The Brief

Los Angeles County elections of Superior Court judges are notoriously hard to vote on, but concerns about a committee that issues ratings on each candidate are making it harder.

This election cycle, 28 candidates are vying for 10 seats on the L.A. County Superior Court, which you can learn about in our Voter Game Plan. These are people who could, if elected, end up hearing things like your divorce or traffic ticket dispute.

But it’s a race with notoriously little information, which is why the L.A. County Bar Association (LACBA) — a private, volunteer membership group unaffiliated with the state bar — assesses candidates each judicial election to help you figure out who could be fit for the bench, with ratings ranging from "not qualified," "qualified," "well qualified" and "exceptionally well qualified.”

A good rating is highly sought after and it can help a candidate get more endorsements and votes, but some candidates say a bad rating can sink a campaign before it begins.

This year, for one seat, LACBA rated both candidates running as “not qualified.” It’s renewed concerns the reviewers have a bias against attorneys with certain backgrounds, such as women, people of color and non-prosecutors like public defenders. Of the committee’s 38 members, only five have current public defender backgrounds. It leaves voters with more questions than answers.

A ‘not qualified’ candidate’s perspective

Recently, a reader wrote into us asking what they should do about the seat where both candidates were rated as not qualified.

We’ll try to answer that question in a bit, but first let’s take a look at why multiple candidates are saying LACBA’s whole review process is flawed.

You can learn more about the committee’s process here. In a nutshell, LACBA asks for at least 75 references, details about past employment and case history, and it spends weeks interviewing people who know the lawyer to determine whether they may fit within the association’s standards for judicial fitness. It culminates in an interview with the candidate about their findings before ratings are issued.

The attributes considered in the evaluations process.

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A screenshot of a LACBA presentation via chair Susan Schwartz

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Kim Repecka, one of the two candidates deemed “not qualified” in the Office No. 124 race, is a public defender who’s been practicing law for more than 11 years. According to emails reviewed by LAist, the committee told her before her interview they received information during the investigation that Repecka was “overzealous, rude to opposing counsel, the court, and court reporters, a ‘true believer’, and overly emotional.”

She later learned some of the claims came from opposing counsel and a judge during her time in criminal court.

The committee also told Repecka they had information that indicated “a limited breadth of experience” in terms of the cases. Repecka felt like she’d be able to show that she’d dealt with many different areas of law, but the other issues felt ambiguous.

“The claim of being too emotional, kind of felt like it had a basis in sexism. I certainly do sometimes feel emotionally about my cases,” Repecka said. “[But] I don't think that's a thing that people should not find desirable in judges, provided their judgment is not clouded by being emotional.”

When Repecka appealed her “not qualified” rating to the full committee, she says someone also made suggestions about her being too young to be a judge and that she may want to wait. They also brought up a 2022 Facebook post she made (at the request of her client) that included her concerns about the prosecutor’s conduct during jury selection and trial, and concerns about police brutality.

At the end of the appeals process, Repecka’s rating stayed the same, with the explanation that the rating was due to her “demeanor, judicial temperament, and professionalism.”

“If they don’t think that people should be upset when they see injustice,” she said, “if they don't think that judges or defense attorneys should be upset when they see unethical behavior, then I guess I don't have the temperament that they want.”

Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Law School who previously served on that committee, says that temperament is a legitimate criteria when looking for a good judge. Patience and the ability to listen well are key.

“We're looking for people that you think would be fair on your case,” Levenson said.

More candidates describe red flags in interviews

Repecka’s experience brings up a theme common to many concerns. LACBA’s evaluation committee is made up mostly of prosecutors and corporate lawyers, while many issued lower ratings are public defenders. The stark divide between the two is often reflected in the adversarial nature of courtrooms.

George Turner, a Black deputy public defender running for Office No. 39 who got a “qualified” rating, says his interview was “less than professional” and that questions “teetered on racism.” Two things came up about what he stands for: Turner’s desire to represent his community and to see the bench be more reflective of the people who are in courts.

“One of the interviewers said, ‘well, you know, Black people only make up about 9% of the population of Los Angeles County,” Turner recalled. “‘Are you saying that I would be a better representation because I'm white?’”

The question left Turner taken aback since he didn’t mention race specifically. Ericka Wiley, another deputy public defender running in Office No. 48 who was rated “qualified,” says a prosecutor asked her repeatedly why she’s used mental health diversion in settling cases. (Those programs steer people living with mental illness and drug use issues into treatment instead of incarceration.) Wiley believes this person didn’t know what she was talking about.

“It was very frustrating for me that I was being questioned about what I do and I was going to be rated by someone who had a complete lack of understanding of what's involved in my work,” Wiley said.

Wiley and Turner did not appeal their ratings.

Former LACBA board member Merete Rietveld is also critical of the committee. She says there is an incentive for lawyers interested in being appointed to the bench themselves to join the evaluations committee, and to “tap into that network of people involved in the judicial selection process.” The evaluations committee is also not regulated by outside sources, so people can volunteer for it with only a few years of legal experience.

Did 2022 concerns change anything?

In 2022, LAist ran a story where candidates raised similar concerns of bias in the ratings process against women, people of color and non-prosecutors.

The story prompted candidate Rhonda Haymon, a deputy public defender running for Office No. 12, to ask the committee this election if they’d made any changes since then. Haymon says she did not hear back and did not submit her information for consideration. LACBA evaluated Haymon without her input, as is their rules, using whatever information they could find. The committee deemed her “not qualified.”

LAist did speak to a number of candidates who were fine with their ratings.

Office No. 130 candidate Christopher Darden, an attorney who’s worked in both prosecution and defense, was rated “well qualified.” And while he’s happy with that rating and generally didn’t have issues with his interviews, he noticed how the committee gave him, and his opponent with less experience, the same rating.

“I do have a problem with a system that equates 44 years of experience like mine with 12 years of doing nothing more than being a prosecutor,” Darden said. “I don't feel like I was discriminated against or treated unfairly but I have a concern that public defenders weren't treated the same way that deputy district attorneys were.”

Candidates for Office No. 97, former deputy public defender La Shae Henderson, who received “qualified” and deputy district attorney Sam Abourched, who received “well qualified,” also felt their interviews went normally.

LACBA’s response

LAist asked LACBA to respond to criticisms, and we received this letter from committee chair Susan Schwartz:

In line with the committee’s process, Schwartz says that she’s not at liberty to respond to specific questions on candidates, but says that their evaluations were consistent and fair. Those interviews and findings are kept confidential.

Schwartz said separately in an interview that the subcommittees which conduct the reviews don’t evaluate candidates against each other, so there can be times where both candidates get low ratings — as is the case with Office No. 124 — or when both get the same rating.

Schwartz also said after our investigation came out in 2022, the committee added another defense lawyer to its ranks and rolled out an implicit bias training.

So what can you do with your vote?

The main takeaway is to use the LACBA ratings cautiously and make your own decisions.

Our Voter Game Plan includes links to candidates’ endorsements groups like political organizations and other judges. You can look up attorneys registered to practice law in California through the State Bar website. It will show you their license status, contact information, and whether the attorney has been disciplined.

You could also write someone in. The deadline for new candidates to officially launch a write-in campaign has passed, but you can always put a name of someone you’d like to see on the bench. Unfortunately, there’s no list of “well-qualified” attorneys on standby. This will require some extra research on your part.

In the case of the Office No. 124 race, where both candidates were deemed “not qualified,” Schwartz admitted it’s going to be a hard choice for everyone. As for her, she’ll be consulting outside tools like Vote 411 to make her decision, which is a resource from the League of Women Voters.

Laurie Levenson, the Loyola law professor, says she gets questions about voting on judges all the time. As a former member of LACBA’s evaluations committee, she still uses the ratings they put out. But she says sometimes they don’t end up sharing answers voters want.

“We know that the L.A. Times does a vet and they make their endorsements. We know that newspapers will evaluate [candidates] other than the L.A. Times,” Levenson said. “For example, the Metropolitan News focuses more on the legal community, and then there's the L.A. Daily Journal.”

Levenson says there’s a few ways to think about the criteria for judges: The level of experience, openness to all members of the community, and a potential to add to a diverse bench that serves everyone’s interests.

Flies, rodents and other pests have been a persistent problem in Boyle Heights and nearby communities as millions of pounds of food rot in a nearby burned-out warehouse. It’s gotten bad enough that L.A. Mayor Karen Bass is asking for action from the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

In a letter sent Tuesday to county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, Bass said she’s “concerned with County DPH’s pace in addressing this disaster” and the risks it posed to health and quality of life.

“Possibly the worst manifestation of these risks is the severe infestation of flies in Boyle Heights and neighboring communities,” Bass wrote.

LAist has asked the Department of Public Health for comment and will update this article when they respond.

The back-and-forth between jurisdictions

Bass wrote that the city of L.A., which does not have its own health department, is largely dependent on L.A. County for control of potentially disease-carrying vectors. The city has said elsewhere that its Sanitation Department did set about 250 rat traps in surrounding areas.

Bass’ letter says the county took its first steps to hold warehouse operator Lineage accountable for a fly infestation on July 17, ordering the company to remove flies and mosquitoes from the property.

“Although I appreciate that County DPH has taken this first step, the County’s report only directs Lineage to eliminate flies from Lineage’s own property,” Bass’ letter to Ferrer states.

Bass urged the county to compel Lineage to address pests at neighboring properties “with aggressive measures to eliminate the flies and any other vectors.”

As for L.A. County’s Department of Public Health, a spokesperson told LAist on July 17 that it had itself directed the city and Lineage to address the pest situation.

“Los Angeles County Department of Public Health requested that both Lineage Logistics and the City of Los Angeles develop and implement a vector/insect control plan,” the statement reads.

Lineage’s part

According to Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents Boyle Heights on the L.A. City Council and met with Lineage representatives on Monday, an inspector contracted by the company confirmed that the rotting food at the warehouse is serving as a breeding ground for flies. The infestation won’t go away without addressing the root cause, Jurado reported the contractor as saying.

“Removing waste, adding odor-control equipment, and conducting a pest inspection are important,” Jurado said in a statement. “But residents are asking a more fundamental question: Are conditions actually improving? They deserve evidence, timelines and accountability — not just a list of activities.”

Lineage has not yet presented its pest control plan to the public.

A ticking clock

The first day of instruction for L.A. Unified schools is Aug. 12, three days before the city’s current deadline to clear the warehouse — a deadline Lineage does not appear to be on track to meet.

That’s led many teachers and parents to raise the alarm about smells and pests that may very well still be around when school starts. An LAUSD spokesperson told Boyle Heights Beat that it is prepared to temporarily relocate nearby schools, as they did with summer programs during the warehouse fire.

Lineage meets deadline at last minute

Meanwhile, Lineage also faced a deadline of Tuesday to present a plan to air quality officials on how to address smells of spoiled food, which have been reported from miles away. A South Coast Air Quality Management District spokesperson said that the agency received a response from Lineage at 5 p.m. and is evaluating it.

L.A.’s homeless services agency has not completed any internal audits in years — and one that was started two years ago is still incomplete because management is taking months to provide responses, officials said Monday.

The delayed audit has been looking into why the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, failed to spend $7 million in federal dollars it was granted to house and serve people in need. The roughly six-page audit report hasn’t been released because it’s missing LAHSA management responses that were requested over two months ago, officials said.

Internal audits are considered critically important to protecting taxpayer dollars at every level of government. L.A. County auditors, for example, issued about 100 reports in a recent fiscal year.

“ We haven’t gotten anything,” said Erum Shahnawaz, LAHSA’s chief internal auditor, referring to the lack of response from LAHSA management at a meeting of the agency’s audit committee on Monday.

“That’s the only thing that's holding us from issuing the final report,” Shahnawaz said of the underspending audit.

That audit is examining a repeat problem. A previous, external audit in January 2022 found LAHSA had left $3.5 million in federal grants on the table by not using them.

Shahnawaz flagged management’s delays to the LAHSA Commissioner Justin Szlasa, Szlasa said. He chairs the commission’s audit committee, and has repeatedly called out LAHSA executives’ delays in providing information about taxpayer spending over the past year.

“ I've been trying to intervene and use whatever I can to try to help provide support,” said Szlasa as he described his attempts to get the auditor the answers needed to complete the report.

Szlasa was appointed to the commission by L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.

 “It shouldn't take us two months to receive a…management response to an internal audit,” Szlasa said at Monday’s meeting. He said the industry standard for internal audits is eight or nine weeks from start to finish. That compares to the two years — and counting — for LAHSA’s federal underspend audit.

“We haven't had a single internal audit completed here in the last couple of years, which is nuts,” Szlasa added. He called for internal audits to happen much more frequently.

Long delays to LAHSA audits also are not new. In November 2024, the county issued a widely-seen audit that included findings that LAHSA was failing to complete internal audits.

Half of LAHSA’s governing commission is appointed by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and half appointed by each of the five county supervisors. Bass is also the only elected official on the commission. She served on the audit committee for several months last fall. Records show she was absent for all of the meetings during that time.

Janine Lim, LAHSA’s deputy chief financial officer, said management’s responses to the audit on underspending haven’t been provided yet because LAHSA leadership did not have clearly defined roles for who is supposed to coordinate responses to internal audits.

“ We need to work on clarifying that role internally,” Lim said.

 “The last two months have been probably some of the most stress-filled two months that we've had at LAHSA,” said Paul Rubenstein, chief of staff to LAHSA CEO Gita O’Neil, pointing to mass layoffs.

Szlasa said there’s not that much in the audit for management to respond to.

“It's like, six pages or less,” he said.

Szlasa said  another option is to “just say we've asked management for responses and we're awaiting management response. We can publish the results.”

In response, Shahnawaz said that if management doesn't have an updated timeline for a response, then she’ll go ahead and issue the report without the response.

Once they floated that idea, Lim committed to providing the responses by next Tuesday.

LAHSA’s leadership has downsized the internal audit team — dropping from a staff of three to just one in the agency’s proposed budget up for approval Friday.

Delays in getting access to financial records

The delayed responses from management are not the only thing that’s been slowing down audits, Szlasa said at the meeting.

LAHSA policy, approved by its governing commission, says internal auditors are “ authorized to access all organizational records, personnel, and systems necessary for conducting audits,” he said.

But the auditor has faced challenges in actually getting that access, Szlasa said — including delays in being allowed to view LAHSA’s databases that show contracts and financial payments.

 ”We finally were granted access, but it wasn't, it wasn't easy, it wasn't immediate. It was slow,” Szlasa said.

Many failed outside audits

The delays on the internal audit come even after LAHSA failed multiple external audits in recent years, which have found the agency — overseen by city and county elected officials — has neglected to properly track billions of dollars in spending.

Largely in response to earlier audits, L.A. County supervisors pulled funding from LAHSA and are having the county instead oversee it directly. L.A.’s mayor and City Council have continued to have LAHSA manage the city’s homeless spending while the council delays plans to start studying a possible plan to transition away city tax dollars.

Signatures under scrutiny

LAHSA is also in the midst of a different internal audit — expected to finish in late August or early September — examining whether top officials followed requirements when signing contracts and letting others sign. It was launched in the wake of LAist reporting that found LAHSA’s then-CEO Va Lecia Adams Kellum’s signature finalized a $2.1 million contract with her husband’s employer.

LAist also discovered Adams Kellum’s signature, as LAHSA’s CEO at the time, finalized a quarter-million-dollar contract between LAHSA and a longtime service provider she led up until two months earlier.

That contract was signed so soon after she left the service provider — St. Joseph Center — that the contract paperwork still listed her as one of St. Joseph Center’s points of contact and authorized signers.

She is currently under a state ethics investigation into whether her actions were an illegal conflict of interest.

When Bengara opened in Los Angeles' Arts District earlier this year, its owner and head chef had something special lined up in their kitchen arsenal.

It was genshiyaki, a rare traditional Japanese grilling method that dates back 1,500 years.

Chef and co-owner Tyler Burges had only encountered it once while traveling in Japan at a robatayaki spot in Fukuoka, a port city on the island of Kyushu.

Robatayaki, a style of slow, ember-cooked grilling rooted in Japan's rural coastal kitchens, usually centers on an open charcoal hearth. But the restaurant Burges visited had something even more noteworthy: a genshiyaki pit, a gentler, ambient method of cooking that uses radiant heat instead of direct flame.

Loving the unusually subtle, delicate flavor and texture it produced, he and head chef Phil Mireles decided to bring genshiyaki back to the U.S. and build their Arts District restaurant around it. The genshiyaki pit is a rare enough technique that Burges had to work with fabricator Phil Roxworthy for six months just to get the grill built to spec.

It's Burges' and Mireles' first L.A. project. The pair are also behind Smoke Door, their acclaimed Lake Tahoe restaurant, and Bengara brings a more casual, day-to-day take on the same fire-driven cooking.

All roads lead to the Arts District

Chef/owner Tyler Burges (left) and head chef Phil Mireles at Bengara.

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Wonho Frank Lee

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Courtesy Bengara

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Burges and Mireles both got their start at San Francisco's Saison and Angler under chef Joshua Skenes — who's now just down the street in L.A. at LYNX with fellow alum Brandyn Tepper.

Burges traces Bengara's DNA back to two mentors: Ron Siegel, who introduced him to Japanese ingredients and technique in his mid-20s, and Skenes, who taught him to cook with live fire. It was Skenes, Burges said, who showed him that fire didn't have to mean char and bravado.

"The one thing I loved about wood-fire cooking is you get this subtle, sweet barbecue flavor when you cook correctly over embers, and you don't cook directly over the fire," Burges said. "Most places, when you think about grilling something, you think of char, bold flavors, masculine flavors. But Chef Josh — it's like a master art, getting really delicate, subtle flavor using that grill method."

The uni kiritampo, Bengara's take on a traditional Akita-prefecture rice skewer, finished with scallion.

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Wono Frank Lee

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Courtesy Bengara

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What sets the food apart

Take their luscious miso cod. On a normal grill, the marinade's sugars would blacken before the fish cooked through. On the genshiyaki pit, the cod sits at a distance from the embers, cooking gently until the very end, when it's given one last pass directly over the coals — what Burges describes as a final "kiss" of heat before it hits the plate.

To fuel genshiyaki's slower, ambient style, ordinary charcoal or wood is replaced with binchotan, an ultra-dense, pure-carbon hardwood charcoal traditionally made in Japan, which burns hotter and cleaner.

The signature dish

A perfect example of how this cooking style comes together is the uni kiritampo, the Akita prefecture rice skewer, reimagined with uni and cooked via genshiyaki — born of an offhand kitchen conversation with one of the restaurant's Japanese chefs about regional dishes cooked over fire.

Once they realized genshiyaki was the dish's original, historic cooking method, the rest fell into place.

"It's like the most delicious thing," Burges said. "I don't know why it never made it over to the United States earlier."

Bengara's Arts District dining room pairs industrial bones with warm, low lighting and long communal tables.

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Wonho Frank Lee

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Courtesy Bengara

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The chewy exterior, with just a hint of smoke, gives way to a creamy inside, like a caramelized custard, that’s topped with a decadent amount of uni, providing a semi-sweet finish — one memorable bite.

Tasting menu option

Bengara recently added a daily eight-course tasting menu ($98) that doubles as a greatest-hits tour of the kitchen — Toyosu carpaccio with chili coffee oil, pork belly "tacos" wrapped in mochi crepes, miso cod, Mary's half chicken, and handmade citrus soba, with optional wagyu and uni add-ons.

The price includes a beverage pairing, with a full non-alcoholic option alongside the boozy version. Walk-ins are welcome, and reservations can be booked via OpenTable.

Topline:

Why it matters: Museum officials said you will “likely experience high demand and long wait times in the queue" and thanked people for their patience.

LAist saw estimated wait times up to 6 hours, and it took a little more than 4.5 hours for this reporter to get through. On the bright side, there were still plenty of tickets left, including for the first day. Do not refresh the page or you may lose your spot.

The details: All tickets are timed entry. Tickets are $25 for adults and $21 for those 65 and older. Children, members, active-duty military, personal aides or attendants and EBT cardholders have free entry. Museum neighbors in the LM37 program will also be free, with that pass opening in August.

But how do I buy: Each person is limited to nine tickets, and you’ll have 20 minutes to check out once they’re added to your cart, according to the museum. You can find the link here.

What's next: The grand opening is Sept. 22.

Go deeper: How to secure Lucas Museum of Narrative Art tickets ahead of the fall opening