will happen after Davenport’s employment contract was set to end, based on the timing described in her letters. She requested that her contract be extended through December 2028, the same month the CEO position switches to being elected.

The letters show Davenport’s opening request was for $2 million, which is what a majority of county supervisors ultimately agreed to pay her.

By receiving the payment in one lump sum, Davenport wrote she would be able “to earn interest on the funds to help mitigate the lifelong impact of Measure G on my retirement allowance.”

She wrote that her request was “not so beyond the pale to be unreasonable,” pointing to other payouts to several other county executives — including a $1.5 million settlement payment to her predecessor as CEO.

Davenport laid out her claims in letters starting in August 2024. The county released two of the letters on Tuesday evening to LAist and the L.A. Times, after LAist cited a state law since last week requiring the county to disclose them “upon request without delay."

[Click here to read the claim letters disclosed by the county.]

County Supervisor Janice Hahn says she never disparaged Davenport.

“In the years I worked to expand the board and create an elected county executive, I never disparaged our current CEO in any way,” Hahn said in a statement. “This was a measure about accountability, an outdated county structure and giving voters the power to elect someone to an entirely new position — the county executive. I always envisioned the CEO team working alongside the new elected county executive.”

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, one of the main drivers of Measure G, said she reluctantly voted in favor of the settlement.

“I was presented with two bad options: settle a claim I disagreed with, or risk a protracted court battle,” Horvath said in an emailed statement to LAist. “Either choice meant spending precious taxpayer dollars, but settling resolved the matter quickly.”

Horvath added that she was not fully satisfied with the settlement “because it did not include some contractual terms that might help to further mitigate future risk.”

“Measure G was never about any one individual; it’s about reforming a broken system and returning power to the people,” Horvath said.

The pro-Measure G campaign issued a statement Wednesday condemning the settlement deal.

“Los Angeles County residents should be outraged,” said the statement, provided by Morgan Miller of Yes on Measure G. “After years of the county telling its workers and the public that there was no money for fair pay, cost-of-living increases or essential services, County CEO Fesia Davenport has demanded — and received — $2 million in taxpayer funds as part of a ‘settlement’ simply because of ‘embarrassment and … distress caused by … Measure G.’ ”

“This is a blatant misuse of public money and a clear demonstration of why Measure G was necessary in the first place,” she added.

Davenport did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

County supervisors unanimously approved the settlement July 29, with Davenport and county executives giving final sign off in mid-August. But it was not reported publicly until LAist obtained a copy of the settlement and published it this week. The taxpayer-funded deal was also labeled as ‘confidential.’

The county’s usual process is to publicly report out and approve proposed settlements above $100,000, though in this case county officials opted to approve it behind closed doors. County Counsel Dawyn Harrison’s office has not answered LAist’s questions asking why.

As part of the settlement, Davenport gave up her right to sue the county over her Measure G claims and over anything else that happened previously between herself and the county. Neither side admitted liability, according to the deal, and Davenport continued in her job as CEO.

The agreement requires Davenport to keep the existence of the settlement and its contents “strictly private and confidential,” with limited exceptions.

The settlement also stipulates that Davenport cannot “make, induce or cause any other person or entity to make negative statements or communications disparaging” the Board of Supervisors and other county officials. There are exceptions, including for required testimony and for disclosing workplace conduct that she believes to be unlawful.

L.A. County’s attorneys have not disclosed a third letter referenced in Davenport’s claim, from December 2024.

Nicole Davis Tinkham, the chief deputy county counsel who signed the public records response, has not responded to an LAist request for an explanation for why the record apparently was withheld.

Davenport began an unscheduled leave of absence last week that is expected to last until early next year, according to her office. She did not give a reason in her announcement to her staff but later told LAist her leave was for unspecified medical reasons.

The leave is unrelated to the settlement, according to her office.

MyLA311, the system designed to help residents access city services for graffiti removal or streetlight outages, got a makeover last year, but since then some Angelenos and Los Angeles city staff have reported it has been plagued by problems.

The city has received “numerous complaints” about the updated website and app, including issues with GPS and logging work, according to officials.

MyLA311 is set up so residents can report non-emergency issues and track requests for tree inspections, homeless encampment services and illegal dumping, to name a few. There are 86 options in neighborhoods, according to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, which helped launch the new system.

Staffers within the city’s Department of Public Works have said they’ve been frustrated by the rollout, according to city officials. They say it now takes longer to add their responses to service requests, and the city can’t record completed work that doesn’t have a service request connected to it.

City Council members Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez led a motion aimed at addressing the issues, saying they’ve caused concerns about the system’s overall functionality and accountability.

“Reports and individuals are telling us that because of this broken 311 app, folks are once again going back to using Excel sheets, phone calls, paper and pen in order to engage in service delivery, and I think that that's a problem,” Padilla said during Wednesday’s council meeting.

The motion instructs Public Works to make a formal report of any problems with the system, including how they may be affecting service timelines and completion rates, and asks the city’s IT agency to come up with potential solutions.

It was approved in a 12-0 vote Wednesday. Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield, Eunisses Hernandez and Adrin Nazarian were absent.

How we got here

Bass announced the launch of the new MyLA311 last year, saying the previous website and app were outdated and had lasted years past their lifecycle.

In a 2023 directive, she’d called for the system to be modernized with the goal of providing better customer service and communication about the status of residents’ requests.

“This new and improved way to request and receive city services is another example of how we are breaking away from the old way of doing things to make our neighborhoods cleaner and safer,” Bass said in a March 2025 statement.

But some people say the new system is falling short.

According to the North Hollywood Northeast Neighborhood Council, the new app has “actually made it harder for Angelenos to request services.”

The Sylmar Neighborhood Council agreed the system needs improvements, writing in a community impact statement that MyLA311 fails to serve L.A. taxpayers effectively if it’s difficult to use or inaccurate.

In public comments, some residents cited “major issues” with the system, including GPS and location accuracy, invalid addresses and missing or incomplete service categories. One commenter wrote that addresses were being routed to other areas, some of them outside the city.

“As a result, they frequently lead to confusion in the field, delays in response and, in some cases, requests going unaddressed due to the difficulty in locating the reported issue or misdirection caused by inaccurate data,” the commenter said.

What’s ahead

The City Council approved several instructions aimed at improving MyLA311, including the following:

• Public Works is expected to report back on its issues with the system.
• The city’s Information Technology Agency is expected to report on system performance, including operational issues, and provide solutions as needed.
• Public Works and IT are expected to provide quarterly reports on service request data, including backlogs, average response times and requests received and closed.

The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.

Until now these individuals have been accorded temporary legal status because their safety is imperiled by war or natural disasters in their home countries.

Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Donald Trump, however, is trying to end it.

On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration's decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency's decision-making either. Pressed by the court's three liberal justices, Sauer insisted that the courts cannot review anything.

"None of those procedural steps required by the statue are reviewable. That's your position?" asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

"Correct," responded Sauer.

"What you're basically saying is that Congress wrote a statute for no purpose," Sotomayor said.

Justice Elena Kagan noted that under the statute the secretary of Homeland Security is supposed to consult with the U.S. State Department about what the conditions are in those countries that people have been forced to flee. What if she didn't do that at all, Kagan asked. Or what if she asked, but the response from the State Department came back: "Wasn't that baseball game last night great!"

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked what would happen if the secretary used a Ouija board to make decisions?

To all these hypotheticals, Solicitor General Sauer stood firm. That prompted this from Sotomayor: "Now, we have a president saying at one point that Haiti is a 'filthy, dirty, and disgusting s--thole country.' I'm quoting him. He declared illegal immigrants, which he associated with TPS, as poisoning the blood of America. I don't see how that one statement is not a prime example … showing that a discriminatory purpose may have played a part in this decision."

Sauer pushed back, noting that Kristi Noem, the then-DHS secretary, had not mentioned race at all. That prompted this response from Justice Jackson, the only Black woman on the court, "So the position of the United States is that we have an actual racial epithet that we aren't allowed to look at all the context."

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the mother of two adopted Haitian children, interjected at that point to clarify the administration's position. Are you conceding that individuals with TPS status could bring a challenge based on race discrimination? she asked.

Sauer appeared to concede the point.

Representing the Haitians, lawyer Geoffrey Pipoly described the administration's review as "a sham."

"The true reason for the termination [of TPS status] is the president's racial animus toward non-white immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians in particular," Pipoly said. "The secretary herself described people from Haiti" and from other non-white countries as "killers, leeches, saying, 'We don't want them, not one,'" while "simultaneously enacting another humanitarian form of relief for white and only white South Africans."

That was too much for Justice Samuel Alito who asked Pipoly, "Do you think that if you put Syrians, Turks, Greeks and other people who live around the Mediterranean in a line-up, do you think you could say those people are … non-white?"

An uncomfortable Pipoly resisted categorizing each group until Alito got to his own roots.

"How about southern Italians?" Alito inquired, prompting laughter in the courtroom.

Responded Pipoly: "Certainly 120 years ago when we had our last wave of European immigration, southern Italians were not considered white. … Our concept of these things evolves over time."

At the end of Wednesday's court session, one thing was clear: President Trump may be furious at some of the conservative justices he appointed for invalidating his tariffs, but for the most part, he is getting his way. Especially in light of the court's 6-to-3 decision, announced Wednesday, which effectively guts what remains of the landmark Voting Rights Act, once celebrated as a signature achievement of American Democracy.

Copyright 2026 NPR

The last dog from the Eaton Fire taken in by Pasadena Humane has now been adopted.

Artemis the German shepherd was originally taken to the Pasadena animal shelter for emergency boarding. His family, which lost its home in the January fire, ultimately decided to put him up for adoption.

"The silver lining to all of that is — with all this tragedy — this incredible story of hope where we were able to help foster these animals we’re returning home," said Sarie Hooker,  communications manager at Pasadena Humane.

During his stay at Pasadena Humane, the cream-color pup won over many hearts.

"He's just such a striking boy. He's got this really fun, loving personality. He's very regal," Hooker said.

Hooker said Artemis was adopted by a family through the shelter's foster-to-adopt program.

"He just did amazingly. And the next thing we knew, he was adopted," Hooker said. "So it's a happy story."

Artemis says hello to a new family.

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Courtesy Pasadena Humane

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The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 9,500 structures, including about 6,000 homes. Two days after the fire broke out, Pasadena Humane reported receiving more than 350 pets from displaced residents.

By the second week of the fire, the shelter had taken in some 600 pets, Hooker said.

" In totality, we were able to help with thousands of animals specifically for emergency boarding," Hooker said, including every kind of pet you can think of, as well as wild animals.

" We were seeing skunks, squirrels, hawks, owls, peacocks, raccoons, possums," she said.

Artemis isn't just the last dog to find a home — or return home — from the Eaton Fire.

He is the last animal.

" Artemis was our final, final animal — like dog, cat, critter. Anything else under the sun.  He was the last boy. So we're very happy," she said.

National and local organizers are calling on communities to abstain from work, school and shopping Friday in recognition of May Day.

The “economic blackout” is modeled after January protests in Minnesota following the surge of immigration enforcement and shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens.

“Our vision includes an economy that works for everyone with a living wage, strong labor protections and programs that keep families housed, fed, educated and healthy,” said Francisco Moreno, executive director of the Council of Mexican Federations in North America, in a Tuesday press conference.

The organization is one of more than 100 involved in planning a Los Angeles May Day rally with the theme, “solo el pueblo shuts it down:  no school, no work, no shopping.”

This year’s largest planned gathering starts at MacArthur Park, a longtime hub for day laborers and street vendors. Last July, immigration agents in armored vehicles descended on the park. The ongoing immigration raids and city policies have contributed to the challenges street vendors face.

“Starting there really sends a message that we're here,” said Kristal Romero, press secretary for the  Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “We're standing with this community, and if you take on one of us, you take on all of us.”

May Day’s history in LA

May Day, sometimes called International Workers' Day, started after an 1886 strike tied to the fight for an eight-hour work day. The protest turned violent after police attacked workers. In the 1990s, L.A. organizers started to connect the labor movement with advocacy for immigrant rights.

This year’s event also marks the 20th anniversary of 2006’s massive rallies in support of immigration reform.

Romero said the Federation has offered training on de-escalation, conflict resolution and non-violent protests and that hundreds of people will act as “peacekeepers” during Friday’s rally and march.

“ A lot of times, folks can get caught in echo chambers and it may really feel hopeless,” Romero said. “The big point of these events is to inspire hope to show people we're all here, we're all fighting for the same thing.”

Los Angeles County

MacArthur Park

Time: 10 a.m.
Location: March begins at the corner of South Park View Street and Wilshire Boulevard and heads toward downtown L.A.
Organizers: Los Angeles May Day Coalition

L.A. City Hall

Time: Noon
Location: City Hall, 200 N. Spring St., downtown L.A.
Organizers: Union del Barrio and the Community Self-Defense Coalition

Boyle Heights

Time: 3 p.m.
Location: Mariachi Plaza, 1831 First St.
Organizers: Centro CSO

Long Beach

Time: 10 a.m.
Location: March starts at The Marketplace, 6501 Pacific Coast Highway, and ends at Mother’s Beach.
Organizers: Long Beach Indivisible, more details here.

San Fernando Valley

Time: 10 a.m.
Location: Northeast corner of Topanga Canyon and Victory Boulevard, Woodland Hills
Organizers: Indivisible Woodland Hills, SF Valley Brigade, others

Santa Clarita

Time: 10 a.m.
Location: 24292 Valencia Blvd.
Organizers: Indivisible CA27

Orange County 

Orange

Time: 3 p.m. rally
Location: City Hall, 300 E. Chapman Ave.

Time: 5 p.m.
Location: Orange Plaza Circle, Chapman Avenue and Glassell Street
Organizers: OC Indivisible Coalition

Santa Ana

Time: 3:30 p.m.
Location: Sasscer Park, 600 W. Santa Ana Blvd., Santa Ana
Organizers: OC May Day Coalition