The Brief

Shrinking oil revenues and a questionable future for federal disaster aid have prompted Long Beach officials to halt reconstruction on an aging seawall that shields the Naples Island community.

Among the proposals to revive the project: have homeowners foot the bill.

For decades the seawall has shielded mulit-million-dollar homes and fortified the man-made canal that loops around the island.

In 2009, divers and landside inspectors found gaps and cracks along the seawall they attributed to decades of erosion from gnawing waves that penetrated the concrete and corroded the steel bars that reinforce it.

Since then, two of its six sections have been replaced. The rest remains in “fair condition,” prone to flooding and at risk of collapse in the event of a “major near-source earthquake.”

The price tag to complete the job is steep.

A big chunk of concrete is missing on the seawall near homes at Naples in Long Beach, Monday, Dec. 2, 2024.

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Photo by Thomas R. Cordova

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In a memo released on Nov. 8, officials said the city needs $125 million to finish replacing the 86-year-old barrier.

But an anticipated sharp decline in local oil production means the city’s Tidelands Operations Fund — which paid $32 million for the first two sections — cannot cover the cost.

This has left city officials searching for options, including the possibility of a 30-year bond, paid back by all Naples residents or only those living along the seawalls. This amounts to $5,100 per property annually if spread across the neighborhood, $48,000 per property if reduced to seaside residents.

Councilmember Kristina Duggan, whose district includes Naples, called the option “laughable.”

“That makes or breaks people,” Duggan said. “Seniors who are living on fixed income, that changes how they can afford things. … People can’t sustain that.”

Any such assessment would require a two-thirds majority vote by the affected property owners. Unable to provide a specific number of homes, a spokesperson with the Long Beach Public Works Department said Monday there are 1,572 parcels that reside along the seawalls, 174 of which front the unrepaired portions.

Part of the difficulty lies in a special condition tacked on by the California Coastal Commission, which requires any further construction on the seawalls to coincide with development of the Sorrento Trail, a public walkway along the canal at an expected cost of $12 million.

The commission said that “if you don’t finish the first phase of the Sorrento Trail for public access on Sorrento trail, you cannot continue with the seawall repairs for public access,” Duggan said.

In a recent meeting with the Naples Improvement Association, a local civic group, Duggan said she was clear with residents that the seawalls have been the city’s responsibility “for almost a century” and, “like a sidewalk,” are public infrastructure. She plans to hold another meeting on Dec. 9 at 6 p.m. at the Long Beach Yacht Club.

Duggan recommended the city look at federal disaster aid funds, as well as money through California Boating and Waterways funding.

While the city isn’t married to the idea of having residents foot the bill, funding elsewhere may be hard to come by in the coming years. Officials said in the report that Long Beach is already tied up with more than $758 million in infrastructure projects ahead of the 2028 L.A. Olympics.

And both state and federal aid may be scarce, as California wrangles with its own $2-billion-and-growing deficit while President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to withhold grant funding to Sanctuary communities.

Josh Hickman, Deputy Director of the Public Works Department, said the intent of the report was to present “feasible options for the community.”

“We wanted to present options,” Hickman said. “We know there’s a need and at some point, we’re going to have to replace these seawalls. How do we do that? The assessment is really just one such option to be able to fund the replacement.”

The city doesn’t have a “specific date or time frame” to bring anything forward but warned that options are limited as Tidelands Funds — fed by the city’s dwindling oil revenue — “are really drying up.”

The fund is expected to decline by $301 million over the next decade, including $21 million by the end of the next fiscal year.

Chris Orlando with the Naples Improvement Association said the report left homeowners feeling there’s “been a bait and switch.” People who purchased their homes in the past decade did so on the confidence that “there was a plan,” Orlando said.

“They knew there were phases and (the city) completed a couple phases,” he said. “Everyone is generally disappointed. … That’s probably the cleanest way to say it.”

Conditions are especially fraught along the northwest section of the Rivo Alto Canal due to “deterioration and scouring at the base of the walls,” according to the city report.

It’s a difference of “night and day” between the new sections with the old, Orlando said. Sections of the old are visibly cracked and give way to a high tide that routinely floods the sidewalks several inches deep.

“That’s the whole point,” he said. “The seawall is supposed to keep the seawater out, and it doesn’t.”

Topline:

The case: In September, the city settled a lawsuit brought forward by two brothers in their 70s who said they suffered serious injuries after an LAPD officer crashed into their car. Days before the $18 million settlement was reached, lawyers for the brothers said Feldstein Soto called an expert witness testifying for the plaintiffs and “attempted to ingratiate herself with him and asked him to make a contribution to her political campaign,” according to a sworn declaration to the court by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Robert Glassman.

The response: Feldstein Soto did not respond to an interview request. Her spokesperson said the settlement “had nothing to do” with the expert witness. Her campaign manager told LAist the city attorney had been making a routine fundraising call and did not know the person had a role in the case, nor that there were pending requests for her office to pay him fees.

What Jurado says: In a statement to LAist, Jurado said she wants to “make sure that the city’s legal leadership is guided by integrity and accountability, especially when their choices affect public trust, civic rights and the city’s limited resources."

What’s next: The motion needs to go through a few committees before reaching the full City Council. If it passes, the motion calls for the city attorney to “report to council in closed session within 45 days regarding the ethics breach violation and give updates to the City Council."

Every year in Santa Ana, Luis Cantabrana turns the front of his home into an elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe that draws hundreds of visitors.

Along the front of the house, the multi-colored altar is filled with lights, flowers and a stained-glass tapestry behind a sculpture of the Lady of Guadalupe. Cantabrana’s roof also is lit up with the green, white and red lights that spell out “Virgen de Guadalupe” and a cross.

Visitors are welcomed with music and the smell of roses as they celebrate the saint, but this year’s gathering comes after a dark year for immigrant communities.

Luis Cantabrana stands in front of the stunning altar he built in front of his home in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe. Every year, his display draws hundreds of visitors.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Why do they celebrate? 

In 1513, the Virgin Mary appeared before St. Juan Diego between Dec. 9 and Dec. 12, asking him to build a church in her honor. Her image — a brown-skinned woman wearing a green veil with her hands together in prayer and an angel at her feet — miraculously appeared on his cloak.

To celebrate in Santa Ana, worshippers gathered late-night Wednesday and in the very early hours Dec. 12 to pray the rosary, sing hymns and celebrate the saint.

Cantabrana has hosted worshippers at his home for 27 years — 17 in Santa Ana.

The altar started out small, he said, and over the years, he added a fabric background, more lights and flowers (lots and lots of flowers).

“It started with me making a promise to la Virgen de Guadalupe that while I had life and a home to build an altar, that I would do it,” Cantabrana said. “Everything you see in photos and videos is pretty, but when you come and see it live, it's more than pretty. It's beautiful.”

The Santa Ana home's elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe draws hundreds of visitors each year.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Gathering in a time of turmoil 

Many also look to the Lady of Guadalupe for protection, especially at a time when federal enforcement has rattled immigrant communities.

“People don’t want to go to work, they don’t want to take their kids to school, but the love we have for our Virgen de Guadalupe,” Cantabrana said. “We see that la Virgen de Guadalupe has a lot of power, and so we know immigration [enforcement] won’t come here.”

Margarita Lopez of Garden Grove has been visiting the altar for three years with her husband. She’s been celebrating the Virgencita since she was a young girl. Honoring the saint is as important now as ever, she said.

“We ask, and she performs miracles,” Lopez said.

Claudia Tapia, a lifelong Santa Ana resident, said the Virgin Mary represents strength.

“Right now, with everything going on, a lot of our families [have] turned and prayed to the Virgen for strength during these times,” Tapia said. “She's a very strong symbol of Mexican culture, of unity, of faith and of resilience.”

See it for yourself

The shrine will stay up into the new year on the corner of Broadway and Camile Street.

California’s unemployment agency kept paying cellphone bills for 4 1/2 years without checking whether its workers actually were using the devices.

That’s how it racked up $4.6 million in fees for mobile devices its workers were not using, according to a new state audit detailing wasteful spending at several government agencies.

The Employment Development Department’s excessive cellphone bills date to the COVID-19 pandemic, when it shifted call center employees to remote work and faced pressure to release benefits to millions of suddenly unemployed Californians.

It acquired 7,224 cellphones and wireless hotspots by December 2020. State auditors analyzed 54 months of invoices since then and found half the devices were unused for at least two years, 25% were unused for three years and 99 of them were never used at all.

The investigation, which auditors opened after receiving a tip, identified 6,285 devices that were unused for at least four consecutive months, and said the department spent $4.6 million on monthly service fees for them.

From the beginning, the department had about 2,000 more cellphones than call center employees, according to the audit. The gap widened over time after the pandemic ended and the department’s staffing returned to its normal headcount.

As of April, the audit said the department had 1,787 unemployment call center employees, but was paying monthly service fees for 5,097 mobile devices.

“Although obtaining the mobile devices during COVID-19 may have been a good idea to serve the public, continuing to pay the monthly service fees for so many unused devices, especially post-COVID-19, was wasteful,” the audit said.

Department officials told auditors they were unaware of the spending, but auditors pointed to regular invoices from Verizon that showed which phones were not being used.

“We would have expected EDD management to have reconsidered the need to pay the monthly service fees for so many devices that had no voice, message, or data usage,” the audit said.

The unemployment department began acting on the auditors’ findings in April, when it canceled service plans for 2,825 devices. It has since implemented a policy to terminate service plans for devices that go unused for 90 days.

The California state auditor highlighted the mobile devices in its regular report on “improper activities by state agencies and employees.” The audit also showed that the California Air Resources Board overpaid an employee who was on extended leave as he prepared to retire by $171,000.

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