The Brief

The Los Angeles Conservancy is working on a full record of historic sites in Altadena — and you can help make sure its heritage is remembered.

The nonprofit has spent a year documenting significant spots that were lost in the January fires, but that’s been hard to do because of gaps in official information. Altadena has plenty of historic areas, but there hasn't been a comprehensive survey.

That’s why the conservancy has expanded its fire-related tracking to cover all of the community — with residents’ help. Its first public meeting is expected to be announced this month. Here’s what you should know.

Taking stock of Altadena

What makes something significant? Historic resource surveys help determine that. Like the city of L.A.’s robust survey, these are usually comprehensive documents that assess a community’s built heritage by researching and identifying important buildings.

They can influence land use planning and essentially lay out the case for preservation, taking into account things like design, time period and cultural importance.

But official tracking of significant sites in Altadena is fairly slim. CEO Adrian Scott Fine says the L.A. Conservancy ran into this while working on its Eaton Fire impact map.

“What it realized for us is that in the city of L.A., there had been good survey data that existed prior to the fire,” Fine said. “In Altadena, it was much less so. In many ways, we didn’t even know what we lost.”

Some of the existing records have helped. There’s a county-run African American historic resources survey from 2020 and a volunteer-led database from Altadena Heritage, focused on architecture. Some sites have also been put on local, state and national registries, but Fine says doing a full review of the community will create a clearer picture of Altadena.

“ This is the way for us to now go forward and say, OK, here’s what is still surviving. What’s the story? Why is it important to acknowledge that and tell that story?” Fine said.

Finding more historic resources could also help prevent future losses in a disaster, he said. L.A. County planning documents show just 12 historic resources within the Eaton Fire’s perimeter — three of which were destroyed.

Reimagining heritage

The L.A. Conservancy already has mapped hundreds of historic resources in the Eaton Fire. Since expanding that work, Fine says it’s helped them redefine what heritage is.

“We traditionally are focused on the built environment — historic buildings, communities, neighborhoods,” he said. “We will continue doing that, but I think it’s amplified even more so for us [that] real heritage comes from people.”

That’s why the project will document important sites, along with what they call “intangible heritage” — community traditions, oral histories and cultural practices.

They’ll also do “cultural asset mapping,” which goes beyond standard historic places to track things like where artists lived and legacy businesses.

Altadena residents and local organizations are encouraged to participate across the initiative to share what matters to them. A date for the public meeting is expected to be announced soon.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has rejected a proposal that would have let tenants across the county fall behind by about three months' worth of rent and still have local protections from eviction.

Supporters said the rules would have helped immigrants stay housed after losing income because of federal immigration raids.

Only one of the county’s five supervisors supported the expanded eviction protections. With none of the other four willing to second the motion in Tuesday’s meeting, the proposal died before it ever came to a vote.

The proposal failed after an hour of impassioned public comment from both renters and landlords. Onlookers chanted “cowards” as the board cleared the room for closed session.

Would the rules have been challenged in court?

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who put forward the proposal, said earlier in the meeting that expanding eviction protections would have been an appropriate way to help the county’s nearly one million undocumented immigrants.

Anticipating potential lawsuits to strike down the proposed ordinance, Horvath said, “I understand there is legal risk. There is in everything we do. Just like the risk undocumented Angelenos take by going outside their homes every day.”

Landlords spoke forcefully against the proposed rules. They said limiting evictions would saddle property owners with the cost of supporting targeted immigrant households.

“This proposed ordinance is legalized theft and will cause financial devastation to small housing providers,” said Julie Markarian with the Apartment Owners Association of California.

Horvath’s proposal would have built on an existing protection for renters in unincorporated parts of L.A. County, such as East L.A., Altadena and City Terrace. Under the current rules, renters can fall behind by up to one month’s worth of “fair market rent” (an amount determined by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department) and still be legally protected from eviction.

Protections won’t go countywide

Last week, county leaders voted to explore increasing that threshold to two months. But Horvath wanted to go further by increasing the limit to three months and making it apply countywide, not just in unincorporated areas.

Tenant advocates said family breadwinners have been detained during federal immigration raids, and other immigrants are afraid to go to their workplaces, causing families to scramble to keep up with the region’s high rents.

“Immigrant tenants are experiencing a profound financial crisis,” said Rose Lenehan, an organizer with the L.A. Tenants Union. “This protection is the bare minimum that we need to keep people housed and keep people from having to choose whether to stay in this county with their families and with their communities or self deport or face homelessness.”

A report published this week by the L.A. Economic Development Corporation found that 82% of surveyed small business owners said they’d been negatively affected by federal immigration actions. About a quarter of those surveyed said they had temporarily closed their businesses because of community concerns.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday placed on the June ballot a proposed temporary half-cent sales tax increase to fund the county’s struggling health care system, which has been hit hard by federal funding cuts.

If passed by voters, the increase would bring the county’s tax rate to 10.25%. It is projected to raise one billion dollars annually over five years.

The tax would expire in five years.

The background

County health officials said Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” will cut $2.4 billion from county health programs over three years, threatening closure of some of the county’s 24 clinics and an array of public health programs.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who co-authored the proposal, said the county faced a “federally imposed crisis” that in the absence of state action, could only be addressed by raising taxes on county residents.

“This motion gives the voters a choice, given the stark realities that our county is facing,” Mitchell said.

The vote was 4-1, with Supervisor Kathryn Barger the lone dissenter. Barger is the board’s sole Republican. She worried shoppers would go to Orange County, where the sales tax is 7.75%. She also said the state should take the lead on addressing federal funding cuts to county health care systems.

Public reaction

More than 700 people showed up Tuesday to speak out on the proposal. Health care providers pleaded with the board to place the measure on the ballot, saying federal funding cuts to Medi-Cal had hit them hard.

“This is a crisis,” said Louise McCarthy, president and CEO of the Community Clinic Association of L.A. County. “Medi-Cal accounts for over half of clinic funding. So these changes will lead to clinic closures, longer wait times, overcrowded E.R.’s and higher costs for the county.” 

Others opposed any plan that would increase the sales tax.

“Our city is opposed to the adding of this regressive tax to overtaxed residents and making it even more difficult for cities, especially small cities, to pay for the increasing cost of basic resident services,” said Rolling Hills Mayor Bea Dieringer. “The county needs to tighten its belt further.”

Details on the proposed plan

Under the plan, up to 47% of revenue generated will be used by the Department of Health Services to fund nonprofit health care providers to furnish no-cost or reduced-cost care to low-income residents who do not have health insurance. 

Twenty-two percent would provide financial support to the county’s Department of Health Services to safeguard its public hospital and clinic services. Ten percent would be allocated to the Department of Public Health to support core public health functions and the awarding of grants to support health equity.

The rest would be sprinkled across the health care system, including to support nonprofit safety net hospitals and for school-based health needs and programs.

A last-minute amendment by Supervisor Lindsey Horvath set aside 5% of funding for Planned Parenthood.

The spending would be monitored by a nine-member committee but ultimately would be up to the discretion of the Board of Supervisors.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass is directing staff to keep ICE off of city property and asking the Los Angeles Police Department to increase its monitoring of federal immigration agents.

The mayor issued the instructions in an executive directive Tuesday. She's also directing the Los Angeles Police Commission to ensure the LAPD and other law enforcement agencies operating in the city are complying with new state laws attempting to reign in federal immigration enforcement.

The move comes after a public showdown between the police chief and public officials over the LAPD's response to federal immigration agents. Chief Jim McDonnell faced heat after recently saying his department would not enforce a new California law banning federal agents from wearing masks.

That ban was temporarily blocked by a federal judge yesterday — but the mayor wants the police chief to issue guidance to his department complying with the law once legal concerns are resolved.

Mayor directs city departments to ban ICE

The mayor is ordering all city departments to identify property that could be used as staging areas for the Department of Homeland Security, and asking them to put up signs banning federal agents.

She's also directing the city to lock gates and doors where possible to block agents from gathering in city-owned spaces like parking lots and garages. The order gives departments less than a month to make the changes.

"The City has a responsibility to continue to safeguard public spaces," Bass wrote in her directive. "Now, we must assert our authority and actively guard against acts of brazen federal overreach."

The city already bars federal agents from non-public city spaces without a judicial warrant or court order. This executive directive takes aim at public spaces where ICE might gather before conducting immigration enforcement, such as a parking lot at a public park.

L.A. County passed similar guidance last month, designating county property as "ICE Free Zones" and directing county staff to put up signs on county property.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli responded at the time on X, saying that the county cannot exclude federal agents from public spaces.

Mayor asks LAPD to step up monitoring of federal agents

The mayor's directive also asks the Los Angeles Police Department to increase its monitoring of federal agents detaining people, including by recording the name and badge number of the supervising officer at the scene.

The directive requests that the Board of Police Commissioners update the LAPD's guidance for interactions with federal immigration officers. Those updates include requiring that LAPD officers turn on their body cameras when they are at the scene of an immigration enforcement action and inform members of the public at those scenes that they are not there to assist the operation.

Bass is also asking the LAPD to regularly issue public data reports of incidents in which police officers witness or receive reports of federal agents acting unlawfully.

The LAPD did not respond to LAist's request for comment on the mayor's new executive directive.