The Brief

Messages obtained by LAist show that Orange County Public Works officials were alerted to high fire danger, yet failed to take precautions on the day a crew accidentally started the massive Airport Fire during a September heat wave. Over the next 26 days, the fire burned down more than 160 buildings, injured 22 people and resulted in nearly $400 million in claims county taxpayers could be on the hook for.

Sean Doran, a spokesperson for the Orange County Fire Authority, told LAist the fire was sparked the afternoon of Sept. 9 while the crew was using heavy equipment to move large rocks in Trabuco Canyon.

LAist’s review of messages sent on Microsoft Teams, obtained through a public records request, show Operations & Maintenance supervisors and a senior manager were informed at 10 a.m. that morning of high fire danger. By that time, work at the site had been underway for three hours, according to Doran.

Even after the high fire danger warning, no water truck was brought in. More than three hours after that warning, work at the site sparked the fire.

That work was taking place without a water truck present, according to an equipment log in the job’s work order obtained by LAist. However, in a chat log from Sept. 10, Edward Frondoso, the deputy director for operations and maintenance at O.C. Public Works, says: “I know yesterday morning Bud had asked them to take the water truck out.” Nina Quimsing, an operations and maintenance manager, responds by noting that using a water truck is a department best practice.

On Sept. 10, the day after an O.C. Public Works crew unintentionally started the Airport Fire, department managers discuss what one described as a request for the crew to take a water truck with them. An OCFA spokesperson told LAist the fire was classified as unintentional.

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Illustration by Olivia Hughes for LAist

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County of Orange public records

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The records prompted LAist to seek answers with the county officials to understand decisions made that day, including:

• What is the county’s protocol for doing field work when fire risk is high?
• Who was responsible for making sure the crew took appropriate precautions?
• What, if anything, is the county doing to make sure such a misstep isn’t repeated?

Shannon Widor, a spokesperson for O.C. Public Works, told LAist he couldn’t comment for this story “due to pending claims and the likelihood of litigation.”

James Treadaway, who was the head of O.C. Public Works at the time of the fire, left his job suddenly in late September without a public explanation.

LAist reached out to the public works departments of Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties and the National Forest Service to ask about their policies for limiting risk on days when fire danger is high.

Several agencies require supervisors to only schedule work on low fire risk days or halt work on high fire risk days. Riverside County both forbids work on high fire danger days, and requires a water truck to be present for roadside work that could start a fire.

In contrast, an LAist review of Orange County’s policies did not find any reference to wildfire prevention, nor requirements to bring water trucks or halting work when the fire risk is high.

Image shows a re-creation of Microsoft Teams messages sent Sept. 10, the day after an O.C. Public Works crew unintentionally started the Airport Fire.

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Illustration by Olivia Hughes for LAist

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County of Orange public records

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The Airport Fire burned more than 23,000 acres in Orange and Riverside counties before it was contained nearly a month later. It was officially declared out on Nov. 15.

The total cost of fighting the fire is expected to reach $95 million, according to Adrienne Freeman, a spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service.

Numerous families reported losing their homes and livelihoods in claims to the county, which now reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Among those injured in connection with the Airport Fire were eight firefighters, who rolled their vehicle as they were returning home from duty. Two of the firefighters were treated in a specialty neurorehabilitation hospital in Colorado. One was released last week after two months of treatment. The other continues to receive rehab treatment in Colorado.

A house burns in El Cariso Village along Ortega Highway during the Airport Fire.

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Wally Skalij

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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What the messages say

One thing that is clear: County officials have said the fire started when the crew was moving boulders to block off illegal paths and turnouts made by offroad vehicles along Trabuco Creek Road. An OCFA spokesperson told LAist two employees — a crew member and a supervisor — saw smoke coming from the basket of a truck loaded with boulders. They called 911 and used fire extinguishers at the scene in an unsuccessful attempt to put out the fire.

LAist’s review of Microsoft Teams messages between high-level O.C. Public Works managers detail some of their discussions after the fire started, and raise further questions about who’s responsible.

Fire officials received reports of a fire near a model airplane field in Trabuco Canyon around 1 p.m. on Sept. 9. About an hour later, at 2:08 p.m., Frondoso, the deputy director for Operations & Maintenance, sent a message through Microsoft Teams to his colleague Fiona Man.

“i kind of have something important to talk to KO about,” Frondoso wrote. Frondoso's boss at the time was Kevin Onuma, who is now is the interim director of O.C. Public Works.

The following exchange between Frondoso and Man took place over the next 15 minutes:

LAist tried to reach out to all supervisors and managers named in the messages by phone and email and reached 10 of the 12. No one responded to the requests for comment.

What the crew did, and didn’t have that day

A house in flames at El Cariso Village in Lake Elsinore on Sept. 10.

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Apu Gomes

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Getty Images

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Flames are seen near the side of a road as the Airport Fire gained ground near Lake Elsinore.

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David Swanson

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AFP via Getty Images

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LAist obtained the crew’s master work order for the Trabuco Canyon job via a public records request. The project to place boulders and barriers called K-rails began on Aug. 28 and was set to finish on Sept. 13, according to the work order. On the day of the fire, the equipment assigned were a CAT loader, dump truck, and pickup truck, the work order shows.

Records the county disclosed to LAist do not show an order for a water truck or tank associated with the work on the day the fire started, although work orders from previous weeks along the same road do include a water truck or tank.

Messages obtained by LAist via the California Public Records Act from Sept. 10, the day after the fire started, show managers trying to piece together why the crew didn’t have a water truck.

“On the work order, it shows what equipment will be used, but I know yesterday morning [a crew supervisor] had asked them to take the water truck out,” Frondoso wrote to his subordinate Nina Quimsing, an operations and maintenance manager.

Quimsing wrote back:

“Use of water truck or water buffalo would be considered a BMP. It is up to the crew to use BMPs where appropriate. But our Field Operations Manual activity guidelines state ‘Use appropriate BMP.’ For every maintenance activity.”

“BMP” refers to best management practice.

LAist requested from O.C. Public Works all of its written policies and procedures regarding fire prevention during the type of work the crew was doing that sparked the fire. County officials have turned over 99 pages of documentation, which include a fire prevention plan.

That policy specifies that “all heat-producing equipment/appliances shall be kept at a sufficiently safe distance from other combustible materials and have adequate space for air circulation.” But it does not specifically address fire hazards associated with field work, such as whether to bring a water truck or cancel work on high fire danger days. Those conditions are addressed in plans by other counties’ agencies.

Crew were informed of fire danger after work had already started

Garrett Keene stands in the rubble of his home in El Cariso Village on Sept. 12.

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Gina Ferazzi

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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Vintage cars destroyed by the Airport Fire.

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Etienne Laurent

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AFP via Getty Images

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At 11:48 a.m. on Sept. 10, Frondoso wrote to Quimsing: “have you ever heard of us delaying or deferring work due to fire safety concerns?”

Quimsing replied: “This is why we announce the fire danger ratings over the 800 Mhz in Silver 1 so crews are informed of the risks when operating equipment etc.”

The National Weather Service had issued an excessive heat warning for Sept. 9, the day the fire broke out, advising the public of “dangerously hot conditions” in the Santa Ana Mountains and foothills, which include Trabuco Canyon. Records show temperatures in the canyon reached 100 degrees that day.

Public records obtained by LAist document that a public works dispatcher followed the standard practice of radioing twice daily announcements about the level of fire danger to field crews, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Work at the site began at 7 a.m. A log of those announcements shows that on the day the fire started, the dispatcher warned in both announcements of “high” fire danger — the first warning of that level in 2024.

In addition, public records show “Darrell, Bud, Brandon and David” were sent an email and called about the high fire danger alert. In the organization chart obtained by LAist via a public records request, Darrell Wilson is an operations and maintenance manager and David Fernandez, Brandon Morgan and Erik Budzinski are all listed as maintenance supervisors. They are all listed in the chart as working under Frondoso.

The struggle to get records

LAist filed a public records request with OC Public Works for the Microsoft Teams chat logs on Sept. 12, three days after the fire started. Initially, county officials responded that no chat records were found and closed our request on Sept. 23. LAist asked again if there were relevant records. They then disclosed dozens of chat messages, saying the records were identified in a “subsequent search.”

County officials have told LAist that this is just one batch of records and more will be released in the coming weeks. Staff told LAist that all public records requests related to the Airport Fire are being reviewed by legal counsel because it is a “high visibility” item.

Chat logs reviewed by LAist also reveal how staff were directed to “pick up the phone” if they were discussing the fire. “As a reminder, please do not email, message or text any opinions or details,” Widor wrote via Teams to some managers.

Claims for damages and the fallout

As a result of the Airport Fire, Orange County has already received claims for damages amounting to close to $400 million. They range from people who say they lost their entire homes, to hotel costs due to evacuation orders.

“My entire retirement plans + future have been affected by this loss, and I have lost everything to plan for my future wellbeing,” one person wrote in their claim, seeking $1.8 million for losses.

Another man, who claimed $39,000 in damages, said his vehicle was torched with all of his construction equipment inside.

Residents wishing to file a claim against the county have six months to file from the date the damage was incurred.

How to file a claim

• If it is a claim related to personal injury or damage to property against the County of Orange, a claim form must be filled and mailed or hand delivered within six months to:

  • Clerk of the Board of Supervisors
  • 400 W. Civic Center Dr., 6th Floor, Santa Ana, CA 92701
• All other claims have to be filed to the same address within one year.

Residents with damages to their property caused by the Airport Fire can also file for property tax relief.

To apply, fill out this form and submit to the County Assessor’s office within 12 months from the time your property was damaged.

At some other SoCal agencies, work stops on high fire danger days

LAist reached out to the public works departments of Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties and the National Forest Service to ask about their policies for limiting risk on days when fire danger is high.

Notably, San Bernardino adopted fire guidelines in 2010. In a memo released to LAist, then-San Bernardino County Public Works Director Granville Bowman said the new guidelines were adopted due to two earlier fires caused by “vehicles and equipment being used to conduct field operation assignments.” The guidelines require supervisors to “schedule all non emergency activities that can start fires to a period of low fire risk and ensure all risks are considered before scheduling,” among other measures.

The county’s guidelines also say vehicles should not be operated in “high risk” areas defined by a combination of dry vegetation, temperatures over 85 degrees, and humidity of less than 25%. Failure to follow the guidelines can result in disciplinary action or dismissal.

The National Forest Service relies on a fire risk management tool called the “Project Activity Level” (PAL) system to determine which industrial activities, including timber harvesting and maintenance, can be safely allowed to proceed on a daily basis. On the day the Airport Fire broke out, the danger rating for the closest Forest Service stations, and most stations in Southern California, was “E” — the highest danger level.

Freeman, the U.S. Forest Service spokesperson, said “anything that’s not emergency work” is prohibited when the PAL system indicates that level of fire danger. “We actually can and do shut down things like utility work if we feel like there's a high potential for a fire to start based on that work,” Freeman said, referring to work on U.S. Forest Service land.

The Airport Fire started just outside of forest service land. But at least one local agency, San Diego County, relies on the Forest Service fire danger alert system to plan its own field work.

Donna Durckel, spokesperson for San Diego County’s Land Use and Environment Group, said the county’s senior equipment operators receive a text each day advising them of the current PAL level. They use that information to determine “what work is allowed to take place,” she said.

In Los Angeles, the public works department halts construction and maintenance activities in fire-prone areas during red flag days, according to Lisette Guzman, a spokesperson for L.A. County’s Public Works Department. O.C. was not under a red flag warning the day the Airport Fire broke out.

In Riverside, the county’s Transportation and Land Management Agency, which maintains county roads, has a written policy that requires a water truck be assigned to tractor mowers when trimming vegetation on roadsides. Felisa Cardona, a spokesperson for the agency, told LAist the policy also applies to other types of road maintenance work that has the potential to start fires.

Riverside’s policy also requires employees to check the weather forecast in the morning, and to postpone work when there’s low humidity and/or high winds that could spark fires.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is pursuing federal government access to most Americans’ medical records, in a quest to research a link between vaccines and autism — a connection the medical establishment studied for decades and flatly rejects.

The Department of Health and Human Services is seeking data from little-known state systems that allow hospitals and clinics to exchange detailed, identifiable patient information, KFF Health News has learned.

In private meetings, some public health leaders have objected to giving Kennedy’s team access to such data, raising doubts that it’s legal or that the information would even be useful.

They have also expressed concerns about allowing the federal government to peer into the minutiae of Americans’ medical records, which could mean viewing anything from doctors’ notes to prescription history. HHS has offered no insight into how it will protect or handle the personal health information it obtains.

But Kennedy told KFF Health News that medical records are key to investigating the cause of autism, vaccine safety, and chronic diseases. And millions of dollars in grant money has poured into a Nebraska nonprofit that has assisted Kennedy’s effort, according to state records.

He and his advisers have been frustrated that federal access to Americans’ medical records has been limited.

“We need a good health record system, and one of the things that really surprised me most when I came into office is that there is — that the systems are broken,” Kennedy said in a May interview. “We’ve had to go to the states and, luckily, we’ve got a lot of cooperation from the states, but we now have databases together that we can actually do the studies on. Those studies are in motion.”

HHS has not publicly announced any new projects involving medical records and autism or vaccine research. Kennedy faced blowback last year when he proposed compiling the medical records of people with autism to create a federal disease registry — which health department officials later disputed was underway.

But Kennedy said in May, “We have a whole pipeline of studies that will be done over the next year.”

Though the White House has steered Kennedy away from further changes to U.S. vaccine policy ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections, President Donald Trump has regularly echoed Kennedy’s doubts about vaccine safety and last week signed an executive order calling for the U.S. to reduce the number of vaccines recommended for children.

Kennedy’s political appointees and allies — including William “Reyn” Archer III, a former Texas health official and vaccine critic whom Kennedy hired as a senior adviser — have led the initiative for the health department to collect and examine medical records.

Federal officials met with leaders of the state-run health information exchange systems several times over the past year and asked how the personal medical records they maintain could be used for vaccine research, according to seven people who participated in the discussions or were familiar with them.

Craig Behm, who runs the Maryland health information exchange, said Kennedy’s team asked about how the vast trove of medical records they store from hospitals and health systems could be used to study vaccines.

“If this administration wants to conduct research on the effectiveness of vaccines, are you saying you all can help us conduct that research?” Behm recalled being asked by a top official at HHS’ health information technology office.

Last June, Behm and leaders of other state exchanges met with Kennedy’s top advisers to discuss sharing more medical data with federal agencies. The state organizations followed up with a pitch in October for a new surveillance system that would give the federal health department “real-time, 24-hour data feeds on opioid and chronic disease trends” within a year, according to a presentation reviewed by KFF Health News. Under the proposal, HHS would get data from 90% of the population’s medical records by 2028.

Administration officials regularly asked during the meetings how the records could be used to monitor vaccine safety. Kennedy has rejected the federal government’s current vaccine-monitoring systems; decades of research has shown immunizations are safe and effective for most people.

“Vaccine safety, or whatever words you want to use, has come up pretty consistently in those conversations,” said John Kansky, CEO of the Indiana Health Information Exchange.

Kansky sees the potential value of sharing information from the exchanges for public health but is worried about the focus on vaccines: “It’s like, oh man, I wish you would have picked something that pushed fewer buttons for people.”

A system to monitor chronic disease

Nearly every state has at least one health information exchange — often regulated by state laws and run by private companies or nonprofits — that enables hospitals and health systems to immediately share patients’ medical records with one another. The systems allow doctors and nurses to quickly pull up nearly anyone’s medical history and records at emergency rooms or share after-visit summaries and notes with patients’ primary care providers, for example.

In certain circumstances — most often dealing with cases of infectious diseases such as measles or flu — the exchanges notify public health authorities, like the state health department or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Using the exchanges for broader public health purposes is not an unusual idea in itself. But it can present privacy, legal, and ethical complications, health officials say.

In the end, Behm said his organization in Maryland declined to share more data with the federal government for vaccine research, noting that sharing medical records for that purpose would require a rash of approvals from hospitals, state political leaders, and research boards. Any new data-sharing agreement should also have a clear, detailed framework outlining what would be shared and with whom, he added.

“A number of us said, ‘We can’t do anything our agreements don’t allow us to do, so no,’” Behm said. Indeed, most health information exchanges have contractual restrictions on who can access clinical data.

Kansky said Indiana is still weighing whether to provide additional data for Kennedy’s project, and that nothing has yet been shared.

HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard did not answer questions about how many states are participating in Kennedy’s project, what new data the agency is collecting, how much the federal government is spending on the initiative, how it is protecting patient privacy, or who has access to the data.

“HHS is strengthening public health surveillance and modernizing data systems to better understand and combat the childhood chronic disease epidemic as part of Secretary Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda,” Hilliard said in an emailed statement. “Americans deserve robust systems to monitor the drivers of chronic illness.”

Kennedy has asserted, without evidence, that vaccines can cause chronic illness.

A Kennedy partner in Nebraska

At least one state has been cooperative.

The former leader of Nebraska’s state health information exchange has led the effort to share data from medical records with the federal government.

Jaime Bland, former CEO of CyncHealth — the Nebraska health information exchange used by most hospitals and health systems in the state — said several states are looking to “open up channels” to provide more analysis to Kennedy’s team.

“They’re looking at the data differently and providing some insights back to the CDC,” Bland told KFF Health News.

Bland was among a group who proposed that CyncHealth would help kick off the initiative, according to a 43-slide PowerPoint presented to federal officials during an October meeting.

CyncHealth and other state health information exchanges would “ingest data from hospitals, clinics, laboratories, pharmacies, payers, and social services agencies,” then “link claims and clinical records through a master patient index.”

Data from the exchanges “will be deidentified where appropriate,” according to one slide.

The federal government would pay the exchanges for furnishing the records, according to the proposal: $3 a person, annually.

Officials would “frame publicly that this is not a new database, but a federated trust model that delivers real-time data for all HHS missions,” the presentation reads.

After the meeting, Nebraska’s health department was awarded a large grant from the CDC, and CyncHealth in turn got millions of dollars from the state.

On Dec. 19, the CDC announced new funding under its Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity program, which sends money to state and local health departments for lab work, health information enhancements, and solutions for outbreaks.

Nebraska’s state health department was awarded $18.7 million — the most of any state last year, though Nebraska is the 38th most populous state. By comparison, Texas received $9.2 million, and California got $10.8 million.

CyncHealth was then awarded three contracts totaling $13.6 million from the state health department just weeks later, on Jan. 9 and Jan. 16, according to a publicly accessible database of state contracts.

Grace McNamara, a spokesperson for CyncHealth, said it retained $2.4 million of the funding for Kennedy’s project; the remaining money was distributed to “other participating states and various vendor organizations for implementation support.”

A former CDC official who was aware of the transaction, but not authorized to speak publicly about it, confirmed the money was intended for CyncHealth to supply data for Kennedy’s initiative to look at vaccines and autism. McNamara said that the “work is focused on improving outcomes related to acute and chronic illnesses.”

“The referenced project is not research, but rather a proof-of-concept project on how health information exchange and public health can work together to improve health outcomes and is not specific to autism,” she said in an emailed statement.

McNamara did not answer questions about what type of medical data is being provided to the federal health department or whether patients’ identifying information is removed.

Bland left her post at CyncHealth — where she was paid nearly $420,000 a year — in December. She was named in April as the chief data strategist for the MAHA Institute — a think tank founded by allies of Kennedy and Trump to advance their Make America Healthy Again movement.

Bland agreed with Kennedy that data from state health information exchanges could provide more insight into autism’s causes or vaccine injuries.

"The data is so fragmented, so modeled when it comes to population health and public health, that we lose sight of the individual stories,” Bland said. She told a story she had heard about a woman who had a seizure after receiving the HPV vaccine.

“You know, the vaccine is safe — it absolutely is — but it wasn’t safe for her,” Bland said. “As public health officials, we say the vaccine is safe. But there are cases where it is not.”

Daniel Jernigan, a former top CDC official who left the agency last summer, said he tried to point Kennedy to data that would help the health secretary study vaccine safety and autism.

After 31 years at the CDC overseeing public health surveillance, emerging infectious diseases, and the influenza divisions, Jernigan thought the solution was simple. The secretary could work with researchers to obtain huge databases pulled from health systems nationwide and maintained by major electronic health records companies.

Those databases are deidentified, meaning they don’t include patient names or other information that can identify individuals. Jernigan said Kennedy didn’t seem interested.

Instead, as The New York Times first reported, the health secretary dispatched two top advisers — Archer and Hannah Anderson, his former deputy chief of staff — to the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta last July to download millions of identifiable patient records directly from the Vaccine Safety Datalink, the system the health agency uses to investigate complications from vaccines. The records, though, were decades old.

Jernigan said the federal government has limited legal authority to access medical records from state health information exchanges. In any case, examining those records may provide a view of a person’s medical history that will not necessarily produce answers to Kennedy’s questions about vaccines and autism.

“If they’re just using the electronic health record data, there are limits to that,” Jernigan said. “If they’re only looking at electronic health record data, all you’re going to get is what was captured in the encounter. It’s not going to be very satisfying.”

KFF Health News data reporter Maia Rosenfeld contributed to this article.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The California Supreme Court this week reversed the death sentence of a Los Angeles Bloods gang member convicted of killing a rival Crip in the early 1990s because a prosecutor compared him to a dangerous animal, the first time a death sentence has been overturned under the 2020 Racial Justice Act.

Anthony Bankston represented himself in court in 1991. A jury found him guilty. During the penalty phase of the trial, a prosecutor compared Bankston — appearing in a suit and tie — to a Bengal tiger at the zoo.

The prosecutor’s story was that a journalist observed a Bengal tiger in a zoo, and was told by a hunter “that’s not a Bengal tiger.” Instead, the journalist traveled to India, where he found a tiger, “all flexed out, he sees the claws out, he sees the fangs, . . . he hears the growl.”

The hunter tells him, “now you see a Bengal tiger.” The story was supposed to illustrate that Bankston in court was not the same person as Bankston on the street, whom the prosecutor described as “a killing machine.”

The California Supreme Court justices found that comparison prejudicial in a unanimous ruling with two concurrences. They reversed Bankston’s death sentence but the murder conviction still stands, meaning the high court sent Bankston’s sentencing back down to a trial court.

It was one of four decisions the high court released this week that stemmed from claims under the Racial Justice Act, which allows prisoners to appeal their convictions if they believe racial bias tainted their trials.

The court upheld death sentences for two of the men: Alex Demolle, who was convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl; and Marcos Esquivel Barrera, who was sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering two of his children.

In the fourth case, the court modified rulings against two condemned prisoners of Southeast Asian descent, but not because of their Racial Justice Act claims.

A spokesperson for the Judicial Council of California confirmed that Bankston’s case was the first reversal of a death sentence by the California Supreme Court because of violations of the Racial Justice Act.

According to the ruling in Bankston’s appeal, the Bengal tiger parable has come up several times in different cases, so much so that the high court called it a “well worn tale.”

In a 2010 case, the high court found that the Bengal tiger metaphor was not a prejudicial statement about a defendant’s Vietnamese heritage. In a 2018 case, a defendant said the Bengal tiger story was used to “dehumanize” him, an argument the California Supreme Court justices rejected.

But in 2020, the Legislature passed the Racial Justice Act, which included a prohibition on certain animal images that pose a risk of appealing to racial bias. The law itself specifically mentions the Bengal tiger example.

“In light of the passage of the RJA, we now make clear that, whatever the intent behind telling the story may be, the Bengal tiger story should no longer be told in California courtrooms,” Justice Leondra Kruger wrote for the majority. “There is no reason to permit prosecutors to continue running the risk of appealing to biases that undermine the very foundation of a system of equal justice, simply to make an unremarkable point about a defendant’s behavior outside a controlled courtroom setting.”

Comparisons of defendants to animals do not automatically qualify as violations of the Racial Justice Act. A case in the 4th District Court of Appeals this year found that comparing a defendant to a dog left in a car with a Slurpee was a fair comparison point to the notion of circumstantial evidence.

The Bankston ruling similarly noted that references like “eager beaver,” “happy as a clam,” “free as a bird,” or “quiet as a mouse” would not rise to the level of Racial Justice Act violations.

Bankston, who is Black, was convicted of two first-degree murder charges and one count of attempted murder for separate shootings in 1991. He was convicted of shooting and killing Benson Jones and attempting to murder Benson’s brother, Benjamin.

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

Workers at SoFi Stadium started voting Thursday on whether to authorize a strike, just days before the World Cup launches in Los Angeles.

Some 2,000 unionized food and beverage workers at the stadium have been threatening to walk off the job for weeks over concerns about Immigrations and Customs Enforcement's role in tournament security and other demands, including premium pay for lucrative events like the World Cup.

But they've yet to strike a deal with Legends Global, the company that runs the stadium's bars and food services.

" I think the combination of the World Cup being unable to get their stuff together and the greediness of the stadium owners may end up leading to workers having to call for a strike," said Kurt Petersen, co-president of the union representing SoFi workers, Unite Here Local 11.

The contract between Legends and its workers expired last year, and the two sides are currently negotiating a new agreement. The union has been leveraging its role in the coming World Cup to push for higher wages, especially at mega-events like the World Cup that rake in major profits. Unite Here and Legends were at the bargaining table Wednesday, but Petersen said that they still hadn't made a deal.

Workers are also concerned that FIFA's plans for its luxury suites will lock them out of lucrative jobs during the tournament. FIFA has brought in a company called On Location to offer exclusive packages that can cost tens of thousands of dollars or more. Union workers at SoFi say they're worried that those jobs will go to subcontractors without union protections.

Petersen said that workers represented by his union still don't have their schedules for the World Cup, and that the union doesn't have details on the company's agreement with On Location.

" It is kind of a mess," Petersen said. "Which is also adding fuel to people's anger. Like, really? We have this massive event coming, you want us to work super hard and you can't even tell us what we're gonna be doing when we're coming in, what our schedules are?"

Legends Global did not return a request for comment.

SoFi workers have also been pushing for protections from ICE, which will play a "key role" in tournament security, according to the former head of the agency.

Multiple officials including L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna have said they've received assurances that federal agents won't be conducting immigration enforcement, but Luna said there are no guarantees. Petersen said workers want the option to walk off the job if they feel unsafe because of ICE's presence.

Unite Here filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board in April, saying ICE's planned presence at the World Cup threatened the union's ability to collectively bargain. The union has also asked California Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate FIFA's accreditation process for stadium workers, which requires Social Security numbers and other personal information.

FIFA responded in a statement saying that data would be deleted after the fact, and the accreditation process does "not constitute pre-employment checks."

The sporting body did not respond to a request for comment on how a strike at SoFi Stadium could potentially affect the eight matches in Los Angeles.

The results of Unite Here's strike authorization vote could be out as early as Friday evening. If workers vote yes, fans who attend the first U.S. match in Inglewood on June 12 could show up to a picket line.

The two sides are scheduled to return to the bargaining table on Monday.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Wilshire Boulevard between MacArthur Park and Lafayette Park will be transformed into a space featuring screenings of the World Cup games in July and vendors will have the opportunity to set up shop and sell their goods as part of the celebration.

Food vendors, artisans and performers interested in participating in the World Cup-themed event at MacArthur Park have less than a week left to apply for a spot.

Council District 1 is currently accepting applications for the two-day open streets event scheduled for July 10 and July 11.  Interested applicants can apply online here.

Applications are open through June 8. According to CD1, 26 applications have already been submitted for 40 available vendor spaces.

“Vendor interest has been strong,” said Jonathan Romero, a spokesperson for CD1. “Reflecting a great mix of food and drink, arts and crafts, and health and community resources.”

There are no application or vending fees to participate, though vendors must have a valid vending permit by the start of the event. 

For some MacArthur Park vendors, the event represents a potential opportunity to reach new customers during the World Cup.

Rabi Gaidani, a street vendor who sells clothing and shoes near MacArthur Park, said he had not previously heard about the Park to Park opportunity, but now plans to apply. 

“I would love that,” he said. “When the World Cup comes, it’s super good. We have more chances with people coming from all over.”

But not all vendors are convinced the opportunity will be accessible to everyone.

Another vendor, who sells shampoos, soaps and creams near MacArthur Park, said she was  unaware of the event. Her reaction reflects a frustration some street vendors say they have experienced for years: learning about city-sponsored events only after plans are already well underway. 

The vendor, who asked not to be named due to her immigration status, said opportunities often do not reach the people who work around the park every day.

She added that the organizations the city partners with do not directly reach out to vendors like her. 

Council District 1 says it is conducting outreach to businesses surrounding the park and working with community partners to promote the opportunity.

“I think they should improve how they select vendors,” she said.

She added that she worries the World Cup event could even draw customers away from businesses like hers, similar to what she says happens during large Guatemalan community celebrations in the neighborhood. 

She said people tend to gravitate toward wherever the festivities are taking place. 

“People want to go where the excitement is, where they’re showing the World Cup,” she said. “The World Cup isn’t going to bring us anything.”

More information about the event is available at cd1.lacity.gov/p2p.