The Brief

The 2028 Olympics are coming to Los Angeles as a multi-billion dollar operation funded by massive private and federal government investments and backed by city and state pledges to cover cost overruns.

The current privately funded budget for the Games is more than $7 billion. The federal government has agreed to chip in $1 billion to pay for security and is being asked to contribute another $2 billion to pay for Games-specific transit plans.

But the city of L.A.'s financial exposure is essentially unlimited. The city is on the hook for the first $270 million in losses, if they occur. The California Legislature has agreed to make statewide taxpayers pick up the next $270 million. After that, any additional financial burden will fall on Los Angeles taxpayers.

L.A. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson told LAist that he doesn't think such overruns will happen but acknowledged it was "a risky proposition" for the city. 

"There's a lot of things that can go wrong," he said.

What financial costs have other cities faced?

The last time L.A. hosted in 1984, the Olympics did turn a profit. But that was a rare feat. Many host cities have been left with costly bills. Still, L.A. agreed to be the financial guarantor of the 2028 Games in order to clinch the Olympic bid. 

A general view of Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum stadium during the 1984 Olympic Games.

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In 2016, Rio de Janeiro became a poster child for the failed promises of the Olympics after the Games ended with crushing debt and derelict infrastructure. Then, Tokyo's expenses spiked when the 2020 Games were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those games cost $13 billion — and Japanese taxpayers covered more than half of that, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

Unlike other recent host cities, organizers of the Paris Games announced in June that they had a budget surplus.

The Paris Games were cheaper than recent summer Olympics, according to Victor Matheson, a professor at College of the Holy Cross who studies the economics of the Olympics. He attributed this, in part, to reforms implemented by the International Olympic Committee to help keep costs down, including by encouraging host cities to use existing venues rather than building elaborate new facilities. Paris also had plenty of capacity for tourists already.

That's the strategy L.A. is banking on to deliver a financially successful Olympics. The 2028 competition will take advantage of the region's glut of already-existing hotels and venues, from Dodger Stadium to the Rose Bowl to Crypto Arena to SoFi Stadium.

How billions in Olympic costs could hit taxpayer wallets

"We have an advantage over every other city in the world, and that is the existence of the venues and the facilities that we have here," said Paul Krekorian, the former L.A. councilmember who now leads the city's major events office, at a recent Olympic event in Venice Beach.

What protections are in place for L.A.?

L.A. may be hosting the Games, and backing them if costs run over, but the city isn't the one running the show. The event itself is privately planned and intended to be largely privately financed. That effort is led by the nonprofit LA28, a group led by sports agent and entertainment mogul Casey Wasserman. In its latest annual report, LA28 outlined a more than $7.1 billion budget to deliver the games.

The International Olympic Committee, the organization that oversees all Olympic Games, is kicking in around $1.39 billion. After that, LA28 expects to raise the money it needs to run the games from corporate sponsorships, ticket sales and licensing. 

LA28 officials say they are confident in their progress. But there are also some safeguards in place for Los Angeles in case there are overruns. The city's agreement with LA28 requires the organizers to establish a $270 million contingency fund that the city will control. LA28's latest budget includes an overall contingency of $613.5 million, which includes the city's portion.

The organizers are also required to take out a number of insurance policies, including to protect against event cancelation, natural disasters, terrorism, and other potential calamities. Not all of the insurance plans are in place yet, and it's unclear if they will offer enough coverage to fully protect the city.

At an L.A. City Council meeting last week, LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover said the Olympics are on track financially.

"We continue to feel very optimistic about our path forward," he told the council, referencing recent corporate partnerships with Google, Starbucks and an electric bus company to transport athletes and Olympics staff.

LA28 has an overall goal of raising $2.5 billion in domestic sponsorships to help fund its budget. Hoover, told the council that LA28 had so far raised about $1.7 billion of that — a figure he said was more money than Paris raised ahead of 2024.

Can the city of L.A. control costs?

The city has only limited ability to intervene in LA28's decision-making.

Zev Yaroslavsky, a former L.A. County supervisor who was on the City Council when it negotiated the 1984 Olympic Games, told LAist that the city doesn't have much legal leverage to dictate Olympics planning. Its main point of influence is political.

"The only leverage the city has is the bully pulpit," Yaroslavsky said. "City Hall and the LA28 committee have their reputations on the line."

L.A. City Council greenlit re-locating Olympic diving from Exposition Park to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

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In terms of legal leverage, the city's contract with LA28 requires that city appointees comprise at least one-sixth of its board of directors. In addition, LA28 gave the city council veto power over decisions to move a venue outside of the city. This summer, the city council greenlit LA28's plan to move Olympic diving from Exposition Park to the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center in Pasadena, when LA28 organizers said that change would save millions of dollars.

The city is also currently negotiating with LA28 to define what extra city resources Olympics organizers will need to pay for, such as additional police officers on the streets. That was supposed to be completed by Oct. 1, but the two sides haven't come to an agreement yet.

What role will the federal government play?

One factor outside of both LA28 and City Hall's control is President Donald Trump. The president has named himself the head of a federal Olympics task force and allocated $1 billion in federal funds for Olympics security. How those funds will be spent remains to be seen, but some of it is expected to flow to local and state law enforcement agencies. Hoover told the city council last week that LA28 is working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on how that money will be dispersed.

At the council meeting, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield asked Hoover, LA28's CEO, to have a back-up plan in case federal funds don't come through, or are withheld.

"What I'm concerned about is while they're being cooperative now, at some point they're gonna do what they've done with funding to universities and others. And they're going to create a condition that we cannot meet," Blumenfield said of the federal government. "What protections do we have in place to protect us against that kind of last minute extortion?"

Hoover responded saying that no one at the White House or in the federal government has put a condition on support for the Games so far.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create a task force on security and other issues related to the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

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"Now, what the administration will do later, I wouldn't sit here and be able to say or predict what they would do," he said.

Another big ticket item organizers are expecting the federal government to cover is a giant fleet of additional buses to transport fans during the Games. Those buses will be key to hosting the mega-event, which will span three counties in Southern California. Metro is seeking more than $2 billion for that project. 

A spokesperson for LA28 told LAist that the federal government provided financial support for bus programs for the 1996 and 2002 Olympic Games, in Atlanta and Salt Lake City.

"Our public agency partners are requesting similar support for 2028," Jacie Prieto Lopez, LA28's Vice President of Communications said in an email. She also said that LA28 had a "positive partnership" with the federal government. 

How will the Convention Center factor into costs?

One city project that could throw a wrench in L.A.'s Olympic plans is the controversial $2.6 billion expansion of the downtown Los Angeles Convention Center that the City Council approved in September. The plans include connecting the West and South halls and adding an estimated 325,000 square feet of space. 

That project, which is not expected to be finished until 2029, broke ground last month. But the Convention Center is slated to host a handful of Olympic competitions come 2028. 

Construction will need to pause and restart for the Games, according to a report from the city administrative officer. 

L.A. City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, chair of the budget and finance committee, estimated that pausing and restarting construction would cost the city $30 million. She voted against the expansion project.

If construction gets in the way of Olympics planning, organizers would have to find somewhere else to host a number of sports, including fencing, taekwondo and table tennis.

Ted Rohrlich, Kavish Harjai and Frank Stoltze contributed to this story.

California’s first-in-the-nation fast food council — created to give workers a voice on wages, safety and working conditions — has not met in over a year and has no chairperson.

Now the workers the council was built to protect, organized by the Service Employees International Union, are taking their concerns directly to the state, demanding that Gov. Gavin Newsom appoint a chairperson so the council can do its work, as required by law.

Luna Mondragon, who works at a Carl’s Jr. in Milpitas, told CalMatters through a translator that she started out as a cook but has done many other duties in her five years there. After she joined the fast food workers union, she said she began speaking up, especially when she started to experience aches and pains from her job. Since then, she said she has been retaliated against, including with fewer shifts.

“If we don’t have our health we can’t accomplish anything,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “It’s so important for them to appoint a chair. We need the council.”

The council was created as part of a 2023 compromise that also set a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers. It has the power to set standards on wages, health, safety and working conditions — and to raise the minimum wage annually for hundreds of thousands of fast food workers at chains with 60 or more locations nationwide.

The council — composed of four members representing the businesses, four members representing labor and a chairperson who’s an “unaffiliated” member of the public — must, under state law, hold at least two meetings a year, though the law does not specify who should enforce this provision.

The council only held those meetings in 2024; last year it held two subcommittee meetings, the latest in February 2025. Shortly after, the council’s chairperson, Nick Hardeman, resigned when Newsom appointed him to a different state position. When reached by CalMatters, Hardeman said he did not want to speak on the record about a council he has not chaired in a while.

In 2022, the Legislature raised fast food workers’ minimum wage to $22 an hour. The industry fought back, gathering signatures to repeal the law. Workers across the state went on strike. In late 2023, the SEIU and the industry reached a last-minute compromise: Workers dropped a ballot fight in exchange for a $20 minimum wage and the establishment of the council. The SEIU-affiliated California Fast Food Workers Union launched the following year — lacking the collective bargaining rights of a traditional union but acting as an advocacy and membership group for workers.

Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for the governor, would not answer questions about the council, instead referring CalMatters to the state’s Labor & Workforce Development Agency. Crystal Young, a spokesperson for the agency, confirmed that there is no chairperson and the council’s meetings are on hold. The council’s four-person staff continues to respond to inquiries and prepare for future meetings, she said.

On April 16, marking about two years since the council’s first meeting, workers delivered a 96-page book to the governor’s office, describing more than 100 complaints filed with CalOSHA, the state labor department and different city agencies since the council’s formation, alleging wage theft and poor working conditions. The union estimates there are about 630,000 fast food workers in the state, about 75% of whom are people of color and 20% of whom are immigrants.

“Employers feel newly empowered to threaten us with calling ICE when we ask questions about paid sick leave or [workers’ compensation] or report health and safety hazards,” Angelica Hernandez, a McDonald’s worker who is a member of the fast food council, said in the book.

Rich Reinis, a member of the council who represents employers and is a former franchise owner, said he has no knowledge of when meetings will resume and is waiting. In his view, the council should have been discussing “fire and ICE.” The phrase refers to the effects of last year’s L.A. County fires on the fast food industry and its workers, some of whom lost their homes, and what businesses and workers need to know about immigration enforcement.

Reinis also wants the council to order a study of the wage increase’s effects on prices and employment. Competing studies by UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz have reached opposite conclusions, and the question of affordability remains unresolved, he said.

A Los Angeles Times columnist who analyzed the competing studies concluded the debate over the wage's effects is likely to continue. Hernandez, the councilmember, rejected the industry's claims the wage increase has hurt business. “The sky didn’t fall on the California fast food industry,” she said.

The council is also required to submit a performance review to the Legislature every three years — a deadline approaching without a single full meeting in the past year. Before he resigned, Hardeman, the former chairperson, said it was hard for the council to reach decisions.

“The staff will have to write a report without having any meetings,” Reinis said. “How the hell are we supposed to do that?”

Chris Holden, the former California assemblymember who authored the law that raised the workers’ wages and created the council, told CalMatters the council was “groundbreaking” and “needs to address the challenges that were the genesis of the council in the first place.” He said he hopes the governor is doing his due diligence to identify a new chairperson.

“I want to tell [the governor] to finish the job he started,” Julieta Garcia, a cook at a Pizza Hut in Los Angeles, told CalMatters through a translator. “Leave a good legacy for this generation and the future generation, so you can be recognized as a leader who gave fast food workers a chance.”

Young, the Labor & Workforce Development Agency spokesperson who was speaking on the governor’s behalf, confirmed that Newsom’s office received the workers’ book.

The governor's office has not said when — or whether — Newsom plans to appoint a chairperson to the council.

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

Nearly 20 years after founding a successful environmental and safety consulting services company, Robin Thorne said she still gets checked for being a Black woman in the construction industry.

“I've had situations where people, they don't even make eye contact, and then the male has to step back to say, 'She's running the show,'" she said.

Robin Thorne (in pink jacket) founded DemoChicks to help women of color land jobs in construction industries.

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Thorne runs CTI Environmental, a multi-million dollar company that was contracted by the Army Corps of Engineers to do debris removal after the L.A. fires.

She’s been an engineer for decades and knows fewer than one of four workers in architecture, construction and engineering industries who are women — and much fewer are women of color.

That proportion is low considering 47% of the U.S. labor force are women.

That's why she’s organized a “Women in STEM Signing Day” at Long Beach City College on Saturday, May 30. The event’s meant to create the type of excitement normally associated with young people signing up for college sports teams.

She wants younger women to tap into their drive to succeed

There were far fewer women in these jobs when Thorne was growing up in Philadelphia, but she didn’t let roadblocks, including those in her personal life — like being a single mom on public assistance — stop her.

DemoChicks helps give young women of color exposure to construction-related jobs.

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“When I thought about being an engineer, I didn't think about it being male-dominated. I just knew I wanted to be an engineer,” she said.

She added that some women do give up on similar dreams or fail to find the spark that allows them to see themselves doing these jobs. That’s why Thorne started DemoChicks seven years ago. She wants young women to see her and think “engineer,” as well as connect with women who are already working in these industries.

Mentorship, examples, and money

The organization is called DemoChicks because demolition is one of the jobs that keeps Thorne’s company busy. More women are entering architecture, construction and engineering jobs than before, but the percentage of women in each industry is still low:

15% in engineering
26% in architecture
11% in construction

These are mostly stable jobs with good entry-level wages, jobs such as safety coordinators, project managers, project engineers and construction managers.

Beyond giving teen girls IRL examples of women in construction industry jobs, DemoChicks supports their academic efforts, which often means helping them out meet college expenses. DemoChicks gave out $1,000 scholarships to eight women last year (35 applied).

A third generation Latina truck driver from South LA

One of those scholarship recipients in 2024 was Ana Terrazas. She recalled growing up in South L.A., not as a latch key kid, but as a truck cab kid.

Ana Terrazas as a teen at her mother's construction job. Terrazas now works for a large construction company as a project engineer.

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 ”My mother… was a truck driver,” Terrazas said, driving belly dump trailers on construction sites. Terrazas would help her mother change tires and lend a hand with any mechanical repairs. Her grandfather was a truck driver too.

“Since then I've always been obsessed with job sites, and also the superintendent, the one that would tell everybody where to go, how to do their job, and organize everything,” Terrazas said.

Two years ago she was working hard to finish her two majors — civil engineering and construction management — to earn her bachelor’s degree from Cal Poly Pomona. She applied for and was awarded a $1,500 scholarship from DemoChicks. That help, she said, had a big effect.

DemoChicks founder Robin Thorne, right, presents Ana Terrazas with a scholarship.

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“I didn't have to take as many hours of work to be able to focus more on my studies and also in my internship during that time,” Terrazas said.

The internship, at Swinerton, a nationwide construction company that's more than 100 years old, turned into full time work as a project engineer.

Terrazas paid it forward earlier this year, inviting Thorne and a dozen DemoChicks to a Swinerton work site during Women in Construction Week. She urged the women to tap into their drive to succeed and lean on people like her for help.

“As long as they're driven and this is what they want, there shouldn't be a reason for them to not be able to get a job here,” Terrazas said.

With LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries just steps away, it may be easy to forget that we have the richest Ice Age fossil site on Earth right here with the La Brea Tar Pits.

But the museum and research facilities at the tar pits are also scheduled for a multimillion dollar renovation.

Built in 1977, the George C. Page Museum at the tar pits has a special place in the hearts of Angelenos who’ve ever taken a field trip to see its massive mastodon skeletons or dire wolf skulls. Or have maybe shed a tear at the sculptures of the mammoth family in distress in the Lake Pit out front.

All that stuff is staying, museum educator Kay Lai told LAist, but new interactive exhibits will allow visitors to better understand the science that’s happening in their own backyard.

A rendering of the new outdoor amphitheater at the La Brea Tar Pits.

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The transformation

“This museum, as beloved as it is, definitely needs that refresh,” Lai said. “And I’m really excited for the next generation of kids that gets to grow up and make new memories here with this new space.”

Lai said the museum refresh will include a new focus on Zed — the 80% complete Columbian mammoth found here — and other notable animals they’ve unearthed over the decades. The mammoth’s bones will be reassembled and Zed will “stand tall for the first time since the Ice Age,” according to the museum’s website.

“We’re able to focus on the very first saber-toothed cat fossils that we’ve ever discovered ... As well as some of our Ice Age survivors ... like Pebbles the Puma ... Pebbles would have been the ancestor of some of the mountain lions that still live in Los Angeles today, including P-22 that passed away a couple years ago,” Lai said.

Then there’s the fish bowl: you know, the fossil lab with windows where you can watch researchers at work?

An even better fish bowl

“So we’ll still have the fish bowl, but it’s going to be much more interactive and there’ll be much more discussion of what’s going on inside the fossil lab,” said Regan Dunn, assistant deputy director and curator at the new Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research.

A digital rendering of the new fish bowl at the Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research.

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Dunn explained that the area where they store their collections of fossils and other specimens is getting major updates too.

“Super valuable, millions of specimens, will be in upgraded systems where there’s climate control. There’ll be enclosed cabinets and be under much better maintenance. And also allow for much more research to happen,” she said.

The La Brea Tar Pits are still very much an active paleontological research site. Dunn said any time a hole goes in the ground in the Hancock Park area, a new discovery is made.

With new outdoor classrooms and a 1-kilometer pedestrian pathway that will take visitors past excavation sites, the idea is to make the research going on here more visible to the public.

Your last chance to visit the tar pits before its two-year transformation is July 6.

A digital rendering showing the aerial view of the updated La Brea Tar Pits grounds.

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This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

In the face of the nation's highest gas prices, California lawmakers approved a bill to ease restrictions on E85 conversion kits — devices that let conventional gasoline cars run on a cheaper, mostly ethanol fuel blend.

Assembly Bill 2046, dubbed the “Access to Affordable Gas Act” by its author, Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, a Stockton Democrat, advanced through the Assembly on a 59-0 vote with no debate or opposition.

The measure is the latest example of Sacramento lawmakers scrambling to respond to gas costs that have soared amid the Iran-Israel war, which has rattled global oil markets and pushed California pump prices above $6 a gallon. It now heads to the California state Senate and would need Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval before it becomes law.

“Californians consistently pay more at the pump than drivers from other states, and gas prices are once again climbing across the state,” Ransom said on the Assembly floor Thursday. “For commuters and working families, [the proposal] offers a practical way to save money.”

If approved in its current form, the measure would exempt manufacturers of E85 converter kits from an approval process by the state’s primary climate regulator, the California Air Resources Board, which requires companies to demonstrate the devices do not increase a vehicle's emissions. The bill would leave in place a separate federal certification process run by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Members in Sacramento are looking for ways to try to reduce costs — or appear to reduce costs of driving — and so this is a way to do that,” said Aaron Smith, a UC Berkeley economist and fuels expert.

The converter kits, which cost between $800 to $1,250, according to a legislative analysis of the bill, would let drivers convert their cars to run on both gasoline and E85 fuel.

E85 is a blend of up to 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline; the share of ethanol typically is between 55% and 85%, said Smith, the Berkeley expert.

Jeff Wilkerson, government affairs manager for Pearson Fuels, the largest E85 fuel provider in the state and a bill supporter, said E85 — much of which is made from Midwest corn — is largely insulated from overseas oil shocks that drive California gas prices. The ethanol blend has sold for $2 or more less per gallon than gasoline during recent price spikes.

While E85 is typically priced lower than gasoline and can reduce petroleum dependence and carbon emissions, it delivers 20% to 30% fewer miles per gallon, according to the air board, meaning drivers only save money when E85 is priced at least 20% to 30% below gasoline.

About 1.3 million vehicles in California can currently use the fuel, which is sold at about 640 stations statewide — just 3% of the state’s more than 15,000 fuel pumps, according to the bill analysis.

Ransom said more E85 pumps would be built if the state loosened restrictions and encouraged demand for the fuel blend. She stressed that her bill would present E85 as an alternative.

“For some people, it may not be a wise choice, but at least now it’s going to be a choice,” she said.

Environmentally, the fuel is rated cleaner than regular gasoline by California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard. But that rating has critics. Smith, the Berkeley economist, said the benefits of ethanol are likely overstated. Official numbers likely understate emissions from land use as rising corn demand for ethanol pushes farmers to clear forested land.

The state’s own certification record offers a cautionary tale. Lindsay Buckley, a spokesperson for the board, said the agency has received only five applications from companies for E85 conversion kits since 2008 and that none has cleared the certification process, which is designed to ensure modified vehicles still meet their original emissions standards. Supporters of the proposal argue the board moves slowly and its regulations are burdensome.

But loosening that standard carries its own risk, cautioned Aaron Kurz, senior consultant on the Assembly Transportation Committee, especially now.

As the federal government has stripped scientific expertise from regulatory decisions, he wrote in his analysis, “this committee should consider if the state should cede authority over an inherently scientific process and set a precedent for transferring approval authority to the federal government.”