The Brief

Anaheim voters are being asked to decide whether to require hotels and large event centers to pay their workers a minimum of $25 an hour. The initiative, Measure A, would also require hotels to implement safety measures and workload limits for room attendants.

Anaheim voters have through Oct. 3 to cast their ballots in the special election.

The measure is sponsored by the hospitality workers union UNITE HERE Local 11, which has successfully lobbied for similar workload and safety measures in several Los Angeles County cities. This is the same union whose hotel workers in L.A. and O.C. have been on strike, on and off, since June as they battle over new contracts.

Measure A faces strong opposition from hotels. Disney alone has poured $1.5 million into the "No" campaign. The majority of the Anaheim City Council also opposes the measure.

The special election comes as the city grapples with how to address the heavy influence of money and business interests in Anaheim politics. An FBI investigation led to former Mayor Harry Sidhu's recent guilty plea on corruption charges related to the attempted sale of Angel Stadium. And a city-commissioned probe found widespread evidence of influence-peddling and pay-to-play politics in the city.

To date, the PAC opposing Measure A, which calls itself "Anaheim Residents Against Cuts to Essential City Services," has spent five times as much to influence voters as the pro-Measure A union PAC, "Committee for a Healthy Anaheim Resort."

Here's a guide to Measure A for Anaheim residents — and for anyone interested in the issues of livable wages, fair working conditions and the influence of money in elections.

You can find a searchable version of Measure A here.

Measure A, the MANY details

Besides almost immediately raising the minimum wage for hotel and event workers (employers have 30 days to comply), the measure would:

Wages and retention

• Increase the $25 minimum wage by 3% each year, or the equivalent to any rise in the local Consumer Price Index, whichever is greater. This would start in 2026.
• Require employers to give the entirety of any service charge billed to a guest (essentially a built-in tip) to the worker or workers who did the actual work — excluding supervisors and managers, who would not be entitled to any part of a service charge.  
• If a hotel or event center changes ownership, require the new owner to offer existing employees the chance to stay on for at least 90 days, with some exceptions. 

Safety and workload

• Require hotels to give panic buttons to all room attendants and, for larger hotels, have a security guard on staff to respond to calls for help.
• Limit the square footage that can be assigned to a room attendant for cleaning per work shift. 
• Require hotels and event centers to pay double — at least $50 an hour — for a worker's entire shift if that worker is required to clean more than the square footage limitation. 
• Prohibit hotels from requiring employees to work more than a 10-hour day without their written consent.
• Prohibit hotels from offering incentives for guests to opt out of daily room cleaning.
• Require hotels to maintain detailed records, for three years, about the work done by each room attendant, including each room cleaned and the total square footage cleaned. 

Exemptions

Unionized workplaces are exempt from the rules. But Anaheim spokesperson Mike Lyster said the exemption is essentially moot because, per the ballot language, both employers and employees would have to agree to an exemption. Employees are not likely to agree to a minimum wage that's lower than the one that would be established by Measure A.

The measure allows the city manager to grant a waiver if an employer can demonstrate that the new rules would require them to lay off more than 20% of its workers or sharply reduce their hours in order to avoid bankruptcy.

Wages, in comparison

If voters pass the initiative, the city that's home to Disneyland, Angel Stadium and the popular Anaheim Convention Center would have the state's highest minimum wage ordinance for hospitality workers — by far.

The Los Angeles City Council is also considering a $25 minimum wage for hotel and airport workers. And in Santa Monica, voters will consider a ballot initiative next year that would raise wages for hotel workers there to $30 an hour.

If Measure A passes, the new minimum wage would apply to an estimated 900 room attendants and potentially thousands of other caterers, bellhops, parking attendants and others who power conventions, concerts and sporting events in the city.

According to a city-funded analysis, a new $25 minimum wage would constitute a 35% increase over the current average wages for the city's rank and file hotel workers.

However, unionized housekeepers in Anaheim make between $21 and $23 an hour, according to a spokesperson for UNITE HERE Local 11.

Anaheim hotels whose employees are currently represented by the union are the Anaheim Hilton, Disney Grand Californian Hotel, Disneyland Hotel, Disneyland Paradise Pier Hotel and Sheraton Park Hotel.

Employers would have to begin paying the new wages within 30 days after the election results are certified.

UNITE HERE Local 11's workplace campaign

The safety measures and workload limits for hotel workers are nearly identical to rules passed in recent years in Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Long Beach, Glendale, Irvine and the city of Los Angeles. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors recently voted to consider a similar ordinance.

Earlier this year, Anaheim City Council adopted most of the safety rules for hotel workers, including the panic button requirement. They take effect Jan. 1. Measure A would make the rules binding almost immediately, and prevent them being changed or weakened except by the voters.

According to an external analysis paid for by the city of Anaheim, the proposed workload limitations would restrict room attendants to cleaning about half the space they currently do in some cases, which means hotels might have to hire additional workers to meet their cleaning needs.

UNITE HERE Local 11 co-president Ada Briceño said the workload limits and related wage premiums are intended to discourage employers from over-scheduling room attendants. "The wear and tear on people's bodies when you're doing that work, lifting mattresses that are over 200 pounds, you're getting on your hands and knees every single day, 18, 20 times to scrub toilets and to scrub bathtubs," Briceño said. "We want to make sure people get compensated for the extra work that they have to do."

Arguments for and against Measure A

City officials argue that the new minimum wage would weaken the local economy and damage the city government's finances, potentially forcing it to cut essential city services.

An economic impact analysis commissioned by the city found that the measure could cost Anaheim some $5 million to $6 million in additional labor costs at the Anaheim Convention Center, which the city owns and operates, just in the first year.

(Read the city's economic impact analysis here.)

The analysis estimates that if Measure A passes, the city would go from essentially breaking even on convention center operations this fiscal year to being $8.5 million in the hole.

Councilwoman Natalie Meeks, who represents Anaheim's District 6, called Measure A an "overreach." She said individual employers and their employees, not the city, should determine wages and working conditions. "Bargaining should be done at the bargaining table and not by the voters," Meeks said.

She also said the state, not cities or counties, should set minimum wages.

Even some longtime union supporters are, this time, turning their backs.

"I support the hotel workers," civic activist and former mayoral candidate Cynthia Ward told LAist last month. But she, like Meeks, called Measure A an "overreach."

"The unions need to be out there organizing workers and negotiating with employers based on the strength of their numbers and not the ballot box," Ward said.

On the other side, former Councilmember Jose Moreno, a longtime critic of corporate influence in Anaheim, said he supports Measure A. He called the well-funded campaign against the measure "very misleading" and said the city council had "created a political environment that is now being used against the initiative."

Moreno criticized the council for deciding to hold a special election to consider Measure A — at an estimated cost of $1.5 million — rather than putting it on the November 2024 general election ballot, when more people are likely to vote.

According to the city's website, including Measure A on the 2024 ballot would have been much cheaper — around $200,000.

He also said the council rushed to commission an economic analysis that didn't consider the full potential impacts of the minimum wage hike, including on local tax receipts. Moreno said when working class people make more money, they'll spend it.

"When they spend locally, that creates local jobs … and those jobs create taxes," Moreno said.

The former councilmember said any hit to the city's general fund could be made up by a "gate tax" on tickets to Disneyland and other popular city attractions. The idea has popped up, and been shot down, repeatedly over the years. Last year, the previous city council refused to consider putting a gate tax on the ballot.

It’s that time of year when black bears are beefing up, often on trash, in Southern California’s foothill communities.

From fall to early winter, bears quadruple their food intake in preparation for the cooler months — bears here don’t really hibernate given our mild weather and plethora of resources, but they do slow down during the winter (as we all should). And right now, mother bears are looking to find a safe place to den and have their cubs.

Bears aren’t just roaming the roads of mountain towns either. They’re in suburban neighborhood streets along the 210 Freeway corridor — including Altadena, Sierra Madre and Monrovia — and even in Encino and Tarzana.

A black bear walks along an Arcadia street earlier this month.

(

Courtesy Wild Neighbor

)

This time of year is when humans and bears might come into conflict more frequently, says a former biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“You're going to see those bears just eating ravenously, foraging all day for food, and then also they're going to start looking for these potential denning sites under our crawl spaces, unfortunately,” said Jessica West, a human-wildlife conflict specialist who over the last five years worked for the state on bear coexistence efforts from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

Nearly 60,000 black bears are estimated to live in California. Here in Southern California, the estimate is around 2,000, according to the latest count by the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.

State resources to help communities coexist with bears have been cut. That includes West, who was the sole wildlife conflict biologist serving Southern California counties. Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed a bill into law that aims to bring some of those resources back, but in the meantime, the need remains.

“More than ever, people and bears are sharing space,” West said.  "The fact is that they're here and they're not going anywhere, and we're here as humans and we're not going anywhere.”

Neither did West’s passion for wildlife coexistence when she was laid off. That’s why she just launched her own business to help fill the resource gap: Wild Neighbor.

Jessica West, a bear biologist, installs an "unwelcome" mat at a home. The electrified mat helps keeps curious bears away.

(

Courtesy Wild Neighbor

)

An "unwelcome" mat with bear prints outside of a home in Ojai.

(

Courtesy Wild Neighbor

)

She offers detailed property assessments and recommendations for $150. She focuses primarily on prevention, such as strategically placing electric wiring and “unwelcome” mats to secure crawl spaces, trash and other vulnerable areas, which can cost $350 to around $900 depending on the home. She also rents such equipment if residents prefer. West works with manufacturers of electric bear-resistant tools that have been vetted for fire safety and bear conflict.

“We really want to avoid potentially orphaning those cubs,” she said.

It’s best to avoid allowing a bear to get into your crawl space or trash in the first place, West said. When bears become too accustomed to humans and eating human food, the risk of injury to people and pets rises. And the bears themselves are more likely to be euthanized.

In 2023, California hit a tragic milestone: It was the state’s first documented killing of a human by a black bear, in Northern California. In Southern California, foothill communities such as Sierra Madre have seen several bear-related injuries in recent years (more on that in our 2024 podcast on this topic). Several bears, including a well-known one in La Cañada Flintridge, have also been euthanized in recent years.

In the vast majority of cases, this is preventable, West said, if residents take a little responsibility for securing their own properties. That can also save thousands of dollars in damage caused by a bear.

Since West is no longer with the state, she can’t trap bears that have risen to the point of becoming a problem — for example, those that learn how to regularly get into homes or cars, or have lost their fear of humans. She does encourage her clients to share sightings and any concerning conflicts with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, but she doesn’t share anything herself without clients’ permission. (Learn how to report bear sightings or human-bear conflict here.)

West said that in lieu of state resources, companies like hers may become more common.

“What [clients] can expect is someone who is going to listen to them, and someone who is passionate about their job and really wants to help them,” West said. “Because at the end of the day, I'm a bear biologist by training. I love bears, but my whole goal in all of this is to help people. Because if we help people, we're also helping bears.”

City inspectors have declared several buildings on the Peninsula unsafe to enter after Hurricane Rachel’s high surf and tides chewed away at the shoreline, tearing apart a section of a wooden wall that is the neighborhood’s last line of defense against the ocean.

Officials issued a notice Thursday night that a large section of the bulkhead, left exposed after waves from Hurricane Marie ripped away its surrounding sand, was badly damaged over the past day and left a gap that allowed water to reach homes and side streets.

Residents stood in shin-deep flooding on Friday, with vehicle access closed at 62nd Place. Waves continued to chew at homes’ foundations along the shoreline and tear planks from the boardwalk. At least one home in the 6500 block of Seaside Walk appeared close to collapse.

Laath Martin, a city spokesperson, said inspectors are still assessing the extent of the bulkhead and boardwalk damage.

Crews rushed to make emergency repairs, pump water off the streets and fill in the exposed section with roughly 1,000 sandbags. The city is bracing for rain this weekend, and more high tides and surf are expected.

Inspectors surveyed homes threatened by water damage and red-tagged two buildings containing three units in the 6400 and 6500 blocks of Seaside Walk. The red tag means they’re too dangerous to enter.

Craig Nakano, a spokesperson for the city’s Community Development Department, said Friday that nobody has been displaced by the tagging. One property was under construction, he said, while the other was confirmed by the owner to be vacant.

A young man talks with an employee helping pump water out of the street as high surf from Hurricane Rachel crashes into the Peninsula in Long Beach on Friday, October 9, 2026.

(

Thomas R. Cordova

/

The Long Beach Post

)

A third building received a yellow tag, which means its owner may go in briefly to collect belongings but may not stay. Nakano confirmed that the owner had already found somewhere else to stay.

Two buildings were already yellow-tagged after damage from Hurricane Marie weeks ago. The latest damage brings the total to five damaged Peninsula structures, two red-tagged and three yellow-tagged. The tags are preliminary, and a red tag can be downgraded to yellow once repairs are made and inspectors sign off. Inspectors will keep checking homes twice a day.

The latest bout of strong waves — whipped up by Hurricane Rachel — came just weeks after other hurricane-charged swells battered the Long Beach coast and the Peninsula.

The city is planning a multimillion-dollar dredging project to rebuild the stretch of Peninsula beach that’s been eroded. Long-term fixes are expected to be even more expensive.

In the meantime, storms keep rolling in.

The forecast for this weekend

Bryan Lewis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said high surf and tide are expected to rise precipitously each day through Sunday, with tides reaching 7.5 feet high on Saturday and nearly 8 feet high on Sunday morning around 10 a.m. Waves are currently ranging from 4 to 7 feet high, but are expected to rise to up to 8 feet by Sunday, he said.

Conditions on Sunday evening and Monday morning, he said, will mirror Saturday, and likely will not relent in strength until Wednesday morning.

The NWS expects to announce a flood warning later Friday. They currently have an advisory running through Tuesday. Warnings are usually triggered when coastal buoys the Service monitors — in this case ones in the San Pedro Channel and city harbor — are routinely hit with high enough surf, Lewis explained.

This storm could also bring rain and wind. The city expects up to a half-inch of precipitation this weekend and gusts strong enough to knock down trees and power lines.

“Protecting our residents is our top priority as high surf and erosion impact our Peninsula community,” Mayor Rex Richardson said in a statement. He praised emergency crews and urged residents to “be prepared and follow City guidance.”

Lewis said rain showers could start in the area as early as Friday night and Saturday morning, with a second storm system hitting the area on Monday. Showers are expected to total between a half inch and three quarters of an inch of rain.

“This will bring additional rain, so that’s kind of separate from what tropical storm Rachel could be responsible for,” Lewis said.

Metrolink, Southern California’s regional commuter rail service, is planning for major service cuts — slashing 29% of weekday trains and 40% of weekend trains. Those cuts could go into effect as soon as next month.

The Metrolink Board of Directors on Friday voted to move forward with a $420 million budget proposal for this fiscal year, which includes the service cuts. The proposal now goes to member agencies for review and approval.

A majority of Metrolink’s budget is funded by Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties’ transportation agencies. For more than a year, Metrolink officials have been building a budget that member agencies, like the Orange County Transportation Authority and L.A. Metro, would approve as it struggles to close its funding gaps.

How did we get here? 

The service announcement comes the same week as the agency rolled out fare increases.

Metrolink officials blame low ridership numbers for the budget troubles and increasing operational costs for the potential change in service.

The agency expects an 18% dip in ticket revenue in the next fiscal year. On top of that, both OCTA and L.A. Metro proposed cutting their subsidies to the rail service by millions of dollars.

Tom Schamber, Metrolink's chief financial officer, said the service cuts were necessary to balance the budget.

“These cuts were targeted at low-performing trains and trains that overlap with the Pacific Surfliner service,” Schamber said. “The schedule will look more like a commuter rail service focused on weekdays during peak periods.”

How could my routes change?

In Orange County, the number of weekend trains will be cut in half and weekday trains by nearly 40%. Weekday service to Oceanside is included in those cuts.

San Bernardino and Antelope Valley lines will also see major service cuts to weekday and weekend trains. Weekday trains for the Ventura County line were cut by 36%.

You can see the proposed service schedule here.

What do some riders think? 

During public comment on Friday, many riders expressed concern that Metrolink was entering a transit death spiral — a slippery cycle where fewer services and higher fares lead to fewer riders and deeper financial trouble.

Cooper Crane, a UC Riverside graduate student and historian of Southern California’s public transportation network, said the cuts make the service impractical.

“It is going to bring Metrolink into a death spiral, which could be compared to the historic collapse of services such as the Pacific Electric here in Southern California,” Crane said. “We don't want to experience something like the collapse of the Pacific Electric again, but the budget cuts that have been made by Orange County and the lack of government commitment to the support for the service is pretty much exactly what that will lead to.”

Mason Buck of Irvine said he mainly uses the Metrolink services recreationally.

“You can understand my concern when I look, and I see weekend service getting absolutely gutted in Orange County. … Issues like this are extremely frustrating to me because it feels like such a self-inflicted wound,” Buck said. “I just want an alternative to driving.”

The changes will not just stunt ridership growth but exacerbate ridership loss, Adriana Rizzo, a founding member of Californians for Electric Rail, said.

“This is going to be a net negative for Metrolink. I'm very concerned that we're going to be back here in six months, looking at even more severe cuts,” Rizzo said. “Metrolink is essential for the economy. It's essential to keep our region moving, and we cannot just let it die.”

What’s next?

County transportation agencies need to consider and adopt the budget before it goes back to the Metrolink board for final approval on Oct. 23.