The Brief

In recent months there’s been a lot of focus on hotels for downtown L.A.’s most vulnerable residents. Through the statewide initiative Project Homekey, efforts have ramped up to convert underutilized hotels into homes, and nonprofit organizations have also purchased old residential hotels to create units for folks experiencing homelessness.

However, despite their vital work, controversies and problems have swirled around the many nonprofit SRO organizations.In April last year, all 29 properties operated by the nonprofit Skid Row Housing Trust were placed in receivership after falling into disrepair and becoming drug hubs.

In fact this discussion has been ongoing for over 140 years. Rooming houses, small residential hotels, tenements and what we now know as “single residency occupancy” residences have all played a vital role in providing housing to hundreds of thousands of Angelenos as downtown has transformed again and again.

Bare bones rooms

Los Angeles was founded in 1781, a tiny, dusty outpost centered around what we now know as Olvera Street and the historic La Placita Church. As it grew, agricultural fields lining the Los Angeles River (roughly bordering what we now know as the Arts District and Little Tokyo) brought seasonal migrants to the area. In 1876, the transcontinental railway arrived, and the Southern Pacific Rail Yard (now the Los Angeles State Historic Park) opened. In 1888, the Arcade Depot opened at Alameda Street, between 5th and 6th Streets.

Small residential hotels and boarding houses began to spring up in the area to house the countless single men who came to work the rail yards, the fields — and help build the Los Angeles we know today. These residences often offered cheap rent, bare bones single or shared rooms, communal bathrooms, and storage facilities near sites of agriculture and industry.

But as the Victorian era made way to the 20th century, these facilities would prove woefully inadequate in the face of Los Angeles’ unprecedented growth.

“Railway fare wars at the turn of the century brought the price of train tickets from the East Coast way down, making travel more affordable. The city was also heavily promoted as a place to recover and recuperate,” said planning historian Meredith Drake Reitan, associate sean at USC Graduate School. “Later, migrants were attracted by Hollywood, by jobs in the aerospace industry, and the port. The population of L.A. basically tripled between 1890 and 1900. The population doubled again between 1920 and 1930. I’ve always loved that Carey McWilliams’ quote about L.A.’s growth: it has been ‘one continuous boom punctuated at intervals by major explosions.’ All of those people needed somewhere to live.”

During the early 20th century, more and more residential hotels and subdivided boarding houses opened in areas including Skid Row, Little Tokyo, Boyle Heights, and what we now know as the Arts District.

“The people who lived closest to industry were those who were the lowest income and who had less healthful conditions for where they lived,” said Catherine Gudis, scholar-in-residence at the Los Angeles Poverty Department and director of the Public History Program at UC Riverside.

“The boarding houses were intended for those seasonal laborers and those working-class men who might have gone to different places following the work,” Gudis added. “There were also different scales of residential hotels to serve those people as well as families, because downtown was an urban enclave.”

While the nicer residential hotels had all the conveniences of a comfortable apartment, seasonal worker and transient accommodations were often shockingly substandard. Some were simply makeshift cubicles — larger rooms divided by plywood walls. Single rooms were not much better. According to Paul Groth’s masterful Living Downtown: The History of Residential Hotels in the United States, these accommodations often offered “only a dilapidated bed (sometimes with a straw mattress), one rickety chair, and a hook for clothes.”

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According to Groth, these residences had a (often unfair) poor reputation and were frequently targeted by the LAPD:

With its unprecedented growth, California did attempt to standardize living conditions at these hotels. “California’s 1917 hotel act showed the framers’ close familiarity with cheap hotel life,” Groth wrote. “They allowed existing cubicle rooms to remain, and they included guidelines for open dormitory rooms, however, they outlawed new cubicle hotels. Most important; the act set lasting bath-to-room ratios for the cheapest lodging houses: a separate water closet and shower on each floor for each sex, at the minimum ratio of 1 per 10 rooms of guests.”

Different classes of hotels

While more and more cheap hotels and boarding houses — often three- or four-story brick buildings — were opening in downtown LA, another type of “hotel” was being built to service middle- and upper-class visitors and residents. Some of these were “palace hotels” in western downtown like the Barclay Hotel (1896) Hotel Alexandria, The King Edward (both opened in 1906) and The Biltmore (1923), large edifices which provided luxury accommodations for visitors and well-heeled residents.

Then there were the mammoth middle-class hotels, which provided guest and living quarters to businesspeople and middle- class visitors like the Rosslyn (1914) and the Hotel Cecil (1924). “If the palace hotel was usually surrounded by some of the city’s most exclusive boutiques, the mid-priced hotel was usually close to the city’s best department stores and reasonably close to the financial district,” Groth wrote.

The need for affordable housing grew exponentially in the 1930s. “The depression increased the number of migrants to the city. We’ve all seen the Grapes of Wrath — the boosters got their way and California became a destination for millions who were pushed off family farms in the South and Mid-West,” Reitan said. “In the 1930s, downtown L.A. remained an important location for reasonably priced rent. And for those who bought the houses, having tenants was an important and steady source of income.”

Luckily, there were options. For working class singles and families there were ample accommodations on Bunker Hill, the once upper-class Victorian hillside neighborhood bordering the Western edge of downtown. Reitan explained:

Since square footage was at a premium, much of daily life was pushed outdoors.

“A lot of life happened out on the streets,” Reitan said. “If you had the money, you probably ate at least one meal in a café. On the top of Bunker Hill there was a collection of benches. We’ve seen a lot of photographs of these benches, it was obviously a place to meet friends and socialize. There were a lot of single people on the hill, especially widows.”

In nearby Little Tokyo, one iconic building also served as a home to countless Angelenos. According to Cecilia Rasmussen of the Los Angeles Times, a Chinese migrant named Look Mar Jung and his family opened the famed Far East Café (now Far Bar) at 374 1st Street. Above the café, the three-story building served as a 24-room residential hotel. “Over the years,” Rasmussen wrote, “the rooms housed Japanese immigrants: bachelors, dentists, workers in the bustling furniture and hardware industry, and even students of a chick-sexing school.”

But Los Angeles officials knew that these housing options could be better. In 1938, the Los Angeles Housing Authority, dedicated to providing affordable housing to Angelenos, formed. In 1949, the controversial Community Redevelopment Agency formed, dedicated to revitalizing, refurbishing, and renewing economically depressed areas of California (it was dissolved in 2012).

'Coded to death'

These organizations had their hands full — and a skewed perception of the lives of folks living in these spaces. According to Groth, in 1949 a sociologist described a rooming house in downtown Los Angeles as a “universe of anonymous transients.” In post-war downtown, middle class residents and businesses fled the area and headed west for the suburbs easily accessible by the shiny new freeways.

This meant the demographics living in residential hotels in DTLA dramatically shifted.

“Downtown residents in the 1930s and 1940s were well connected to jobs. They were clerks, plumbers, schoolteachers, actors, and beauticians. They also worked in the restaurants in and around downtown,” Reitan said. “As the 1940s became the 1950s, the number of elderly residents and retirees grew – I think living downtown gave them access to services and support that might not have been available elsewhere.”

L.A. businesspeople and city leaders interested in revitalizing downtown decided that the lower-income residents in the area need to go in the name of “progress.” During the 1950s and 1960s, affordable housing in downtown Los Angeles was decimated by “anti-blight” campaigns, and “slum clearance” plans.

“Policy makers began to send out crews of people to call out violations of zoning or code or other things, because they wanted the private property owners to abandon those properties because the cost was too great to repair them,” Gudis said. “So that's what starts to happen in the '50s and into the '60s. People are kind of coded to death.”

Civic leaders envisioned a downtown of shiny skyscrapers, leaving no room for the small hotels and rambling homes that served as a landing spot for working class and transient residents.

“[In Skid Row] there's a dramatic push to get rid of what looks like those horrible Victorians with multiple families living there and putting their laundry out on strings,” Gudis said. “That same kind of discussion takes place on Bunker Hill, and that removes the housing there.”

Clearing out

Reitan believes that the destruction of Bunker Hill in the 1950s and ‘60s forced displaced residents to move into the flats of downtown Los Angeles. “There's a lot of housing that's removed,” Gudis said. “And that puts additional pressure onto those residential hotels.”

Bunker Hill's destruction forced many to move into the flats of L.A.

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Increasingly, it was the former “palace hotels” and business oriented mega hotels, long out of fashion, which picked up the slack. “More and more migrants from central America… start settling in the once grand hotels like Barclay and business-oriented hotels like Cecil,” she said.

According to Groth, this trend was occurring in downtowns across the country. “Building owners … made rooming houses out of run-down palace or mid-priced hotels,” he wrote. “They eliminated service, repairs, and amenities until the rents matched rooming house levels.”

But the thousands of residences removed as part of “slum clearance” was a catastrophe from which downtown has never recovered. According to Gudis, it got so bad that there were ads boasting that you could buy a seat in a theater at Fifth and Main where you could spend the night, albeit sitting up. Or you could pay a little more for bunked rooms with access to a shower.

'Containment'

To deal with the increasing number of unhoused community members, many suffering from mental illness and substance use disorder, the 1970s’ city leaders adopted the controversial policy of “containment.” According to Gudis’ highly informative “The Green Paper,” the problematic “containment” defined the boundaries of Skid Row and made it possible to preserve “housing, community, and services” in the area.

In 1984, the CRA formed the SRO Housing Corporation, which purchased over 1,700 SRO units close together to offer government subsidized housing while fostering a sense of community.

“In 1989, Skid Row Housing Trust was formed as well, to expedite the process and with the aim of securing the housing on the western edge of Skid Row, along Main and Los Angeles Streets, among others,” Gudis wrote.

But over the last four decades, the affordable housing crisis in downtown Los Angeles has only intensified. Many nonprofit community organizations, dedicated to providing emergency, transitional and permanent housing to downtown residents, were severely affected by the dissolution of the CRA, which had provided crucial funds for SRO housing throughout the state.

Nonprofit organizations have tried to fill the gaps with help from other sources of government assistance, with mixed results. The SRO Housing Corporation operates 32 properties which provide housing to over 2,500 formerly unhoused and low-income individuals, which includes refurbished historic small residential hotels, new construction apartments, and the larger former commercial Hotels like the Rosslyn, which offers 264 studio apartments.

AIDS HealthCare Foundation’s Healthy Housing Foundation has also become a major player on the scene, managing 13 SRO hotels and motels like the Madison Hotel on 7th street, which offers single rooms with shared showers for $400 a month. Other properties include the Baltimore Hotel, the iconic King Edward Hotel, and Barclay Hotels (rent $400-$700). According totheir website, in March 2023, AHF purchased the historic 12-story Insurance Exchange Building at 318 West 9th St. They plan to turn it into an SRO with 251 affordable homes.

The Barclay Hotel in 2005.

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The economic revitalization and hipsterfication of DTLA in the past 15 years have also destroyed many remaining residential hotels and low-income housing options, as luxury condos and renovated market rate historic apartments have dramatically raised prices and brought middle and upper- class residents back to DTLA.

In an attempt to combat the housing shortage in DTLA and plan for an estimated around 150,000 more downtown residents by 2040, in spring of last year the controversial Downtown Community Plan, known as DTLA 2040, was approved by the city. Its passage may impact the future of thousands of residents in Skid Row and other parts of downtown.

While the DTLA 2040 plan attempts to preserve low-income housing in Skid Row, while also bringing more higher income residents and businesses to the area, community leaders and planners, including the grassroots coalition Skid Row Now, worry that without expanding the proposed IX1 Zone(Affordable Housing Only) throughout the boundaries of Skid Row, low-income housing opportunities will be lost.

“The battle is that if all of those odd parcels and other historic buildings get converted or adaptively reused at a market rate, it will put speculative pressure on everything else,” Gudis said. “If we can re-utilize the existing housing and ensure that when additional housing is built, it's also affordable as opposed to being luxury, then we have a chance of continuing a real sense of community and that's much more ethical.”

In the Green Paper, produced by the Los Angeles Poverty Department, Gudis wrote:

And so, the struggle for every sowntown resident to have a clean, well-lighted place to call their home rages on, as the stakes get higher and the situation more dire.

Demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday in a number of communities across the L.A. region for the latest No Kings protests.

In Pasadena, hundreds of demonstrators started their march at Pasadena City College in the morning, which ended with a rally at Pasadena City Hall.

The energy was joyous, as a large truck with live musicians led people in protest. Many participants said they thought it was important to show up to voice their opposition against the actions of the federal government.

“Especially things like taking away rights from trans people and sending people to ICE detention,” said Tatiana Becker of Pasadena, who now lives in London, England. “This country is not one that I recognize, and I remain an American voter, an American taxpayer."

Before the start of the march, organizers stressed the importance of a nonviolent demonstration. Students, seniors, parents with their children and pets cheered as drivers along Colorado Boulevard honked in support.

“We're here to voice our opinion, and provide numbers," South Pasadena resident Irene Barry said. "We just need to come out in numbers, make sure everybody knows that most people aren't happy with the situation."

Downtown protest

Meanwhile, in Downtown L.A., between 50,000 and 100,000 people were expected in what No Kings organizers said was one of the largest demonstrations in the region.

Protesters met at Gloria Molina Grand Park and City Hall beginning at 2 p.m., with a march scheduled to loop back to the same location.

As the evening went on, some protesters continued to the Metropolitan Detention Center on Alameda, between Aliso and Temple.

LAPD officials issued a dispersal order around 5:30 p.m. in that area, warning protesters to leave or be arrested. Less-than-lethal weapons were deployed.

An LAPD spokesperson told LAist they made a total of 75 arrests — including eight minors — with no reported injuries among those taken into custody.

The Department of Homeland Security claimed two federal officers were hit by cement blocks thrown by protesters and required medical attention.

By 8 p.m., the tactical alert was lifted after police cleared most demonstrators from the area.

High school seniors across California are anxiously awaiting word on their public university acceptances. But thousands of other soon-to-be graduates are virtually locked out. A key reason? Nearly half haven’t taken the required classes.

Statewide, 54% of high school students pass the classes minimally needed to enroll in the University of California or California State University systems as freshmen, according to a CalMatters analysis of traditional high schools. In recent years, the state has provided extra funding to help schools boost their numbers, but the readiness rate has only inched up.

Low-income, Black and Latino students have among the lowest class-completion rates. English learners and students with disabilities also have low rates, but the numbers have climbed slightly the past few years.

California’s two public university systems require all students applying for admission to earn a C or better in a suite of courses. The requirements are four years of English, three of math, two years each of science, social science and foreign language, and one year of art.

Known as the A-G requirements, they often dictate a student’s schedule beginning in ninth grade or even earlier. It’s easy for a student to fall off track — by getting a D or F in a class, for instance, or by skipping a tough class like chemistry or trigonometry, or by not taking a class if their school doesn’t offer it.

CalMatters looked at data from the 2024-25 school year for 1,468 public high schools, excluding about 800 alternative high schools, some specialized schools with high A-G rates, continuation schools and juvenile detention programs. The analysis shows that 222 of those schools posted A-G completion rates of less than 30%. More than 400 schools had A-G rates exceeding 70%.

Researchers weigh in

Schools may have few students completing the full suite of A-G courses for a variety of reasons, said Sherrie Reed Bennett and Michal Kurlaender, education researchers at UC Davis who wrote a 2023 analysis on the gaps in A-G rates across public high schools. Some schools may offer the courses, but students don’t enroll in them. Or students earn below a C in these courses and don’t retake them after school or during the summer. Next, teachers may not allow students to repeat assignments in order to avoid having to retake a class; some schools allow this.

Meanwhile, nearly a tenth of traditional high schools didn’t offer the needed courses, the researchers’ data show.

Ideally, all students should be enrolled in A-G courses, Bennett and Kurlaender said. It’s the only way to guarantee that all students have the option of enrolling in a four-year university after high school.

Within 16 months of finishing a traditional high school, 86% of students who graduated with the required UC and Cal State courses enrolled at a college or university. Among students who didn’t complete that A-G sequence, just 55% enrolled, with the vast majority entering a community college, according to the latest state data from 2023.

A Compton high school’s big leap

Last spring, Dominguez High in Compton Unified had among California’s highest percentage of students graduating who met the UC and Cal State requirements — 96% were A-G ready, according to the California Department of Education.

“To this day, you get that sense of, like, ‘Wait, who, Compton?'” said Jorge Torres, the district’s director of college and career readiness, on how the district’s recent turnaround is a constant surprise to people he meets at conferences. At Dominguez High, around 91% of students are eligible for a federal school meal waiver, making the campus’ student body among the poorest in the state.

Reaching the high A-G rate took about 10 years, said Torres, and is the result of a few key decisions the district and the school’s principal made. In 2015, the district created Compton Early College High School, which emphasized a college-going culture for its students and exposed many to a wide array of community college courses. By 2020, all of the school’s students were graduating on time and completing the necessary courses for UC and Cal State eligibility.

But the school is smaller than Compton Unified’s other comprehensive high schools. Could they scale their results across the district’s larger high schools?

This meant Dominguez no longer offered classes that didn’t meet the UC and Cal State standards, said principal Caleb Oliver. He added an extra period during the school day so students could retake an A-G course without staying late or enrolling in the summer.

The school also revised its student counseling model so that two counselors stay with the same cohort of students for all four years. Torres said that too made a difference. So did adding a counselor who focuses only on college admissions and preparation at all of Compton Unified’s traditional high schools.

The year the school adopted the A-G graduation requirement, about two-thirds of its seniors finished high school having met the UC and Cal State admission criteria. By 2024, when the first freshmen held to the higher standard were graduating, about three-quarters of students graduated A-G ready. The next year, the rate jumped more than 20 percentage points, to 96%.

The work that district and school staff put into Dominguez High School “seems like a strong example of best practices,” said Iwunze Ugo, a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California who has published reports on A-G rates. Dominguez and several other schools at Compton Unified have earned state recognition this year as “distinguished” campuses.

Gisele Genovez, a Dominguez senior, will have taken 14 community college courses by the time she graduates this spring. She applied to UC and Cal State schools with nursing programs and earned acceptances to several. “This school has really shown the importance of taking college courses, how it will benefit you, and it’s not something that you’re going to regret in the future,” she said.

As a Dominguez freshman, Alexis Hernandez didn’t think he’d attend college because he assumed he’d be priced out as a low-income student. But the school’s A-G requirement prepared him anyway.

“Just going to work after high school” was the route for students from low-income families, he thought. By 11th grade, he was excited to apply to college the following year and live on a university campus that’s within driving distance of home.

Now a senior, Hernandez has taken one community college course and has been accepted to several Cal State and UC campuses while he awaits results from other campuses. How will he choose which nearby school to attend? Whichever awards him the most financial aid, he said.

According to state data, slightly more than half of Dominguez students head to college within 16 months of graduating, though the latest figures are from 2023. That’s a bit lower than previous years, but lately, fewer of the school’s college-bound students enroll in community college and more attend four-year universities.

Past a certain point, the school is limited in what its students choose to do after high school, Oliver said. Colleges play a role in attracting students as well.

Programs that expose admitted students to free summer courses and introduce research-tested study skills can be the determining factor for an admitted student deciding whether to enroll, he said. Oliver noted such a program at nearby Cal State Dominguez Hills, a university that enrolls about two dozen Dominguez High students annually.

But students benefit “if they sign up for it,” he cautioned. “Everything is if they sign up for it. We can offer, but we need you to take hold of it.”

‘D equals diploma, C equals college’

Schools with lower A-G completion rates tended to have higher numbers of English learners or students in special education. Plenty of those students enroll in A-G courses, but if they need extra support, such as speech therapy or language development, for a period or two a day, it’s difficult to complete all the required courses needed to gain admission to UC or CSU, school administrators said.

Bennett and Kurlaender at UC Davis said that’s a poor excuse, and that far more students in special education or who are English learners should be able to complete A-G courses. To help schools boost their numbers, the state provides grants for schools and districts to hire tutors, expand college counseling or take other steps.

At Mt. Diablo High and Ygnacio Valley High, both in Concord, nearly 90% of students are English learners or low-income. Both schools also have higher-than-average numbers of students with disabilities. And both schools had A-G completion rates under 25% last year.

“This is a huge priority that we’re working hard on,” said Heather Fontanilla, director of college and career readiness for Mt. Diablo Unified School District, which includes both schools. “Ultimately, we want students to have post-secondary choices, including the chance to go to a four-year college. We do not want their transcript making decisions on what options they have available.”

The district is trying to raise its numbers by changing more courses to be A-G eligible, although the tough part is getting students to pass those classes. Students have to earn a C or better in an A-G course for it to count toward college admission, but only need a D for the class to satisfy the graduation requirement.

“We tell the kids, D equals diploma, but C equals college,” said Fontanilla. “All it takes is for a student to get below a C and everything starts to spiral.”

That’s because students who get below a C have to retake the class if they still want to enroll at a 4-year college. Make-up classes are typically held after school, a potential conflict for students who have jobs or family responsibilities.

So the district has started offering tutoring for students who are struggling, in hopes of saving their A-G eligibility before their C slips to a D. The district is also expanding outreach to parents so they can better support their children’s college-preparation efforts.

Manteca High in San Joaquin County also has a low A-G completion rate, close to 30%.

“We have a great graduation rate,” said Clara Schmiedt, assistant superintendent, noting that Manteca High’s graduation rate is nearly 95%, and the school was recently named a California Distinguished School. “But raising our A-G rate is a priority for us.”

One issue at Manteca High has been chemistry. Many students have struggled to pass, so the district is introducing a new curriculum and adding a new science teacher. Another problem is foreign language. The school only offers a few French classes, so students taking French might not be able to fulfill the foreign language requirement for A-G.

The district is also trying to change the culture around college. It’s expanding its dual enrollment program at a local community college, and sends dozens of students every summer to an academic institute at University of the Pacific in Stockton.

“We’re really trying to innovate,” Schmeidt said, “so students have as many opportunities as possible.”

We already knew that Democrat Tom Steyer, a billionaire running for California governor, is rich. But how rich?

In 2024, Steyer and his wife, Kat Taylor, reported a total income of $39 million, thanks to the duo’s massive investments in the global stock market. That’s more than all nine of his major opponents in the governor’s race and their partners made that year combined, according to their federal tax returns released this week.

A 2019 state law, designed to better inform California voters, requires candidates for governor to release their federal tax returns to qualify for the June primary ballot. Among major candidates, only Chad Bianco, Matt Mahan, Katie Porter and Tony Thurmond have already filed their 2025 tax returns.

Here are some highlights:

Tom Steyer

Income: $39 million in 2024, primarily from massive investments in the global stock market. He and his wife also made $6 million in passive income in Luxembourg, Netherlands, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands in 2024. They collected $38,000 in royalties from other properties and earned $23,000 from TomKat Ranch, their 1,800-acre cattle ranch in Pescadero.

Federal taxes paid: $5.4 million in 2024 — 54 times the average annual California household income.

Their earnings swing with the market: In 2021, they reported $160 million in income from investments and paid $39 million in taxes. But in 2022, they made a paltry $8 million and paid $1 million.

The couple regularly files tax returns in dozens of states each year (19 in 2024) and pays taxes abroad, too. Steyer also has a United Kingdom bank account, which at one point had a balance of $61 million in 2024.

The pair is big on philanthropy, donating $18 million in 2024, including $3 million in stock to Yale University and $1.5 million in stock to TomKat Foundation, the couple’s philanthropic nonprofit.

Steve Hilton

Income: $7.5 million in 2024, including $250,000 from Fox News and $6.7 million his wife, Rachel Whetstone, made as chief communications officer at Netflix. The couple also earned $360,000 from global investments but reported a net $3,000 loss in capital gains.

The couple received another $25,000 that year in rent from three properties in London, including two flats in the trendy Camden area. Hilton, a Republican, reported losing more than $226,000 on his media company, CR Productions.

Federal taxes paid: $2.8 million in 2024.

Eric Swalwell

Income: $461,000 in 2024, including his $184,000 congressional salary and $247,000 from his wife Brittany’s consulting work. The couple had a $41,000 home mortgage interest deduction in 2024. Rivals have challenged the Democrat’s California residency, though he lists a Bay Area rental as his primary residence.

Federal taxes paid: $83,000 in 2024.

Katie Porter

Income: $300,000 in 2025, nearly all from her salary as a law professor at the University of California-Irvine. Porter, a Democrat, also collects royalties from book sales: She made $140,000 in 2023 from books she authored, including two textbooks and her memoir, I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan, published that year. She earned $18,000 in 2024 and $3,500 last year in royalties.

Federal taxes paid: $58,000 in 2025.

Chad Bianco

Income: $590,000 in 2025, jointly with his wife Denise Bianco. Bianco’s return doesn’t break down the Republican’s wages, but his base salary as sheriff was $348,000 in 2024, after the Riverside County Board of Supervisors gave him a 27% pay raise that May.

He was already the highest-paid sheriff in the state in 2023, earning more than $593,000 in total compensation, which includes benefits such as a pension and health care coverage.

Federal taxes paid: $127,000 in 2025.

Xavier Becerra

Income: $490,000 in 2024, jointly with his UC Davis physician wife Carolyn Reyes. That includes Becerra’s nearly $250,000 salary at the time as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary in the Biden administration. The couple leased out four single-family homes that made them a net profit of $110,000.

Federal taxes paid: $116,000 in 2024.

Tony Thurmond

Income: $309,000 in 2025 — $203,000 as superintendent of public instruction and $18,000 from Integrated Community Services, a San Rafael-based disability supportive service where he worked as a supportive living aide, one of several side jobs the Democrat has held. Wife Vanessa Wiarco earned $87,000 as community engagement manager with KVCR Public Media at San Bernardino Community College.

Federal taxes paid: $52,000 in 2025.

Antonio Villaraigosa

Income: $1.4 million in 2024, most of which came from Actum, a business consulting firm with offices worldwide, including Los Angeles and Sacramento, and his own firm, Antonio Villaraigosa LLC. He also collected a $125,000 pension as the former Democratic mayor of Los Angeles. He and his wife, Patricia, filed their taxes separately.

Federal taxes paid: $462,000 in 2024.

Betty Yee

Income: $211,000 in 2024, almost all of which came from pensions and Social Security benefits. Yee, a Democrat, reported $1,300 in consulting and teaching income, and her husband, Steven Jacobs, is a rabbi with no reported income. The couple received $54,000 from selling a timeshare in October 2024. In 2021, the couple also reported $3,400 in gambling income in 2021.

Yee, who was California's controller until January 2023, received an annual salary of roughly $157,000 in 2022 and $13,000 in 2023, when the job ended in January.

Federal taxes paid: $24,000 in 2024.

Matt Mahan

Income: $507,000 in 2025, including his San Jose mayoral salary of $226,000 and his wife Silvia Scandar Mahan’s salary of $267,000 as president of Cristo Rey San Jose High School. In 2024, the couple claimed $14,000 in clean energy credits for using solar-powered electricity.

Federal taxes paid: $99,000 in 2025.

CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang and Juliet Williams contributed reporting. 

At the end of last year, community newspaper the Palisadian-Post shuttered its doors after 97 years in operation.

Subscriptions evaporated after January’s fires, as did advertisers, according to a departing message from former owner Alan Smolinisky.

In the months since, a pair of longtime Palisades residents have stepped up to acquire the beloved community paper.

Under new management

“The Palisadian-Post was a part of the reason we moved to Pacific Palisades, because the paper's role in providing a part of the character of the community was that strong,” said Tim Schneider, co-owner of the new Palisadian-Post.

Schneider had tried to buy the paper before — 24 years ago, when he and his family first moved to the Pacific Palisades.

“We've chronicled our children growing up in the pages of the Palisadian-Post, like a lot of Palisadians,” said Laura Schneider, also co-owner of the newspaper.

The married couple comes from long careers in the publishing industry. When they heard about the paper shutting down last December, they sprang into action and began negotiating a purchase.

Tim says that despite the struggles the community faces, it’s a dream come true to have the chance to continue a nearly century-old tradition with the Pali-Post.

Laura (left) and Tim Schneider (right) , the new owners of the Palisadian-Post, pose for a picture.

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Something old, something new

The paper’s relaunch is set for May 4, the paper's 98th anniversary.

“The first step in the relaunch process is going to be gathering community feedback,” said Laura.

The two have been making calls to former employees and residents of the Palisades, looking for input on what they want out of this new iteration. One thing they say they’d like to see is a sustained focus on the recovery.

“ He needs to hire a news reporter who's focused on the rebuilding of the Palisades. That's a huge theme, obviously, all the aspects of the rebuilding,” said Bill Bruns, editor emeritus with the Palisadian-Post. Bruns was a longtime editor who's been advising the Schneiders on the relaunch.

After January, Tim says people went to various sources to get information to track the Palisade Fire's chaotic aftermath. He thinks a newspaper like the Pali-Post is a better place to provide readers with authoritative and reliable information.

He says he wants the paper to be a central information hub for the thousands of Palisadians who have been displaced.

“ We have 5,000 Palisadians living in Santa Monica, more than 3,000 Palisadians living in Brentwood," he estimated. "So our approach with the Palisadian-Post is to use it as the connective thread that ties together Palisadians."

Former Pali-Post editor Bill Bruns stands in front of the old "Pacific Palisades Post" building on Via de la Paz. The building held the newsroom as well as the paper's printing press.

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Bill Bruns

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Bill Bruns

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Staging a comeback

In its new iteration, the paper will be strictly digital, with a new website, daily newsletter and community calendar to give readers a full range of events in the neighborhood — recovery-related or otherwise.

In time, the couple hopes to bring back a physical edition of the paper.

Several former advertisers the Schneiders have talked to are committed to coming back.

“ I'm happy to say, not only have all of them committed to supporting the new Palisadian-Post, but we've heard from dozens of businesses that have indicated an interest in getting involved for the first time,” said Tim.

Beloved favorite columns of the paper are returning too, like the local Two-Cents section written by residents.

The first event planned is going to be the "Pali Bee" — the local Spelling Bee that the newspaper sponsored in previous years.

Laura says that despite the last 15 months of difficulties, the sense of community in the Palisades remains strong. The two hope that strength will get the newspaper and the community back on its feet.

“ That's something very special about this town, and that's something that we hope that we can tap into as we bring the Palisadian-Post back," Laura said. "This town has tremendous heart. And that's a big part of the story that we wanna tell."