The Brief

This past year California lawmakers passed and Governor Gavin Newsom signed more than 1,000 bills, and most of those will become new laws in 2024. Plus there are bills from previous years that are also scheduled to take effect after Jan. 1.

Not all of those laws will impact your day-to-day life. The establishment of “Workplace Readiness Week” (now the week of April 28) or new procurement rules for transportation analytics software may not really change your 2024 (though maybe they will!).

We took a look at a few new laws that may, from new rules for building affordable housing to how you interact with police officers and new emission standards for certain small engines (think leaf blowers).

• Making it easier for faith groups and colleges to build affordable housing on their land
• Leave for reproductive loss
• Police officers have to say why they stopped a driver
• Expansion of traffic speed cameras
• Increasing city council member pay
• Ending suspensions for “willful defiance”
• LGBTQ+ cultural competency training for teachers
• Adding Asian American history, media literacy to California’s K-12 curriculum
• Requiring owners to clean up “orphaned” oil wells
• New emission rules for small gasoline engines

Making it easier for faith groups and colleges to build affordable housing on their land

Religious institutions and nonprofit colleges in California will be allowed to build affordable housing on their properties without having to go through complex and expensive rezoning processes under a new state law that goes into effect in January.

Senate Bill 4, often called the Yes In God’s Backyard (YIGBY) bill, gained bipartisan support in the Legislature and was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in October. State Senator Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, authored the bill, which is officially called the Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Act.

The law rezones land owned by nonprofit colleges and religious institutions, such as mosques, churches, and synagogues, to allow for affordable housing. Many faith-based groups and nonprofit colleges are currently located on lands where multi-family housing is expressly prohibited by local zoning rules.

It allows them to bypass most local permitting and environmental review standards that can take years to complete. The law is set to sunset in 2036.

Neither “CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) nor local political processes can be misused to stop these affordable housing projects,” according to a news release Wiener issued in October.

SB 4 requires that all housing built through this streamlined process must remain affordable through a deed restriction for at least 55 years for rental properties and 45 years for properties that can be owned. It must also adhere to state affordable housing density and height requirements.

A recent report from UC Berkeley’s Terner Center found there are approximately 171,000 acres of land throughout the state that would be eligible for affordable housing under SB 4, including about 1,700 acres owned by faith-based organizations in Sacramento County.

Housing advocates say the lack of available land is one obstacle to building more affordable homes. Securing the necessary funding presents an equally large challenge.

The legislation was sponsored by the California Conference of Carpenters, Inner City Law Center, Jewish Public Affairs Committee, Non-profit Housing Association of Northern California (NPH) and Southern California Association of Non-Profit Housing (SCANPH).

Several cities, local government and neighborhood groups opposed the bill due to concerns over the loss of local control. They said local zoning and land use planning documents would be ignored. Those opposed included the cities of Beverly Hills, Manhattan Beach and Visalia, among others.

— Chris Nichols 

Leave for reproductive loss

Pregnant people who miscarry or couples who experience a failed adoption will now be eligible for five days of time off through California’s “reproductive loss leave.”

The law covers “miscarriage, unsuccessful assisted reproduction, failed adoption, failed surrogacy, diagnosis negatively impacting pregnancy, diagnosis negatively impacting fertility, or stillbirth,” and applies to both people in the couple. Previously, people could only get time off if they were incapacitated after the loss of a pregnancy, and family and bereavement leave don’t cover most situations.

“I wanted to ensure that this was for everyone, not just women who are pregnant, but those that want to be parents in other ways,” said bill author state Senator Susan Rubio, a Democrat who represents eastern Los Angeles County.

The law, SB 848, comes after Utah and Illinois passed their own reproductive loss laws last year.

Under California’s new law, employers are not obligated to pay employees for the time off and employees are only allowed to use 20 days of reproductive loss leave within a year-long period.

Rubio said a big part of putting forward the legislation was “signaling to women and those experiencing such a horrific loss that it's okay to speak about it,” she said. “I think for many years it felt like women did something wrong because they couldn't carry a child to term and it's not their fault.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, about 10-20% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, although the number is estimated to be higher when including people who never know they’re pregnant.

— Kate Wolffe

Police officers have to say why they stopped a driver

“Do you know why I stopped you?”

If you’ve been pulled over by police, you may have been asked that question.

Beginning in 2024, it will be illegal for law enforcement to make it the first thing they say to you. Instead, they’ll have to tell you why they stopped or pulled you over before engaging in any questioning.

Their reasoning for stopping individuals must also be documented on any citation and on police reports.

The only exception to the new law is if a police officer “reasonably believes that withholding the reason for the stop is necessary to protect life or property from imminent threat,” according to the text of the law.

People of color, particularly Black people, are stopped by police at higher rates than white people. The new law is meant to track that disparity and the outcomes of police stops. The law, AB 2773, was approved in 2022.

— Nicole Nixon

Expansion of traffic speed cameras

Your next speeding ticket could come from a traffic camera under a law authorizing some cities to set up surveillance in certain areas under a new pilot program.

The cameras would automatically capture the license plate information and ticket drivers who are traveling at least 11 miles per hour over the road’s speed limit. The first violation up to 15 mph over the limit would result in a warning.

For now, only six cities are allowed to set up the cameras: Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, Long Beach and Glendale.

The speeding cameras can only operate for five years and will only be allowed in school zones, safety corridors or areas where speeding is a common problem. They will not be allowed on freeways.

California law already allows traffic cameras to automatically ticket drivers for running a red light.

Pedestrian safety advocates say the new law will lead to safer streets and fewer crashes. Cities that install the speeding cameras will be required to report whether – and by how much – the cameras reduce traffic incidents.

— Nicole Nixon

Increasing city council member pay

Senate Bill 329 increases the maximum salaries most City Council members can receive and sets rules for increasing their pay. Advocates say the bill reduces financial barriers for people to serve in public office.

The bill applies to general law cities, but not charter cities such as Sacramento and Los Angeles. Charter cities operate under their own charters, while general law cities follow general state laws. Most of California’s 482 cities are general law cities, said Johnnie Pina, a legislative affairs lobbyist for the League of California Cities.

The state has not adjusted maximum salaries for council members in general law cities since 1984, Pina said. Increasing the maximum salaries allows cities to adjust council members’ pay for inflation.

New limits for council member pay range from $950 per month in cities with a population of 35,000 or fewer people to $3,200 per month in cities with a population of more than 250,000 people. The bill also allows council members to approve ordinances to increase their salaries past these maximums based on inflation or their previous pay adjustment.

The bill may increase the diversity of people who serve on City Councils, said Roger Dickinson, the policy director for CivicWell, a nonprofit that supports developing sustainable policies.

“There's a distinct need to have people sitting on City Councils who are able to devote sufficient time to the work … and to increase the diversity of those who serve on City Councils,” Dickinson said. “To make it more practical for not just not just people of color, but also people who may have less economic means to serve on City Councils.”

The law goes into effect Jan. 1, but a city can only implement salary increases for council members when at least one begins a new term.

— Kristin Lam

Ending suspensions for “willful defiance”

Introduced by state Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), SB 274 — also known as “Keep Students in School” — will prohibit the suspension or expulsion of public school students in 6-12th grade based on what’s known as “willful defiance.” The law goes into effect July 1, 2024 until July 1, 2029.

Willful defiance, outlined by the policy, is the disruption of school activities or defiance of authority such as supervisors, teachers, or administrators. Suspensions are still pursued by the superintendent or principal for actions including, but not limited to, physical injury to another person, unlawful possession or use of an intoxicant, and attempted damage to school property.

This legislation appends Skinner’s previous bill — SB 419 — which permanently eliminates willful defiance suspensions in grades TK to 5 and prohibits them in grades 6 to 8 until 2025.

Additionally, the bill mandates that school employees utilize intervention methods, including in-school and outside support, and document the actions taken within five days of the incident.

Mark Harris, the diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility monitor for Sacramento City Unified School District, said he continues to be concerned about the underlying teacher subjectivity with deeming a student willfully defiant.

“No one yet has come up with what will replace the current system,” explained Harris. “So they no longer are going to be kicked off campus. But what are they going to do? And where are they gonna go and who's gonna teach? I don't know the answer to those questions.”

Sacramento City and Elk Grove Unified have been subject of high Black and brown suspension rates in the state as recently as 2019. Despite the policy demanding that the state reimburse the school for any expenses incurred in providing intervention, there are no actual monies associated with the bill.

— Srishti Prabha

LGBTQ+ cultural competency training for teachers

A law taking effect in the new year requires the California Department of Education to establish LGBTQ+ cultural competency training for teachers. It's called the "Safe and Supportive Schools Act."

"Now in this time, especially with the heightened attacks against the LGBTQ+ community,” said bill co-author Torrance Democratic Assembly member Al Muratsuchi, “I believe it is the position and the values of the state of California that we take this important step forward to lead the country in terms of the right thing to do."

Under the act, the DOE will need to set up a training curriculum for teachers and other certified school employees to support LGBTQ+ students.

Proponents of the legislation — including a transgender student from Sacramento County — urged state lawmakers to send it to the governor's desk.

One of those proponents identified himself as Adrian, a 10th grader attending a high school in Elk Grove.

Adrian told lawmakers he came out as transgender to a small group of people but didn't want it known by others. A teacher found out and attempted to affirm Adrian's gender identity by calling Adrian he/him in front of the whole class, without permission.

"I was mortified,” Adrian said during a legislative hearing. “All of a sudden, all control I had over my own decision to come out at school had been taken away from me."

The new law requires the Education Department to have an online training program in place by the 2025-26 school year. The online training will start with the 2025-26 school year and only apply to educators who teach seventh to 12th graders.

Researchers say LGBTQ+ students miss fewer classes and get better grades when they have supportive teachers.

— Steve Milne

Adding Asian American history, media literacy to California’s K-12 curriculum

California’s K-12 curriculum will undergo another overhaul soon — thanks to two bills, Assembly Bill 873 and Assembly Bill 1354, which respectively require the state’s Instructional Quality Commission to consider including media literacy content at each grade level and expanding instruction on Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander history in the U.S.

On Jan. 1, California K-12 students won’t find their day-to-day curriculum disrupted immediately. But these laws jumpstart the work of updating the curriculum framework to encompass both subject areas.

Only three other states — New Jersey, Texas and Delaware — have passed similar legislation on media literacy curriculum. Democratic Assembly member Marc Berman, who introduced AB 837 and represents portions of the San Francisco peninsula, called media literacy education a “bipartisan issue.”

“This is really just about trying to make sure that the next generation has the skills that they need to navigate the reality of today,” he said.

And media literacy education has been on California legislators’ minds. In 2018, the state’s department of education, California School Library Association and KQED compiled media literacy information in three free databases to fulfill the requirements set forth in Senate Bill 830.

AB 1354 also reflects another legislative priority: responding to racist, xenophobic violence against Asian Americans that sprung up at the COVID-19 pandemic’s start.

Among the topics the instructional commission will consider incorporating into curriculum are “examples of racism, discrimination and violence perpetrated against Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in the United States, including, but not limited to, hate crimes committed during the COVID-19 pandemic,” AB 1354 reads.

Even outside that, Asian American history is a particularly relevant issue. Asians are the fastest-growing ethnic group in California, a state which has the largest population of Asian Americans in the U.S. The bill aims to paint a fully contextual picture of history to “help prevent and decrease discrimination and violence perpetrated against the Asian American community.”

— Janelle Salanga

Requiring owners to clean up “orphaned” oil wells

A new law targets California’s “orphaned” wells, which are inactive wells where the owner does not have the money to clean up the site. It requires companies interested in purchasing idle or low-producing oil wells to have money set aside to sufficiently cover the costs of plugging, abandoning and restoring the site of the well.

Advocates say this will help prevent large oil companies from selling wells to smaller companies who may not have the resources to clean up the site. Wells that aren’t properly maintained can contaminate groundwater, leak hazardous gasses like methane and pose health threats for nearby communities.

“Because California doesn't have a setback law on the books, which just means a mandatory distance between oil wells and … places where people live, work and play, these oil wells are right outside of people's homes,” said Jasmine Vazin, a field organizing strategist with the Sierra Club.

Vazin said negative health threats posed by these wells — which can include respiratory diseases and birth defects — are “impacts that are completely avoidable.” Although the law does not impact already existing orphaned wells, she said the law will prevent wells from becoming orphaned in the future.

— Manola Secaira

New emission rules for small gasoline engines

Small gasoline engines used to power lawn mowers, leaf blowers and other equipment will need to meet zero-emission requirements on Jan. 1.

The rule, approved by the California Air Resources Board in late 2021, applies to newly-manufactured small off-road engines, known by the acronym SORE. These small engines pollute well beyond their size and weight, with CARB saying a commercial operator using one backpack leaf blower for one hour generates the same smog-forming emissions as a car driving 1,100 miles.

According to CARB, the volume of smog-forming emissions from this type of equipment has surpassed emissions from light-duty passenger cars and is projected to be nearly twice those of passenger cars by 2031.

Generators and large power washers won't have to meet the zero-emission rule until 2028, but beginning on Jan. 1, they will have more stringent emissions standards — a reduction of 40 to 90%.

The Legislature has allocated $30 million to be dedicated to sole proprietors and other small landscaping businesses in California to help them purchase zero-emission small off-road equipment, including leaf blowers, lawn mowers and string trimmers.

— Mike Hagerty

More new laws

• Employees Get Protection For Using Cannabis
• New California Laws Raise The Minimum Wage For 2 Industries
• Key Bills Gavin Newsom Signed Into New California Law (And Some He Rejected)

MacArthur Park got an unexpected guest Tuesday: Justin Bieber, who joined several members of his band for an impromptu performance.

Social media videos show Bieber, 32, sitting on the grass, playing percussion and singing as people gather around. He performed several songs to a handful of people, including his 2025 hit “Yukon,” according to videos from the impromptu performance.

A source close to Bieber told E! News that he visited the park to distribute gift cards and other resources to unhoused people. A spokesperson for the singer could not be immediately reached for comment.

Bieber, who headlined Coachella earlier this year, played a stripped-down performance with his band. Some people in social media video walked by the set, while others recorded the set.

His surprise appearance adds a different kind of attention typically focused on MacArthur Park. In the last several months city officials, law enforcement and community groups have taken different approaches to addressing conditions at the park and activating the space.

For Brenda Aguilera, director of the Community Transformation Collective, the reaction to Bieber’s visit is part of a larger conversation about the changes at the park. 

Her organization has been working with a neighborhood volunteer group of about 60 MacArthur Park-area residents since March. The group includes parents, caregivers and vendors who meet regularly to identify neighborhood priorities and work with city agencies and community organizations.

Residents involved with the group have reported greater awareness of available services and said they feel safer in the park, Aguilera said. But she added that the people who live in and around the park should be at the center of any assessment of how conditions are changing.

“They’re not in the park. They don’t live in those neighborhoods, so they have to speak to the local community members to hear about their perspectives,” Aguilera said, referring to elected officials.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli pointed to Bieber’s performance as a sign of progress at the park.

Bieber performing an impromptu set at the park is “a testament to the progress we are achieving to take back the park from drug dealers and enliven it for families,” Hochman wrote on X.

Essayli wrote: “Bieber in MacArthur Park. That’s progress. Amazing what can happen when criminals and drug dealers are removed from public spaces.”

Over the summer, the Los Angeles Police Department and federal agents carried out a multi-phase operation targeting drug activity in and around the park, including a June operation that resulted in 13 arrests. Hochman also held a picnic at the park over Labor Day weekend after saying he would return with his family if he believed it was safe enough.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez’s office, however, pointed to a longer history of work at the park in response to Bieber’s visit.

“We’re excited to see Justin Bieber enjoying MacArthur Park, just as countless other Angelenos do every day, experiencing what nearly four years of sustained investment and community partnership have made possible,” said Naomi Roochnik, a spokesperson for Hernandez.

The councilmember has invested more than $27 million in the park, including Peace Ambassadors, round-the-clock clean teams, overdose response, street medicine, youth programming, arts and culture and infrastructure improvements, according to Hernandez’s office.

“MacArthur Park’s progress belongs to the residents, workers, promotoras, outreach teams, and community organizations who do this critical, lifesaving work every single day,” Roochnik said.

Community Transformation Collective’s promotoras are among those working directly with residents, Aguilera said, helping connect them with services and providing what she described as “warm handoffs” to organizations that can offer support.

For Aguilera, that community perspective matters when officials assess what is happening at the park.

“It’s not up to us or these elected officials that are in these government bodies to just speak on behalf of our communities,” she said. “They could speak about their efforts, but they can’t speak about the entire perspective. It’s really those that live there that could share that perspective.”

The post You better Beliebe it. Justin Bieber played a set at MacArthur Park appeared first on LA Local.

Michael Angel Alvarez made headlines earlier this year when he was arrested while working as a peace ambassador for the nonprofit Healing Urban Barrios in MacArthur Park. Federal prosecutors alleged Alvarez was “leading a violent street gang, while claiming to be a gang interventionist for the City.”

But they didn’t charge him for violent or gang-related crimes.

He spent three months in custody under a different charge: illegally possessing body armor. He pleaded not guilty, and a trial date was set.

Alvarez was released from custody this month, nearly a week after a federal judge dismissed his case on Sept. 9, ruling that a juvenile court finding that Alvarez killed a man while a minor could not be counted as a violent felony conviction that would make owning body armor illegal.

Alvarez spoke with LAist after his recent release, saying he believes the case against him was politically motivated and shows a lack of understanding about what it takes to intervene with gang members to reduce violence in communities. He acknowledged gang affiliation, but said he was not a gang leader and had not committed any crimes since being released from prison in 2024.

Federal prosecutors told LAist in a statement they are looking into options to appeal a federal judge’s decision to dismiss the recent indictment against Alvarez. No one from the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A. has responded to LAist’s requests for comment about Alvarez’s assertion that the case was politically motivated.

Before the federal prosecutors filed their case against Alvarez, the L.A. County District Attorney’s office filed a separate case against him on May 20 in Los Angeles Superior Court also based on possessing body armor. A preliminary hearing in that case is set for Oct. 27. He pleaded not guilty. A spokesperson for the District Attorney’s office did not comment on whether they intend to continue pursuing the case now that the federal case has been dismissed.

Why the federal case was dismissed

Alvarez was a minor when he was found guilty of a gang-related murder in 2002. At 15 years old he was charged and tried as an adult. He was convicted of first-degree murder for shooting and killing a man in Pico-Union. He was sentenced to 50 years to life. But after a change in state law increased the age at which minors could be sentenced as adults to 16, Alvarez’s case was sent back to juvenile court and he was released in 2024. At that point, he had served about 24 years.

On Sept. 9, U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang found that same law that led to Alvarez’s release also bars the court from considering him to have been convicted of the killing, because juvenile court determinations are not criminal convictions. Without a violent felony conviction, Alvarez is not prevented from owning body armor by state or federal law. She dismissed the federal prosecutors’ case against him.

What Alvarez is saying following his release

In an interview with LAist last week after his release, Alvarez said he thinks federal prosecutors wanted to score political points by targeting community violence intervention work, not because he posed any risk to public safety.

“ I almost got killed as a result of trying to change the community for the best,” said Alvarez, who showed photos to LAist of what he described as stab wounds in his abdomen and arms that were taken in February 2025. He said that assault took place while he was working in MacArthur Park. “ And for whatever reason you had the individuals who are part of the Republican Party who went after me because of the Democrats, the people that I worked for.”

Alvarez’s former employer, Healing Urban Barrios, has not responded to LAist’s requests for comment since the case was dismissed. Christina Navarro, the nonprofit’s founder and executive director, said in a statement to LAist back in May of this year that Alvarez was innocent until proven guilty and that the organization was continuing its work despite the allegations against him.

“We are not stepping back,” Navarro wrote in the statement. “We are doubling down.”

Healing Urban Barrios was contracted to work at the park by Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America’s L.A. chapter. Her office says community violence intervention workers have been effective for decades in interrupting cycles of violence in ways traditional law enforcement cannot.

Naomi Roochnik, a spokesperson for Hernandez, told LAist in May they were not aware of allegations against Alvarez before his arrest and that peace ambassadors are employed and supervised by community-based organizations.

Alvarez was removed from the peace ambassador program earlier that same month, she said.

“We will always take misconduct seriously and hold our partners to high standards, but we will not allow an individual case, or efforts to politicize it, to undermine proven community-based public safety work,” Roochnik said Friday in an emailed statement.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, who heads the office that brought the case, has been critical of the city’s gang intervention program.

Federal prosecutor Bill Essayli heads the U.S. Attorney's office in L.A.

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Allen J. Schaben

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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“The hardworking tax payers of Los Angeles deserve better than to see their money shelled out to a convicted gang murderer,” Essayli wrote on social media on May 29, the day his office announced the charge against Alvarez.

Essayli was appointed by the Trump administration to lead the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A. and was previously a Republican member of the California State Assembly, where he represented part of Riverside County.

Spokespersons for the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A. have continued to speak out against Alvarez since the body armor case was dismissed. In statements sent to LAist via email by spokespeople Ciaran McEvoy and Shawn Lewis, the department called Alvarez ”a convicted murderer and a documented member of the 18th Street gang” who was indicted by grand jury on the body armor charges.

“These facts are not in dispute. It is unfortunate that he now benefits from a California law that effectively allows him to erase his murder conviction, something his victim cannot do.”

Adding: “He has no legitimate role serving as a ‘peace ambassador’ in a public park or receiving taxpayer-funded compensation.”

The department said they are currently considering their options to appeal what they called “a narrow technical legal issue.”

About the case

Most people can legally own and wear body armor in the United States — it’s typically worn as a vest, either made of durable fibers like Kevlar or with steel or ceramic inserts designed to stop bullets. It becomes illegal to own or possess body armor under federal and state law if a person has been convicted of a violent felony.

But U.S. District Judge Hwang agreed with Alvarez that he did not have a violent felony conviction on his record.

Alvarez admits he shot and killed 22-year-old Mauricio Miguel Masis on Aug. 17, 2000.

He told LAist he was 15 and in a gang when he and a 13-year-old friend, who was not gang-affiliated, were approached by what he described as three older gang members. Masis was one of the men, he said.

“ They're already in their mid-20s and tried to kill both of us,” Alvarez said. He told LAist he shot Masis, but claims it was to defend his friend and himself.

Convicted as an adult in 2002, he could have spent his entire life in prison after being found guilty.

“ I was 17 years old when I was walking Supermax,” he told LAist, “level four maximum security prison.”

In 2018, Senate Bill 1391 passed in the California legislature, to only allow minors 16 years and older to be considered for adult court.

The new law gave Alvarez a way out of prison, allowing his case to be resentenced in 2024.

By then he’d served about 24 years. Because of his age at the time of the killing, under the change in the law his case was sent back to juvenile court where his adult conviction was set aside and he was declared a ward of the court — or under its supervision and control.

Alvarez was released from prison and put on probation for two years.

The following year he was also sentenced to two years of probation for a separate felony offense in November 2023 that was considered non-violent — possessing a weapon while in custody.

Alvarez acknowledged having the weapon while he was in prison, and told LAist that most people had hidden weapons there, often as a deterrent from being attacked.

“Of course I had a weapon,” he said. “You would have one too if you were there. You're trying to do everything in your power to survive.”

In early 2025, Alvarez began working for Healing Urban Barrios as a peace ambassador.

“ They wanted individuals who had the respect, I suppose, of the streets [and] in prison,” he told LAist.

Alvarez said gang members are more willing to talk with someone from their own background than with police officers or city officials, and he said he was able to speak to them to avoid violence and other safety issues around MacArthur Park.

“There's hundreds — if not thousands — of gang members who flow through that area due to the fact that a lot of them are addicts now,“ Alvarez said.

He told LAist he believed the peace ambassadors in the area had made a difference in reducing the number of people using drugs, fighting and lighting fires in the park since he started working there in 2025.

“ There used to be a lot of fights,” he said. “ We're able to talk to the guys right there and be like, ‘Look, work something out with each other.’"

Alvarez showed LAist photos of people he said he had given CPR while on the job to prevent them from dying of drug overdoses and a woman he said he identified to authorities as a missing person and helped get to safety.

Federal agents arrested Alvarez in May, after LAPD officers found two body armor plates in his car during a traffic stop earlier that month.

Alvarez told law enforcement officers after his arrest that the plates were for an art project, court documents show, and his lawyer argued in court that Alvarez did not have a vest to wear the armor in.

Prosecutors argued in court documents that he could have used the armor plates without a vest, and that he may have had a vest for the plates elsewhere.

Alvarez told LAist he was planning to use his laser engravers to write poetry on the plates and his cousin was going to paint them with graffiti to get the attention of the youth he served.

“With youth, especially youth that are in gangs, you gotta show them some different type of art,” he said. “  It would've hit them hard, you know?”

The U.S. Attorney’s office charged Alvarez with possessing body armor. But they made additional allegations against him apart from the charges, which they have not proven in court.

For instance, prosecutors claimed in court documents that Alvarez was “leading a violent street gang, while claiming to be a gang interventionist for the City,” and that they were investigating him for additional crimes that would carry “great sentencing exposure.”

Prosecutors alleged in court documents that members of the 18th Street gang described him as a leader of the gang in recorded jailhouse phone calls. Alvarez claimed the way the prosecutors described the conversations wasn’t accurate. He told LAist he was never a gang leader and, instead, was using the respect he had with the 18th Street gang to prevent further violence.

No one from the U.S. Attorney’s office in L.A. responded to LAist’s questions about whether they intend to pursue other charges.

LAist asked Alvarez to clarify whether he was an active member during our interview last week.

“ When you're a gang member, for the most part, you're always a gang member, you know?” He said, “There's two types of ‘actives.’ There's active where you're actively involved in the violence and all that stuff, but there's also being active when you're actively involved in your community, and that's what I've been doing.”

Alvarez said he hopes to continue working in gang violence reduction programs now that the federal case against him has been dismissed.

“I know that what we did was good,” he said, recalling how parents of children he had worked with around MacArthur Park reached out to thank him while he was in federal custody as his recent case was ongoing.

“It'd be nice to have the support all the way around and not have, especially, people who are pushing politics,” Alvarez told LAist.

Councilmember Hernandez’ office and Healing Urban Barrios have not responded to questions about whether they would consider allowing Alvarez to return to his position as a peace ambassador.

After the Palisades and Eaton firestorms in January 2025, one story captured how Los Angeles County’s emergency management system seemed to have failed. Anthony Mitchell Sr., an 80-year-old man who used both a prosthetic and a wheelchair, and his 35-year-old son, Justin, who had cerebral palsy, died in their Altadena home waiting for evacuation assistance.

Anthony Mitchell had called 911 twice, identifying himself and his son as disabled, and was assured help was coming.

Of the 31 people killed in the fires, 27 were over 65, and at least six had mobility issues, according to news reports.

The tragedy led California and L.A. County to consider adopting “disaster registries,” an emergency management strategy used around the country for assisting people who might require additional help in emergencies due to their age, disability or other health conditions.

The California Commission on Aging issued a report in November that noted evacuation centers lacked data on older and disabled residents who would need assistance. That led to a shortage of equipment and expertise to address the specialized needs of those residents. The commission recommended that the state consider implementing a statewide registry.

Even before the commission’s recommendation, Los Angeles County supervisors had directed its Aging and Disabilities Department to study the feasibility of a registry.

But neither initiative has moved forward.

“We have not seen much movement on exploring a disaster registry,” said Patrick Smith, the state Commission on Aging’s legislative director.

The Los Angeles feasibility study was “paused” last year while the county reviewed its emergency operations with the McChrystal Group, said Liz Odendahl, a spokesperson for Supervisor Janice Hahn, who co-sponsored the resolution authorizing the study.

The arguments against registries

Some advocacy groups in California and the state Office of Emergency Services have argued against registries, Smith said. In fact, OES’ official guidance on registries is that “jurisdictions should not use them.”

Registries typically are voluntary, and registrants are responsible for keeping their information up to date. Because of that, they are unreliable sources of information, which is one reason some emergency managers and many advocates for older and disabled people oppose them.

They also point out that registries could give a false sense of security to people, who may assume assistance is guaranteed when it is not.

“This false assumption is dangerous and can lead to an overall decrease in personal disaster preparedness,” the California Office of Emergency Services says on its website.

Registries are hard to keep current, the office notes, and the personal information people provide may be challenging to safeguard.

Why some places have registries anyway

With data showing older people far more likely to die in natural disasters — and climate change making disasters more frequent and severe — several states have taken the opposite approach, establishing registries to better assist older adults and people with disabilities in emergencies.

Florida’s statewide Special Needs Registry is often cited as a model because it connects the state’s Health Department with emergency management in all 67 counties. Florida also requires its counties to establish shelters for people with special medical needs.

Delaware, New Jersey, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Texas and Utah also have statewide registries, as do many municipal emergency offices across the country.

In California, three of 58 counties have registries — Mono, Siskiyou and Butte.

Butte County’s registry was in place in 2018, when the Camp Fire killed 85 people, 67 of whom were seniors. Emergency managers can’t say how many or if any of the older adults who died in that fire were on the registry.

But they say the registry remains a useful tool.

“If we didn’t have the list, we wouldn’t have had any idea at all who needed extra assistance evacuating,” said Butte County Emergency Manager Angie Mannel, who was a 911 dispatcher during the Camp Fire.

Older adults, like many Americans, are not prepared for disasters. A 2023 AARP survey found that under one-third of older adults have a comprehensive plan for natural disasters, and only 10% have opted into apps or text notifications that alert people to emergencies.

“You can’t just throw a bunch of information out there and expect everyone to be able to act on it,” said Lindsay Peterson, a gerontology researcher at the University of South Florida. “Some people just can’t.”

Her research has shown that technology can be a barrier for older adults, especially those living independently but with limited technological skills and income.

While acknowledging that “registries are controversial,” Peterson said state and local governments must find ways to ensure the most vulnerable older adults will be protected.

Florida’s Special Needs Registry

That’s what Florida set out to do with its Special Needs Registry. But it does not guarantee emergency assistance, which the Health Department notes when people register. Still, the Florida Division of Emergency Management advises older adults needing this assistance to register, because registries can be useful planning tools and may save lives, even if they are incomplete.

Each of Florida’s county emergency management offices decides how it will use the registries to provide assistance. Seminole County, in eastern Florida, offers transportation assistance to registrants who request it. Three days before a tropical storm or hurricane is expected, the county Office of Emergency Management calls registrants about the approaching storm and advises them to evacuate. They must agree to leave at that time in order to receive transportation, said Steven Lerner, division manager.

“We’re like Enterprise; we’ll pick you up,” he said. The county uses a fleet that includes school buses and ADA-compliant vans.

Lerner’s main concern about Seminole’s registry of 1,700 people is who is not on it. He focuses his outreach efforts on new residents who may never have experienced a hurricane season, and those aging at home who may overestimate their ability to evacuate themselves.

In Lee County on Florida’s western coast, the Office of Emergency Management used public transportation to help evacuate people when Hurricane Ian hit in 2022. More than half of Lee County’s 800,000 residents were ordered to evacuate a day before the hurricane made landfall. Many were forced to weather the storm at home or in shelters, as 10 inches of rain inundated areas, winds gusted up to 140 mph and storm surge reached 15 feet. The storm killed 149 Floridians, including 72 Lee County residents. Most of the fatalities were people over 65.

County spokesperson Betsy Clayton wouldn’t say how many registrants emergency crews helped to evacuate during Hurricane Ian. But she said the county has assisted about 1,000 registrants in each major storm Florida has experienced in the past two decades, providing paratransit and ambulance services.

A California example

In California’s Butte County, emergency managers believe the registry will save lives if a disaster on par with the Camp Fire strikes again.

After igniting on Nov. 8, 2018, the Camp Fire grew rapidly, overwhelming the county’s emergency management plans and destroying its communication systems. It incinerated Paradise, a town of 27,000 people, in four hours.

The California auditor’s 2019 after-action review of the county’s emergency plans recommended Butte use registry data in evacuation planning, so emergency responders know who will need help before a disaster.

Tiffany Rowe manages Butte’s Special Needs Awareness Program, which notifies registered people of emergencies and evacuation orders and assists in evacuating them if needed.

The voluntary registry pinpoints who will require assistance in particular evacuation zones and what they’ll need. Most warnings are automated, but if the emergency is expected to affect 10 or fewer registrants, Rowe calls them herself.

After the pandemic and the busy fire seasons of 2022 and 2024, the number of Butte County registrants increased by over 50%. Today, around 2,200 older adults and people with disabilities are registered.

“Being a disaster-prone county,” said Mannel, Butte’s emergency manager, “our perspective is always focused on the safety of our citizens.”

Timothy Lane is a writer with the Investigative Reporting Program at the UC Berkeley Journalism School and covered this story through a grant from The SCAN Foundation.

Insurance companies are starting to write new policies in California again after years of holding back as wildfire risk climbed higher.

The state Insurance Department says that means outgoing Commissioner Ricardo Lara’s new regulations, intended to boost insurance availability, are working. Each time a company declares its plans to sell policies again, the department touts it as a win. But the state has not released the number of new policies the companies have written so far.

Enter Consumer Watchdog, the advocacy group that often butts heads with the department. It released an estimate of new policy commitments: 12,189 since January 2025, when Lara’s so-called sustainable insurance strategy went into effect. The strategy allows insurers to use catastrophe modeling, which they say more adequately takes risk into account because it includes forward-looking models, and to factor in reinsurance costs when setting their rates.

Consumer Watchdog, whose numbers come from combing through insurance companies’ rate filings, says that number is low, considering insurers have requested or secured $571 million in rate increases under the new regulations.

The insurance department disagrees with the group’s analysis, saying it intends to release its own data and analysis, and discounting the group’s numbers as “incomplete and premature.”

Ben Armstrong, Consumer Watchdog’s actuary, is tracking voluminous but publicly available rate filings. He looked at insurers’ statements about the number of new policies they promise to write, and compared the new filings with each company’s previous rate filings. Armstrong told CalMatters it’s “not an exact science” because the filings mention commitments, not actual sales, and in some cases don’t include an exact timeline.

The new rules allow insurers to factor in catastrophe models and their reinsurance costs as long as they commit to increasing sales in high-risk areas. Of the 10 companies that requested rate increases under the new rules, only five have committed to selling more policies, the group’s analysis shows.

The regulations call for insurance companies to choose one of these options: Write 85% of their market share in high-risk areas; grow their policies 5% in such areas; or increase their number of policies 5% by taking customers out of the FAIR Plan. Some of the companies that have requested or secured rate increases claim they already meet the 85% threshold.

“What we’re looking at is the reality right now for Californians who have been saddled with rate hikes for the promise of more policies in the future,” said Carmen Balber, executive director of Consumer Watchdog.

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