The Brief

Jets are blazing across the sky in and around Huntington Beach on the first day of the Pacific Airshow that starts Friday and continues over this weekend.

In recent years, more than half a million visitors have come out to watch eye-and-ear popping aerial demonstrations from the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and other renowned daredevils.

The event has also become a political lightning rod in the increasingly fractious beach city.

Why opinions are divided

Some say the airshow promoter got a suspiciously sweet deal in a recent legal settlement with the city. Others say Huntington Beach should support the airshow, and its hometown promoter, in any way it can.

At issue are questions of political quid pro quo, transparency and how cities determine whether and how much to support special events put on by private companies.

The backstory

Fans watch the 2021 Pacific Airshow in Huntington Beach.

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Here’s a guide to what happened, why this matters for residents and what’s to come.

First the shorthand timeline:

• In October 2021, the city canceled the final day of the three-day airshow after oil began gushing from an underwater pipeline and moving toward the Huntington Beach shoreline. 

• A year later, in October 2022, airshow organizer Kevin Elliott sued the city, saying the previous year's cancellation amounted to a breach of contract. Elliott also supported the election of new city council members who promised to support the airshow. 

• Then, earlier this year, that new city council majority approved a minimum $5.4 million settlement with Elliott plus a potential additional $2 million if the city recoups money from the companies responsible for the oil spill. 

About Huntington Beach politics

The strong and distinct reactions to the deal from residents and officials in this city of 200,000 residents illustrate intensifying political divisions. While Huntington Beach is traditionally conservative, the electorate had been trending more purple in recent years. Then, in November, voters handed a solid victory to four ardently conservative candidates.

Huntington Beach Mayor Tony Strickland, a Republican former state legislator who ran Larry Elder's 2020 presidential campaign, said the settlement was good for the city.

"Anything that brings in $70 million to our local economy, that's worth it," Strickland said, referring to an economic impact report on the 2022 airshow.

On the other side, City Councilmember Dan Kalmick, one of three Democrats on the council, said Huntington Beach taxpayers got a "horrible deal." He and the other two Democrats on the council voted against the airshow settlement.

"The settlement, as publicized, goes well beyond any exposure the city had for cancellation of one day of an airshow, which it didn't even do," Kalmick said. He said multiple authorities — state, federal and local — agreed the airshow had to be canceled so that monitoring and clean-up crews could get to work.

Kevin Elliott, organizer of the Pacific Airshow and CEO of event company Code Four.

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What the airshow organizer says

Elliott, for his part, says he regrets that the airshow has gotten wrapped up in local politics. (We should note that after we published this story, it was announced that former President Donald Trump would do a flyover as part of Friday’s airshow lineup. Trump is on his way to the California Republican Party convention in Anaheim.)

Elliot told us that, at heart, he's a "plane brain" who's especially excited this year to watch the F-22 Raptor do "things that an airplane shouldn't do, including flying backwards and all kinds of really cool stuff."

"I just want to put on a great event and I want to go back to running my business and having a good time," he told LAist. "And staying out of the newspaper. That would be my goal."

The start of the problems: The oil spill

On Friday, Oct. 1, 2021 coastal authorities got a call reporting an oil sheen off the coast of Huntington Beach. Amplify Energy, ultimately responsible for the spill, later said it found out Saturday morning about the pipeline leak from one of its offshore oil platforms.

A worker with Patriot Environmental Services stands near bags of oil collected throughout Sunday morning near the mouth of the Santa Ana River and Talbert Marsh.

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That same Saturday, the Pacific Airshow went on, as planned as local officials tried to understand the extent of the oil spill and whether and when it might reach shore. By afternoon, boaters watching the airshow from the ocean began reporting oil in the water.

City and state parks authorities closed the water at many of the area beaches to swimming and surfing.

That evening, then-Huntington Beach Mayor Kim Carr appeared at a news conference with the city's marine safety chief, Eric McCoy, and several other officials. Carr said a decision about whether to cancel the third and final day of the airshow would be made the following morning.

At the time, the leak was estimated to be around 126,000 gallons of oil, which McCoy said was considered a major spill by the U.S. Coast Guard. Later estimates revised that down to a much smaller amount, around 25,000 gallons.

On Sunday morning, Oct. 3, 2021, the city announced that the airshow was canceled "in order to facilitate clean-up coordination efforts, and given the potential health impacts from the ongoing situation."

Beaches were closed and remediation workers were dispatched to mop up the oil that had already washed up on the shore and into several sensitive wetland areas. The coast reeked of petroleum.

A sign keeps beachgoers off the sand.

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Impact of the 2021 cancellation

The airshow cancellation was devastating for Elliott. "It was probably one of the worst days of my professional life," Elliott said. "What we had put together in 2021 was essentially the Super Bowl of air shows."

Plus, the previous year, 2020, the entire airshow had been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Elliott, who also runs an event company called Code Four, said he lost "in the multi-millions" the day of the oil spill. "We put over $750,000 worth of catering in the trash," he said.

It was also upsetting for patrons, some of whom had spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on premium tickets for the last day of the show.

The airshow is free to watch from part of the city beach and nearby state beaches. But Elliott also sells tickets, for example, for seating on the Huntington Beach pier or for a private cabana on the beach. This year, prices range from $25 to more than $5,000 for a group.

Elliott said he eventually reimbursed everyone who had bought tickets "out of my own pocket."

The legal battle that followed

The following year, 2022, Elliott asked the city to give him a break on some of the fees and other expenses involved with putting on the airshow — as the city had in previous years. Specifically, the city had previously credited Elliott up to $110,000 in parking revenue generated over the airshow weekend toward his bill for permits, reserved parking, and extra public safety staff needed for the event.

Elliott's city bill for the 2022 airshow, according to a presentation at the time, was expected to be around $257,000.

This time, though, Elliott made a last-minute request that all of the city's parking revenue generated by the airshow be credited toward his bill, with no cap.

The city council at the time denied his request by a vote of 6 to 1 and decided to revoke the parking credit completely. City officials and staff at the time noted that Huntington Beach didn't grant this kind of credit to the organizers of any other big events in the city, including the U.S. Open of Surfing, which has drawn crowds similar in size to the airshow, although over a longer period of time.

Former Councilmember Mike Posey told LAist the parking "subsidy … was always supposed to be temporary" until Elliott could attract a corporate sponsor for the airshow. A smaller, previous iteration of the airshow, before Elliott took it over, was sponsored by Swiss watchmaker Breitling.

But Elliott saw the city's decision to revoke the parking subsidy as the latest in a series of efforts, starting with the 2021 post-oil spill cancellation, to shut the airshow down.

The following month, Elliott sued the city and then-Mayor Carr.

In his complaint, he alleged the 2021 cancellation amounted to a breach of contract and damaged the airshow's reputation. He also claimed that subsequent actions taken by Carr and the city, including removing the parking subsidy, were retaliation for Elliott raising concerns about the cancellation.

Elliott told LAist he felt slighted after investing heavily in the airshow to try and make it profitable and to bring tourism benefits to the city.

"I wish that the city had come forth and said, 'Hey, you've been a great partner to the city, you're a local kid … we understand that you've been damaged by this and we want to try to do the right thing.' But instead they basically told me to pound sand and left me with no choice but to protect my interests."

Initially, the city tried to get the lawsuit dismissed, claiming it had no factual basis. But then it seemed to do an abrupt about-face, settling with Elliott for at least $5.4 million, to be paid out incrementally through January 2029. What changed?

How the air show became a hot-button campaign issue

A seat on the Huntington Beach city council is generally considered a non-partisan position — a candidate's political party is not listed on the ballot. But Huntington Beach had traditionally had a conservative-leaning council. That changed after the 2020 election, but not the way you might think.

Tito Ortiz, a mixed martial arts fighter and staunch conservative, won a seat on the council in 2020 and then resigned six months later. In his place, the council appointed left-leaning attorney Rhonda Bolton, giving Huntington Beach's city government a majority Democrat block.

They passed pro-housing measures and voted to fly the Pride flag outside city hall every June — with the support of the council's moderate Republicans. A backlash ensued.

A group of residents attempted to recall six of the seven council members in 2021. But the effort failed to make it to the ballot. They set their sights on the 2022 general election.

The Lincoln Club and several other conservative political action committees coalesced around a slate of four conservative council candidates — Strickland, Casey McKeon, Pat Burns and Gracey Van Der Mark — dubbed by supporters the "Fab 4," plus city attorney Michael Gates, who was running for re-election. (Huntington Beach is one of the few cities in California where voters elect their city attorney.)

They paid for mailers and signs saying the candidates would "save" Huntington Beach — and "save" the airshow.

On Oct. 27, 2022, the candidates held a "victory rally" at the Huntington Beach pier. Elliott's company, Code Four, provided the sound and some of the signage for the rally, he said.

Elliott said the work was "pretty simple" and cost him less than the $1,089 that the four city council candidates claimed as in-kind contributions in campaign finance disclosures.

Elliott did not donate money directly to any of the four council candidates or city attorney Gates. (His company Code Four did give money, the maximum $4,900 allowed, to the 2022 winning campaigns of state Republican state legislators Diane Dixon and Janet Nguyen.)

"Franky, I supported them as much as I could without creating any kind of a conflict of interest for them," Elliott said of the council candidates. "Because, you know, they campaigned on saving the air show and I've invested millions and millions of dollars in saving this air show for the city, so our interests were pretty aligned in that regard."

But looking back — post-election and post-airshow settlement — some political opponents and civic watchdogs see the rally and Elliott's work on it as part of a suspicious pattern.

"I have substantial questions about the relationship between the four newly elected council members, the city attorney and Elliott," said Kalmick, one of the liberal council members.

Kalmick also pointed to several photos from the 2022 airshow posted to Facebook showing Elliott and his wife posing on the beach with the "Fab 4" candidates. (Elliott said he regularly invites candidates, council members and many others to the show, "Democrats, Republicans, my mom's friends, you know, my friends that were my teachers in the first grade.")

All four council candidates and city attorney Gates won their election in November.

The settlement and concerns about quid pro quo

In March 2023, Gates, the city attorney, filed a request in Orange County Superior Court to have Elliott's airshow cancellation lawsuit dismissed. Gates and deputy city attorney Lauren Rose argued that the city was "legally permitted to cancel the Airshow due to unforeseen circumstances rendering performance impossible due to health and safety reasons."

They also said this about Elliott's claim that revoking the parking subsidy was retaliation: "it is speculative and unsubstantiated how this was in any way connected to [Elliott's] negative comments regarding the City's reaction to the unexpected and disastrous oil spill."

But less than two months later, Gates, Elliott, Strickland and two of the other conservative council members held a news conference announcing a settlement. "Ladies and gentlemen, we saved the airshow," Strickland said to applause.

"The previous city council was not business-friendly and not airshow-friendly," he went on. "The Fab 4 …saved the airshow by putting the hard work and leadership required to solve this conflict."

In dollars, what they put in is $4,999,999 of city funds spread out over seven years, with the first payment of $1,999,000 due before July 31.

The city also agreed to:

• Forfeit $194,945 in fees still owed by Elliott for the 2021 airshow.
• Refund him $149,200 from the 2022 airshow, when the city council declined to give him the parking subsidy. 
• Reinstate the parking subsidy, starting at a minimum, rather than maximum, of $110,000. Plus, waive parking fees for up to 600 spaces for airshow setup and takedown.
• Pay Elliott up to an additional $2 million of any money the city recovers from the oil companies responsible for the 2021 spill. 

Those are the details in the settlement summary released to the public. Gates has declined to make the full settlement public, raising questions about what else the city may have agreed to.

A legal push for more transparency

Gina Clayton-Tarvin, a local school board member and former city council candidate, has sued Gates under state public records law in an effort to get the full settlement released.

Gates told LAist earlier this year that he hasn't released the full settlement agreement because there's still pending litigation in the airshow saga and doing so could compromise the city's position in that litigation. "But if a judge were to order the release of [the settlement], I'm happy to release it," Gates said.

Both sides of the settlement say it was a tough negotiation and neither side got everything they wanted. "We get a lot more as a city than we're giving out," Strickland said. "It's not even a close call."

Earlier this year, a former Huntington Beach mayor and a former planning commissioner tried to intervene to halt the settlement agreement. Thus far, they haven't been successful, although Lee Fink, a lawyer working with them, has said they haven't given up.

At the same time, Elliott hasn't dropped his lawsuit against former Mayor Carr for her role in canceling the 2021 airshow. In his complaint, he said Carr "unilaterally" canceled the airshow because of her personal feelings towards Elliott, and in order to garner media attention to “further her own political career.”

Carr told LAist earlier this year that the claim was bogus. "He's created a completely fantastic tale of somehow I unilaterally canceled the air show," she said. "As the mayor of Huntington Beach, you do not have the authority to issue permits, consequently, you don't have the authority to cancel permits."

She said she didn't understand why the city would offer millions to settle what she called "an easily dismissible lawsuit." Then she corrected herself.

"Well, I do understand why the new council majority would settle. I mean, [Elliott] is their friend, their ally," Carr said. "To me, it smacks of corruption, definitely feels like a pay to play."

What about the oil company responsible for the spill that caused the 2021 airshow to be canceled? Amplify Energy recently settled a $45 million class action lawsuit with impacted businesses and property owners.

Elliott's company was not part of that settlement, but he said he's been "in very intensive pre-litigation settlement discussions" with the company.

The city of Huntington Beach also plans to pursue money from Amplify. How much could come back to city coffers after the Pacific Airshow gets its $2 million cut is unknown.

Fink, the lawyer, said his clients would likely be enjoying the airshow this weekend. "No one’s against the Airshow," he wrote in an email. "The Airshow will go on regardless of the litigation. But people are against a $7 Million giveaway to a political supporter under the guise of a settlement agreement in a frivolous case."

In China, President Donald Trump is negotiating with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, in a remarkably friendly visit despite friction between the two nations on trade, sanctions, and China's role in the Iran war.

Back at home, court documents unsealed this week show that a Los Angeles-area mayor reached a deal with federal prosecutors after admitting that she acted as an illegal foreign agent of China — a case experts say is emblematic of Beijing's broadening tradecraft strategy in the U.S. and around the globe.

Eileen Wang, now the former mayor of Arcadia, agreed to plead guilty to the felony charge accusing her of promoting the interests of the People's Republic of China (PRC) under the direction of Chinese officials, according to court filings. The 58-year-old abruptly resigned from her position on Monday, hours after the plea agreement was made public by the Department of Justice. She faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

Federal prosecutors say that from late 2020 to 2022, Wang and a man named Yaoning "Mike" Sun ran a website called U.S. News Center targeting the area's large Chinese diaspora. (The city of roughly 55,000 residents has an Asian-majority population of about 59% as of 2024, with over 46% of residents saying they are foreign-born.) According to the Justice Department, the two used the platform to disseminate pro-China propaganda at the behest of PRC government officials while concealing their ties to the Chinese government from the public.

"Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy," First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in a statement. "This plea agreement is the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China's efforts to corrupt our institutions."

In a joint statement, Wang's attorneys, Brian Sun and Jason Liang, said "she apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life."

Sun suggested that Wang, who emigrated from China to the U.S. and has been involved in Arcadia community service for at least 15 years, was persuaded by "someone who she believed to be her fiance" to act on behalf of the PRC, saying, "her trust and love for apparently the wrong person who ultimately led her astray – require her to step away from public service." (It's worth noting that Wang has previously described Yaoning "Mike" Sun as her fiance).

Sun, the lawyer, also noted that Wang's wrongdoings outlined in the plea agreement pre-dated her swearing-in in December 2022.

A 'whole of society' approach

As China consolidates its global might, experts say Beijing is ramping up efforts to leverage the Chinese diaspora to both soften U.S. views of the authoritarian government and promote pro-Beijing politicians, particularly at the state or local levels.

Nicholas Eftimiades, a former senior U.S. intelligence officer who specializes in Chinese espionage, told NPR he's seen an uptick in this approach in recent years.

"We've certainly seen a number of cases of China attempting to recruit lower level officials on long term approaches so that they can conduct covert influence on the United States," he said.

President Donald Trump arrives for a state banquet hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday.

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For example, in 2024, federal prosecutors charged a former New York state government employee with acting "as an undisclosed agent of the Chinese government while her husband, Christopher Hu, facilitated the transfer of millions of dollars in kickbacks for personal gain." (A trial in late 2025 ended with a hung jury, and the case is scheduled to be retried in early 2027).

Even a senator's office appears to have been infiltrated. In 2018, Politico first reported that a San Francisco-based staffer for former Sen. Dianne Feinstein was allegedly recruited by Chinese intelligence to report back about local politics. At the time, Feinstein acknowledged that the FBI had informed her that it had concerns that China was "seeking to recruit" a staffer.

Eftimiades said China is carrying out a "whole of society approach." Unlike Western intelligence agencies, which focus espionage efforts on other intelligence organizations or militaries, China also focuses on spying at a societal level, he explained. "That means that they're recruiting mayors and congressmen with the hope that they'll rise into greater positions."

Once in place, he said the idea is that these leaders could carry out a range of operations on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, including spying on members of the Chinese diaspora who are perceived as dissidents or monitoring the activities of visiting Taiwanese leadership.

For example, federal prosecutors say Yaoning "Mike" Sun, who worked with Wang on the website and as her campaign advisor, closely surveilled the then-president of Taiwan when she visited the area in 2023.

Sun is currently serving 48 months in federal prison in a separate case for acting as an illegal agent of China, "including while serving as a campaign advisor for a political candidate who was elected to the city council of a Southern California city," according to federal prosecutors. The candidate was unnamed in that case but the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California now confirms to NPR that the candidate was Wang.

The Chinese Embassy did not respond to NPR's request for comment on Wang's case and on broader allegations of espionage.

'This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send'

Chinese officials asked Wang to repost stories favoring the government's position on controversial issues, according to the plea agreement signed by the former mayor and federal prosecutors.

In June 2021, a PRC official sent Wang and several others in the same group chat a link to an essay in the Los Angeles Times "explaining China's stance on the Xinjiang issue," prosecutors said. According to court documents, the message read: "There is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as 'forced labor' in any production activity, including cotton production. Spreading such rumor to do defame China, destroy Xinjiang's safety and stability, weaken local economy, suppress China's development."

Wang posted the article to U.S. News Center within minutes. She then responded to the PRC official with a link to the article on her website. The PRC official responded: "So fast, thank you everyone."

A few months later, in August 2021, Wang and the other members of the group chat shared links to another article on their respective websites, according to the plea agreement. When a PRC official then asked Wang to omit the name of a company mentioned in the story, she complied. Later, Wang sent a screenshot of the story, showing it had more than 15,000 views. The official praised her work, sending a couple of thumbs up emojis. She replied: "Thank you leader."

In November 2021, Wang communicated with John Chen, who prosecutors say is a high-level member of the PRC intelligence apparatus who has met with President Xi Jinping. He's now serving 20 months in federal prison. She urged him to post an article from her website. He hesitated, but according to the plea agreement, she was insistent. "This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send."

A hearing has not yet been scheduled for Wang to enter a guilty plea.

'Definitely the kind of stuff you see in the movies'

Arcadia's deputy city manager, Justine Bruno, said the city council only learned the full extent of the criminal charges levied against Wang on Monday, when the plea agreement was unsealed.

"These are serious charges for our community, and we understand that this is unsettling news for a lot of our local Arcadia residents, as well as the idea of foreign interference in local public office," Bruno told NPR.

She explained that city officials conducted an internal review of Wang's actions while on the council in December of 2024, when Wang's former campaign advisor and fiance was initially arrested. "At that time we conducted our own internal review just to ensure that there was no interference, there was no involvement with city staff or city finances or city decision making. … We were able to clear that at that time," Bruno said.

China's President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump visit the Temple of Heaven on Thursday.

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But some in Arcadia are skeptical that Wang was no longer working on behalf of the PRC while in the position.

"This is happening everywhere. As long as there's Chinese investment in places, they will install spies, agents, politicians, puppets, Manchurian candidates, you name it," resident Robert Dell told NPR as he walked his dog on a recent afternoon.

More than a dozen Arcadia residents of Chinese descent, who declined to give their full names for this story for fear of retribution from China's government, told NPR they believe she acted to influence attitudes toward Beijing.

And others are just simply reeling. Nishiki Liu told NPR he was stunned when he learned of the charges against Wang. "It's definitely the kind of stuff you see in the movies, so that's wild that it's happening right here," he said.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Seven years ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law to bring safe and affordable drinking water to the state’s most disadvantaged communities.

Last week, Newsom celebrated the program’s accomplishments.

“Over 1 million people that didn't have access to clean, safe drinking water today have access to clean, safe drinking water,” Newsom told a conference room filled with California’s water leaders, to a round of applause.

“I'm not saying that to impress you, but to impress upon you real progress. A lot more work to be done.”

But that work could lose critical funding as the Newsom administration overhauls its source: California’s carbon market. The changes to the program’s funding priorities and revenue threaten efforts to bring clean drinking water to schools, homes and communities across California.

“If that funding goes away,” said Sherry Hunter, who has long battled the arsenic leaching into the water supply in the historic Tulare County town of Allensworth, “Oh my god, I can’t even imagine.”

Climate money for clean water

A critical piece of California’s clean water funding is linked to the state’s carbon market, which sets a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions that oil refineries, power plants and manufacturers can meet by buying and trading carbon credits.

Lawmakers tap this fund for environmental efforts, like combatting unsafe drinking water in rural communities.

In 2019, Newsom signed a law that gave rise to the Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience, or SAFER, drinking water program at the State Water Resources Control Board. The law called for funding it with $130 million a year from carbon market revenues through 2030.

It can be a risky source of funding, subject to the rise and fall of credit auctions. But the law came with a promise: When the proceeds fell flat, the state’s general fund would make up the rest.

This isn’t the only pot of money that California draws on for its safe drinking water efforts, but it’s the most versatile, paying for emergency and other types of assistance that bonds and more restrictive funding can’t.

When Newsom and California lawmakers don’t budget enough to provide bottled water for households and schools with dry or dangerous taps, this fund covers the costs.

When low-income communities can’t pay for the technical expertise to manage their water systems or compete for grants needed to drill new wells and connect to safer water, the safe and affordable drinking water fund can help bridge that gap.

Cases of water Sherry Hunter collects in her home in Allensworth on Sept.4, 2024. The community of Allensworth has been dealing with an ongoing issue of arsenic leaking into its wells, one of which consistently exceeds state health limits.

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Thousands of households and dozens of schools rely on this money for emergency supplies — like Hope Elementary School in Porterville, where the taps flow with elevated levels of nitrate. The contaminant is linked to cancers, pregnancy complications and a life-threatening condition in infants known as “blue baby syndrome” when consumed in high enough quantities.

More than $83,000 has been awarded from the fund since 2021 to supply the school with bottled water and roughly $110,000 for technical assistance as the school district works to connect to safer supplies, according to the water board.

The funding lets school officials put their budget to work in the classroom.

“Thank goodness,” said Melanie Matta, the school district’s superintendent and principal. About three-quarters of the students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, Matta said. “That water can get expensive, right? We're already running on a pretty tight budget.”

Matta has a message for Newsom: She’d like him to tour her school, and witness why this money is so important.

“When you meet our kids and walk our small school community, you’ll see exactly why this fight matters and why this funding must be protected,” Matta said in an email. “Safe water is not a gift. It’s a promise. And we need your help to keep that promise.”

‘There’s nothing left’ 

The cuts began in September, when Newsom and lawmakers struck a deal to reauthorize the state’s carbon market after weeks of tense and chaotic negotiations — renaming it “cap and invest.”

The new laws deprioritized funding lawmakers had promised to safe drinking water, clean air, fire resilience, affordable housing and other programs — shifting their priority behind $1 billion for high-speed rail and $1 billion for lawmakers to direct through the budget.

The laws removed the 2030 expiration for the safe and affordable drinking water program. But they also dropped the original promise to make up any funding shortfalls from the carbon market — putting $100 million at risk through 2030, according to a Department of Finance forecast in January.

Assemblymember James Gallagher, a Republican from Chico, called the new priority system “unfortunate” and “misplaced” at a budget subcommittee hearing in March.

“If you ask these Central Valley communities, these rural communities, ‘What would you prefer? Would you want safe drinking water coming out of your faucet, or do you want a high-speed rail in your community?’” he said. “I'm pretty sure I know the answer.”

Now, climate regulators on the California Air Resources Board — chaired by Newsom appointee Lauren Sanchez — are proposing to overhaul the carbon market in ways that could cut revenues in half.

If adopted, the changes could leave no funding at all for safe drinking water and other third-tier programs as soon as the 2027–28 fiscal year, according to legislative analyst Helen Kerstein — though, Kerstein added, the forecasts are uncertain.

Sanchez, who was Newsom’s top climate advisor before leading the air board, defended the staff proposal at a Senate oversight hearing last week.

“Do you believe the Legislature intended to eliminate funding for affordable housing, transit, drinking water, wildfire prevention and clean air programs with the reauthorization?” Sen. Eloise Gómez Reyes, a Democrat from San Bernardino and chair of a Senate budget subcommittee, asked Sanchez.

Sanchez said the staff proposal didn’t specifically call for defunding those programs.

“Let me stop you for a moment. That will be the effect,” Reyes said. “There's nothing left … and those are the most important programs that have served the community.”

Newsom deflected, pointing to the Legislature.

“Any suggestion that California is ‘trading away’ clean drinking water ignores both the current budget proposal, and the Legislature’s ongoing role in funding these priorities,” spokesperson Anthony Martinez said in an emailed statement. Martinez hinted at, but did not specify, what’s coming in Newsom’s May budget revision Thursday.

‘Many of them were left behind’ 

Roughly 613,000 people still rely on water systems that fail to meet state requirements for safe and reliable drinking water. Regulators at the state water board deem another 661 water systems serving nearly 2 million people “at risk” of failure.

Still, almost one million more people have safe drinking water than in 2019 — which state water officials attribute to the safe drinking water program and its unique, flexible pot of money.

“When we were relying on the community to spend its own time and money to get ready, many of them got left behind,” said Darrin Polhemus, who leads the state water board’s Division of Drinking Water. “The safe drinking water fund has allowed us to prepare communities to do long-term projects, faster.”

The program, which draws from other state and federal funding sources, has awarded more than $1.8 billion in grants for disadvantaged communities. It’s helped around 320 water systems serving 3.3 million people come off the state’s failing list, even as other, at-risk suppliers stumble onto it.

The safe and affordable drinking water fund also has helped pay for emergency repairs, technical assistance, bottled water supplies and even some construction costs in communities from San Bernardino to Tulare, Monterey and Sutter counties — all contending with aging and contaminated water systems.

“We could not have done it without them,” said Sherry Hunter in Allensworth, which started work on a new well and storage tank in January to bring clean water to a town struggling with arsenic and other water problems for over a century.

“There's a lot of other smaller disadvantaged communities that depend on them as well,” Hunter said.

The costs for fixing these water systems and household wells could hit billions of dollars in the coming years, according to a 2024 water board analysis. And Polhemus said the challenge will grow — even as funding shrinks — as water suppliers face new limits on contaminants like hexavalent chromium.

“If we’ve started and committed to a project, we’ve got the funding reserve to see it through,” Polhemus said. “It’s just, we won’t be starting new projects.”

Federal money is also running out. A Biden-era funding boost ends this year, slashing another, more restrictive fund for drinking water infrastructure projects from hundreds of millions of dollars to tens of millions, according to federal and water board data. Congressional earmarks could eat into what remains.

Tami McVay, emergency services director for the nonprofit Self-Help Enterprises, which connects rural communities to affordable housing and safe drinking water, is worried.

Her program provides bottled water to more than 3,000 households in the San Joaquin Valley, and trucks water to refill storage tanks at roughly 700 more. Her team helps replace domestic wells and test their water. And it relies on state funding.

Seeing the potential cuts, she said, “it definitely made our mouths drop a little.”

Polhemus said he understands communities are nervous.

“We're going to work with the funds we're given to continue the program as best we can, because we know the need still exists,” he said. “The question of how much of it exists, of course, comes out of our hands and into the political arena.”

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

Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing further budget cuts and expanding the state’s reserves despite a recent surge in tax revenue — an attempt to balance the books in anticipation of a looming long-term deficit in the coming years, he said.

In a presentation riddled with criticism of the Trump administration and featuring memes including an image of President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as “Dumb and Dumber,” Newsom released his last budget plan as governor on Thursday.

He proposed a $350 billion spending plan that would zero out the state’s budget deficit for two years and cut longer-term budget gaps in half. Newsom had pledged not to leave his successor with a giant structural deficit.

“I’m not trying to get out of Dodge,” Newsom said. “This is a balanced budget structurally for the next 18 months after I’m gone.”

He proposed slashing general fund spending by $1.8 billion, primarily by further cutting Medi-Cal, including by raising monthly premiums on undocumented immigrant adults by $20 and reinstating Medi-Cal asset tests.

While Newsom wants the state to continue withdrawing $7 billion from the state’s reserves this year, his proposal would also shore up the rainy day fund by transferring $3.6 billion to the account and setting aside nearly $10 billion more for fiscal year 2027-28.

The governor’s presentation is an updated outlook at the state’s finances since January, when Newsom’s administration projected a “modest shortfall” of $2.9 billion that would grow to a $22 billion deficit in fiscal year 2027-28.

Since then, the state’s tax revenue has grown faster than anticipated, thanks to a robust stock market and California’s robust AI-driven technology sector. Newsom projects that the state will see $16.5 billion more in revenue over a three-year budgeting window than expected in January.

A graphic shown during Gov. Gavin Newsom's presentation of his revised 2026-27 budget proposal in Sacramento on May 14, 2026. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr., CalMatters But Newsom said the state’s financial outlook remains ominous, attributing much of the uncertainty to Trump’s policies, including a spending plan the president calls his “one, big beautiful bill.” It could strip 2 million low-income Californians of health insurance coverage, and the war in Iran, which has sent gas prices skyrocketing nationwide.

“We have a president who … doesn’t particularly give a damn about the financial situation of the average American,” Newsom said.

It’s unclear how long California’s revenue boon would last. The recent spike in tax collection suggests that the stock market is reaching “bubble territory” and could head toward an “eventual bust,” said the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office, which advises the state Legislature. “The state should be prepared for revenues to be tens of billions lower within one or two years.”

California’s spending has continued to outpace revenue growth. Since fiscal year 2019-20, spending has grown by more than $100 billion, primarily from maintaining and expanding K-14 education, according to the LAO.

“We need to tighten our belt, and we need to focus on the outcomes,” he said.
But Newsom is proposing new spending in some areas, including $300 million to subsidize private healthcare for low-income and middle-class Californians as well as money to offer paid pregnancy leave for TK-12 and community college employees and to cut filing fees for roughly 250,000 new businesses in half.

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

In L.A., we tout ourselves as having one of the best food scenes in the world, with cuisines from nearly every corner of the globe available to sample.

And yet a few still occasionally fall through the cracks. Blame geography, or the lack of a sizable population to sustain such establishments. Either way, the gap is real.

Puerto Rican food is one of those cuisines. Despite a handful of restaurants scattered throughout the Southland, cocina criolla remains largely underrepresented. For me, it's personal.

My grandfather was Puerto Rican, born on the island and eventually settling in El Paso, Texas, where he met my grandmother — who was Mexican — before shipping out to fight in the Korean War. He came back, but the family didn't hold. He and my grandmother split when my dad was young. And yet his spirit has always loomed in the family background.

Gab's grandparents, Harry Chabrán and Angie Chabrán in downtown El Paso, circa 1940s.

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Courtesy Gab Chabrán

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I'm always looking for ways to connect with that side of my heritage, which is why, when I heard chef and writer Monti Carlo was writing a cookbook called Spanglish: Recipes & Stories, I invited her to appear at our next Cookbook Live event on May 21 as an opportunity to dig deeper.

Speaking in Spanglish

Monti Carlo has been working in food media for the past 15 years, first appearing on Season 3 of MasterChef, where she placed fifth. Since then, she's served as an advisor for the James Beard Foundation.

Monti Carlo, author of "Spanglish: Recipes & Stories," will be in conversation at The Crawford in Pasadena on Thursday, May 21.

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Rafael N Ruiz Mederos

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Courtesy Simon Element

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Born and raised in Puerto Rico, she spent much of her youth in Texas — navigating what many of us know as a hybrid identity, that particular life lived between cultures. Hence the title: Spanglish is a term used by many whose families come from Latin American countries but who grow up speaking English, often mixing both languages in the same sentence, sometimes in the same breath. For Carlo, it's also an act of reclamation — taking back a word that's long been used to marginalize Puerto Ricans in the diaspora.

Understanding the food

When discussing the recipes in her book, Carlo keeps coming back to one dish in particular: pastelón.

It's a dish that encapsulates the cuisine — sweet fried plantain slices layered with picadillo, a beef mince made with raisins and olives, bound together with egg, and blanketed in cheese.

"It's salty and sweet," she said. "That's our favorite flavor."

And that distinction matters. Puerto Rican cuisine, she's quick to note, isn't built around heat the way Mexican food is. It's subtler than that, rooted in a balance of contrasts — and no ingredient embodies that better than the plantain, which Carlo describes as the most foundational ingredient in the cuisine, even though it wasn't originally native to the island, having been brought by enslaved people from Africa.

"Spanglish: Recipes & Stories" by Monti Carlo, with a foreword by Gordon Ramsay, is available now.

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Courtesy Simon Element

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"My goodness, what a plantain can do," she said. "From being eaten green to being eaten while it's surrounded by fruit flies."

To her, that full arc — starchy and firm at one end, deeply sweet and soft at the other — is a portrait of Puerto Rican cooking itself.

Carlo's version in the book is vegetarian, using mushrooms instead of ground beef, while keeping two of the cuisine's foundational bases intact: recaíto and sazón. Recaíto is a pureed aromatic blend — green peppers, herbs, and recao (also known as culantro) — that gives dishes their distinctive green hue. Sazón is a dry seasoning made up of garlic powder, oregano, coriander, annatto, and ground turmeric.

Finding sazón in the Southland

Puerto Rican food exists in SoCal — you just have to know where to look. As someone who's always on the lookout for a plate of pasteles or a bowl of mofongo, a few spots have stood the test of time, including Señor Big Ed's in Cypress and Mofongos in North Hollywood.

Señor Big Ed's

Señor Big Ed's has been open since 1982 — though it didn't start as a Puerto Rican restaurant. It opened as a Green Burrito, a local Mexican fast food chain that was later purchased by the company that owns Carl's Jr. The name comes from an item on the original menu, and it stuck even after the previous owner, Rafael Rodriguez, originally from San Juan, added Puerto Rican food to the menu in 1990.

A spread from Mofongos in North Hollywood featuring an alcapurria, a mofongo with broth, and pique, shot on an El Gran Combo record.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Yolanda Coronado has cooked at Señor Big Ed's since day one and bought the restaurant in 2003. Her daughter Veronica, who helps manage day-to-day operations, said the name still catches people off guard.

"The restaurant is named after a burrito," she laughed. But the food is unambiguously boricua — and Coronado makes sure of it, offering free pastelillos to anyone who walks in looking for a taco. "As soon as I see someone trying to order a taco or a burrito, I'm like, hey, have you tried the Puerto Rican food?"

For the Puerto Ricans who find them, the reaction is often immediate. "They get emotional when they see the flags," she said. "They start smelling the sofrito and the garlic. It reminds them of grandma's cooking."

Mofongos

In North Hollywood, Augusto Coën, the owner of Mofongos, has been making the same case since November 2009. "When I started the business, there weren't any Puerto Rican restaurants in Los Angeles County," he said.

Nearly 17 years later, he's built a following that includes Jimmy Smits, Luis Guzmán, and Cardi B — though Coën is quick to note the restaurant is as much for an electrician as an actor. Awareness, he says, is growing slowly, with some help.

"The popularity of people like Bad Bunny has made people curious about things that are Puerto Rican — that really helps out," he said.

A tray of empanadas from Olga's Empanadas, a Puerto Rican cottage kitchen operation run by Olga Gonzalez out of her home in Perris.

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Photo courtesy Olga Gonzalez

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Olga's Empanadas

And the search extends further than you might expect. Out in Perris — some 70 miles from downtown L.A. — Olga Gonzalez runs a cottage kitchen out of her home, selling homemade Puerto Rican empanadas fried or frozen for pickup. Olga Gonzalez inherited the business, Olga's Empanadas, from her late mother Ana, who started it in the San Gabriel Valley. While also working the graveyard shift at a warehouse, Gonzalez has grown the menu to 16 flavors, drawing customers from Beaumont, Temecula, and Hemet — and as far as Watts and Compton, making the reverse trek.

"I have so many customers just saying like, we don't have any of this out here," Gonzalez said. "That's why I'm cooking."

Come hungry

Carlo comes to The Crawford on Thursday, May 21, at 6 p.m., and she's not coming empty-handed. She'll be cooking — a passion fruit hand cake, to be exact — and if you're wondering what that means for me, she's already warned me that it's arms day (those egg whites don’t whip themselves). Tickets and more information at laist.com/events.