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Los Angeles city councilmember Nithya Raman will keep her seat, as election results show her maintaining just enough votes to avoid a runoff election.

With Raman’s vote tally now above the critical 50% threshold, her main challenger — Deputy City Attorney Ethan Weaver — called her to concede the race on Thursday.

A race that appeared tight on election night now has incumbent Nithya Raman in the clear lead. The big question: Does she stay above 50% to retain the seat outright?

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Erin Hauer

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LAist

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Raman said in a statement Thursday that during the campaign she encountered many voters hopeful about the city’s future. “I really look forward to carrying that sense of optimism and insistence on a better L.A. with me over the next four years.”

A note on the results

How we got here

The race was widely seen as a key test of political progressives’ staying power in city hall.

Raman received support from the Democratic Socialists of America, and has pushed to expand tenant rights and impose new limits on evictions. She also faced opposition from Sherman Oaks homeowners opposed to a low-income housing project Raman supports.

Weaver told voters he would take a tougher approach to clearing homeless encampments near schools and public parks. On election night, he said early results putting him close behind Raman showed his message resonating with voters.

“We have issues like homelessness, public safety, small businesses that are collapsing,” Weaver said. “These are voices that do not feel they have representation in city hall. And people are looking for a new approach.”

Landlords, police and firefighters spent big to defeat Raman 

Outside spending favored Weaver, with real estate interests and police and firefighters unions spending $1.3 million to defeat Raman.

Corporate landlord Douglas Emmett Management — currently carrying out one of the city’s largest mass evictions in the Barrington Plaza high-rise apartment complex — gave $400,000 to the independent committee opposing Raman.

About the district

The amount of money spent in the race marked a shift from the previous election in 2020, when Raman became the first challenger to unseat an L.A. City Council incumbent in 17 years. The district’s boundaries also changed significantly.

When Raman originally won the seat, the district included more renter-heavy areas, such as Koreatown and fewer homeowner-dominated areas in the San Fernando Valley. After the city’s most recent redistricting process, the district’s southernmost portions were removed and more of the Valley was included.

In a covertly recorded discussion at the L.A. County Federation of Labor headquarters in 2021, former council president Nury Martinez and current councilmember Kevin de Leon discussed diluting “her renters’ district” and putting it “in a blender” to “chop up left and right.” Ultimately, 40% of the district is new to this election.

What's next

Despite those changes, Raman was able to eke out a victory in the primary. She needed over 50% of voters’ support to avoid a runoff in the November general election. As of Wednesday, March 13, she had 50.64% of the vote.

Weaver had 38.62% of the vote as of Wednesday. Former NASA engineer Lev Baronian was coming in a distant third with just over 10.74%.

Follow the money

Tracking your ballot

You can track the status of your ballot:

• L.A. County

If your mail-in ballot is rejected for any reason (like a missing or mismatched signature), your county registrar must contact you to give you a chance to fix it. In Los Angeles County, the registrar will send you a notification by mail and you have until March 27 to reply and "cure" your ballot.

How we're covering this election

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The Hurricane Marie-fueled surf that hit Southern California last week was just a taste of the coastal damage El Niño could bring over the next several months, experts warn.

The destructive waves, driven by a weather system hundreds of miles away in the Pacific Ocean, reached 12 feet at times over Labor Day weekend.

The surf damaged beachfront homes from Malibu to Orange County and triggered evacuation orders for dozens more. It also threatened coastal roads and temporarily suspended service along the Pacific Surfliner railway between San Clemente and Oceanside. And coastal emergencies are still in place in Laguna Beach and Dana Point.

But there’s a good chance this was just the beginning.

The National Weather Service says there is a more than 90% chance this year’s El Niño will be very strong. Scientists also predict an alarming convergence of climate forces to come along with it that could push sea levels and surf to record highs this winter.

Coastal erosion from these atmospheric forces could come even sooner, however, with El Niño-related sea level rise expected to hit Southern California as soon as Oct. 1.

Here’s a look at the factors experts say are converging with potentially devastating effects.

Kelvin waves

First, let’s talk about Kelvin waves.

Kelvin waves are large masses of warm water that move across the ocean, driven by the same high water temperatures near the equator that are behind the wider El Niño climate pattern.

In this case, the wave first moved eastward along the equator until it ran into Central and South America, where the landmass forced it to head north. Now, it’s working its way toward Southern California.

Kelvin waves bump up the sea level about 6 to 18 inches over a large area. In the open ocean, they aren’t particularly noticeable to the naked eye. Scientists use specialized equipment to detect them.

But when pushed up against the coast, they can create much more substantial sea level rise, and scientists say this Kelvin wave is likely to reach the Southern California coast by early next month.

This graphic shows the sea surface heights over 45 days between August and September as the Kelvin wave hit South America, then began its journey north along the coast of Central America. These number are compared to the 1993-2025 baseline sea levels over 45 days between August and September.

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Dillon J. Amaya

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High sea levels push waves farther inland, where they crash against the shoreline with greater force, making erosion worse.

“ Boy, if you have enough water level to support those waves so they dump right on your coast, they're right there,” said Timu Gallien, a UCLA environmental engineering professor who studies coastal erosion. “Now they're coming through your window, now they're on your front porch, quite literally, for the beachfront homes.”

Scientists also say multiple Kelvin waves are likely to come in a sequence, become trapped against the coast and build up sea levels even more.

King tides

El Niño’s warm oceans cause elevated sea levels on their own because warm water takes up more space than cold water. When combined with natural high tides, levels are raised even higher, creating destructive king tides.

This year, by late fall and winter, tides are projected to be at their highest levels in 18 years due to the natural cycle of the moon and planets.

Sea-level rise from the nearly decade-high tides is likely to combine with El Niño’s surge.

“That rides on top of the tide,” Gallien said. “ You've got the tides that are going up and down, then you've got this El Niño signal that goes up and down on top of that tide.”

Storms

Warm El Niño waters also drive storms, and scientists are predicting some of the highest ocean temperatures ever recorded.

“We're going to be experiencing record-breaking water temperatures for many, many months on end on the top of what is already a record-breaking marine heat wave,” said Daniel Swain, a UC climate scientist, during a webinar on El Niño predictions last week.

Warmer seawater evaporates faster, adding moisture in the air that can turn into rain. El Niño also shifts the jet stream, pushing more moisture into Southern California rather than its normal path toward the Pacific Northwest.

Warm waters also create more tropical storms in the eastern Pacific, making them stronger and longer lasting.

Like Hurricane Marie, surges from these storms can travel hundreds of miles until they slam into the California coast.

The Los Angeles Dodgers marked their record-tying 14th consecutive trip to MLB’s postseason with a toast of bubbly after Monday night’s 4-1 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.

The bigger celebrations will come later.

“It’s hard to say it ever feels routine, but it is the expectation here,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “I always laugh whenever we clinch a postseason spot, we just do a nice little toast. The guys that haven’t been here, they kind of see that and they expect a little bit more. That happens when you clinch the division.”

The two-time defending World Series champions, who joined Milwaukee and Tampa Bay as teams who have secured playoff spots, cut their magic number to three for a fifth straight NL West title and 13th in 14 seasons.

Los Angeles tied the Atlanta Braves’ postseason run from 1991 through 2005. The Braves made five World Series trips during that span, but won only in 1995.

“Thankfully we’re doing a little bit better than that,” Muncy said of the Dodgers three titles and five trips to the Fall Classic during their run.

Tarik Skubal — who pitched seven shutout innings and allowed only three hits — said the way the Dodgers handled clinching a postseason spot was definitely different compared to clinching situations he encountered the past two seasons with Detroit.

“I think it just speaks to the people in this room and what they expect out of this team. That was cool. A little toast and move on. Forget it happened. We’ve got more to accomplish this season,” he said.

Dave Roberts, who is in his 11th season as manager, said his message during the toast was that the Dodgers have accomplished a lot to this point but haven’t come close to playing their best baseball yet.

“We go through a lot of players every year, and guys find a way to step up, and so that’s the thing I’m probably most proud of, is the consistency of winning over the long term,” he said. “Any team, any organization can win in a given year where things line up, but to do it every single year when you’re expected to do this says something about the entire organization.”

The Dodgers (91-59) currently are the second seed in the NL. They are 2 1/2 games ahead of Atlanta and trail Milwaukee by 2 games for the top seed.

A first-round bye is important any time but especially this year for the Dodgers, who are not at full strength. First baseman Freddie Freeman has been plagued by right knee soreness and two-time NL MVP Shohei Ohtani is on the 15-day injured list due to right biceps inflammation.

“Given where our guys are health wise, to get that week would be huge. We’ve still got to play well to finish out the season to get to that point,” Roberts said before Monday’s game.

Among the hundreds of lead-polluted sites dotted across L.A. County, a disproportionate number are located in largely low-income neighborhoods of color. Too often, lead pollution is left in place, even when it’s severe enough to cause health harm, with potential long-term implications for those living there like irreversible neurological damage.

If it’s not dug up and hauled away or removed by some other biological means, it can stay in the environment for millenia.

Below are five lead-contaminated sites across L.A. County that illustrate just how pervasive and intractable this problem can be, how costly it is to clean up, and how surprising some of the sources are.

1. Ecobat Resources California

The Ecobat Resources California lead-acid battery recycling plant in the City of Industry.

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Karla Gachet

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Ecobat Resources California in the City of Industry is the only lead battery recycling plant left operating this side of the Rockies. It opened in 1959 (under the company name Quemetco), when the world of environmental regulations was more akin to the Wild West.

In 2008, the plant installed a sophisticated air filter that helped reduce lead emissions markedly. But by then, the plant had already released huge quantities of lead into the surrounding environment, carried by the wind before settling over people’s homes.

A long history of hazardous waste violations spanning decades also show Ecobat has not been as careful as it should in managing the dangerous chemicals it processes.

Multiple rounds of soil lead testing have been conducted around the plant since the early 1990s, and as recently as 2021. In 2024, DTSC ordered the company to do yet more testing to define the full extent of their pollution footprint.

That’s because “every single time they’ve gone out to sample in the community, they’ve got a non-trivial portion of the samples collected showing elevated levels of lead,” said Angela Johnson Meszaros, a senior attorney with the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice.

The nearest homes are just hundreds of feet from the plant perimeter, but state officials estimate it could have polluted soils up to 1.6 miles away. Yet, no government agency has ever cleaned up these lead–contaminated homes.

Though DTSC has linked the plant’s operations to this off-site contamination, Ecobat Resources California leadership and other industry representatives have voiced reservations about a potential cleanup, arguing the plant shouldn’t be responsible for removing pollution that might have come from other potential sources like lead paint and gasoline.

Community members and environmental advocates are worried that, when time comes to close the plant and clean up its mess (something not currently on the cards), there won’t be enough money given the scale of the possible remediation.

In Ecobat’s latest hazardous waste operating permit issued in 2025, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, or DTSC, required the company to post more than $50 million in financial assurances to cover all the cleanup costs if the plant were to close, and for any ongoing environmental monitoring of the site after that.

The number is way too small, warned Johnson Meszaros. “This amount is at best, a baseless hope about the extent of the contamination that has left the facility,” she said. “And at worst, it’s a tragic mistake.”

2. S&W Atlas Iron and Metals

Loud ground-shaking activity within S&W Atlas Iron would often disrupt classes at Jordan High school.

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Courtesy of LAUSD

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For years, S&W Atlas Iron and Metals, a scrap metal recycling plant in Watts, contaminated the neighboring Jordan High campus with toxins like lead, made the lives of students and teachers unbearable with loud ground-shaking noises, and terrorized them with multiple explosions that rained shrapnel onto school grounds. The school and the plant were separated by a single wall.

Last year, Matthew and Gary Weisenberg, the owner operators of Atlas, pleaded no contest in the Los Angeles County Superior Court to five felony counts related to the management of hazardous substances including lead, and were ordered to clean up the toxic mess they’ve left behind.

The problem isn’t over. Cancer-causing chemicals in the soil are crawling toward and onto the campus of Jordan High that court filings describe as “orders of magnitude” above state screening levels.

“Let’s call it what it is, a form of societal violence and a human rights violation,” said Jane Williams, executive director of the environmental advocacy group California Communities Against Toxics, who has tracked this case for decades.

The Weisenbergs’ two-year probationary clock runs out in October 2027.

But many in the Jordan High community have voiced frustration that the Weisenbergs are dragging their heels on this ongoing remediation, and that state regulators aren’t being tough enough, especially given how the students are already in one of the most pollution-burdened communities in the whole state.

“What I want to see is the DTSC and CalEPA really look holistically at the cumulative risks at this site and that they really start to address not just one contaminant individually but all the of the factors that are weighing on the Watts community at any given time,” said Thelmy Alvarez, who helped found the environmental justice collaborative Better Watts Initiative and who worked for years to close down Atlas.

3. Exide Technologies

Large water pipes are shown in the foreground inside the now-demolished Exide Technologies plant.

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Alfredo Santana

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LA Public Press

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For three decades, the former Exide lead battery recycling plant in the City of Vernon spewed some 3,500 tons of lead into surrounding neighborhoods until the federal government forced it to close in 2015. So far, the state has overseen the removal of lead-contaminated soil in more than 6,300 homes up to 1.7 miles around the plant. The massive cleanup is the largest hazardous waste cleanup in the state’s history.

A federal bankruptcy court released Exide Technologies from its cleanup obligations in October 2020, the company having stumped up only about $23.3 million toward those costs. This is a fraction of the nearly $950 million state taxpayers have so far forked out for the cleanup.

Major question marks remain about just how well those public funds have been used.

The nonprofit advocacy group East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice partnered with UC Irvine researchers to collect soil samples from 373 homes that had already been cleaned up. Earlier this year, they published their findings.

They found that 70 percent of these supposedly remediated homes yielded samples that still exceeded the state’s health protective soil lead threshold.

The department has been conducting its own confirmation testing on 623 properties that were previously cleaned up between mid-April 2025 and February.

The individual sampling reports and raw data have been released in batches since June. A comprehensive report on these results will be available early next year, according to DTSC spokesperson Elizabeth Leslie-Gassaway.

4. Central Metals

The now shuttered Central Metals facility in South LA, captured here in July 2025.

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Dan Ross

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Long Beach Post

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When the huge front gates used to open to Central Metals, a recycler in South Los Angeles, the neighbors who lived right across the road got a glimpse into a vast metal wasteland full of junk piles.

Those who lived in the noisy shadow of this bustling 11-acre compound, where scrap would be cut and shredded, long feared it had polluted their homes and backyards with lead.

Their fears were heightened in 2011, when the state found hazardous waste leaks from smashed battery cases at the plant, along with oily sludge and broken e-waste.

Company documents detailed 430 tons of onsite soil laced with lead and other chemicals. Regulators determined toxic dust had likely blown into the adjacent community. It was closed in 2016.

Two years later, the EPA began an investigation into lead pollution surrounding Central Metals to determine whether to include the site on the federal Superfund list.

Among the agency’s eventual findings, 11 of the 83 homes sampled had soil lead levels high enough to warrant remediation, but not significant enough, the EPA argued, to make Central Metals a Superfund site.

To help decide whether Central Metals should join the Superfund list, the EPA used a soil lead cleanup threshold of 400 parts per million (ppm).

Since that report was published, the EPA has halved its residential soil lead screening limit to 200 ppm. Using that threshold, nearly 25% of the EPA’s samples in the report were over that threshold.

If the EPA used California’s stricter residential soil lead screening limit of 80 ppm, however, a staggering 88% of its published samples would exceed that threshold, according to an LA Public Press review of the data.

Mason Thomas Reid, a researcher at Ohio State University and UCLA’s JAYLab, taking soil lead readings with an XRF gun at a home around the former Central Metals plant in July 2025.

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Dan Ross

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LA Public Press

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This matches the results of a more recent independent soil lead study at homes around Central Metals, where 86% of the samples were also above California’s 80 ppm cleanup threshold.

Both the EPA and the DTSC told LA Public Press they have no plans to remediate these homes. The only cleanup has been within the recycler’s walls.

In explaining DTSC’s position, agency spokesperson Leslie-Gassaway wrote in an email how the EPA had already found no “correlation” between the residential lead contamination and Central Metals.

“As a result, DTSC is not directing Central Metals to perform soil lead remediation near its facility,” wrote spokesperson Leslie-Gassaway.

But the independent researchers found that the higher lead levels in the homes “correlated significantly” with closer proximity to Central Metals.

Either way, “no matter who put it there, the people are still suffering as a result of exposure to all of this contamination, and that’s something that should be addressed,” said Mason Thomas Reid, a researcher at Ohio State University and UCLA’s JAYLab who helped conduct the study with key support from the non-profit Communities for a Better Environment.

5. Santa Monica Airport

Santa Monica Airport is scheduled to be closed down in 2028 after decades of community pushback, including over emission risks from leaded aviation fuels.

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Dan Ross

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LA Public Press

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While a complete ban on the sale of leaded gas for highway vehicles was finally achieved in 1996, the little piston engine planes criss-crossing L.A.’s skies are still using leaded fuel, which rains out over the world below.

In total, these planes constitute the largest lead emitter in the nation.

The EPA is also phasing out the use of leaded aviation gasoline. The goal is for this to be achieved by 2030.

In the meantime, the more than 200,000 such planes that use this fuel have access to multiple county, municipal and private airports across LA. One of those airports is in Santa Monica.

Regulatory air quality studies published in 2010 and  2011 found the highest lead levels occurred closest to the Santa Monica runways before tapering off and returning to normal levels 1 kilometer away, and that air contaminants spiked just before and after planes took off.

Around that same time, the EPA found elevated soil lead levels in two of five tested homes close to the airport, though not in limited soil and dust samples at the airport and neighboring parks.

With significantly greater lead emissions than Santa Monica is Van Nuys Airport in the San Fernando Valley. Indeed, Van Nuys ranks as one of the largest lead emitting airports nationwide. An extensive 2025 report found that residents living in the shadow of the Van Nuys Airport attributed health conditions to noise and air pollution stemming from the airport.

Their concerns are far from unfounded.

The EPA determined in 2023 that leaded aviation gasoline is a likely danger to “public health and welfare.” This 2016 study identified higher rates of respiratory problems, heart disease, and emergency room visits among those living around California’s 12 largest airports.

Overall research on lead impacts around all L.A. County’s airports remains slim, however, though the South Coast Air Quality Management District conducted air monitoring around the Whiteman Airport in Pacoima in 2018, 2019, and in 2022. It found air lead levels to be within typical ranges, and lower than a national air quality standard for the chemical.

At the same time, a 2021 study around Reid-Hillview Airport in Northern California’s Santa Clara County found that the closer children lived to the airport, the higher the amount of lead in their blood.

A subsequent analysis around the same airport found that childhood blood lead levels increased with the greater volume of air traffic and larger quantities of leaded aviation gas sold.

Santa Monica airport is set to close in 2028 after years of community pushback, including around the risks from exposures to this nasty neurotoxin.

This article was produced by the nonprofit journalism publication LA Public Press. It is co-published here with permission.

This is part three of “Lead City,” our series documenting the impact of lead pollution across L.A. County. You can read the first and second stories here. The series was produced as part of the USC Center for Health Journalism’s California Health Equity Fellowship.

The work film editors do is as old as Hollywood.

The best editors take the many scenes filmed by a production crew and seamlessly create one work.

“You don't see what I do and if you do, I'm not doing my job right,” said Ryan Westphal, a visual effects editor, who worked on the TV series "Loki " and the film "Ferrari."

For Westphal, the best of times as an editor appear to be in the rearview mirror.

“I've had a good run from about 2018 to about 2023," he said. "For some people, the really busy time was about 2021 to 2023… the gold rush years for streaming content.”

It was good enough that he was lining up his finances to buy a house in Los Angeles. Not anymore.

“I feel like I'm on borrowed time. If things don't get back to some version of what it once was, I [will] need to leave L.A., and I need to change careers,” he said.

Westphal is one of thousands of people who’ve done post-production work — like editing and sound design — who are now feeling the contraction of opportunities in Hollywood. Some who are more visible, like actors and directors, have already felt that squeeze.

He and many others are waiting eagerly to see what Gov. Gavin Newsom does with a state bill meant to help these post production workers.

Assembly Bill 2319 is also known as the California Post-Production Tax Credit. It made it through both legislative chambers in Sacramento and was sent to the governor’s desk on Sept. 2.

The bill

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has not said whether he plans to sign or veto the bill.

“I think it's a smart bill. I believe passing the bill [is] a way to keep television producers happy and here in Los Angeles,” said Juan Garza, an editor who’s worked on TV series such as "Doubt " and "Queen of the South."

California has already created tax credits as incentives for TV and film productions that do most filming and post production in the state. But this bill is different.

It would create new credits for projects that keep post-production work like editing and sound design in the state, even if they were filmed elsewhere or didn’t benefit from existing production tax credits.

For Garza, there’s a silver lining to the production slowdown. He’s also a filmmaker and has used the down time to take on several independent projects.

The Motion Picture Editors Guild represents Garza and about 8,000 other freelance and staff post-production professionals across the U.S. The union is urging Newsom to sign the bill.

Will a tax credit do enough?

But even to union members, it’s unclear if this bill will bring back the good years.

“I  think it's really a drop in the bucket of what's needed,” said Westphal, who has taken on part-time work as a security guard to make ends meet.

He said some more experienced editors have had to go to Europe to keep working. And some post-production work, like filming, has gone to other states as legislators elsewhere have attracted production out of California.

“It's a good start, but to really compete against the other states [and] the other countries, a lot more is needed,” he said.