The Brief

About 4,000 California Department of Public Health employees have been told they must use a federal verification system to prove they’re U.S. citizens or otherwise legally eligible to work.

Leaders of the agency said in a memo obtained by CalMatters that the verification is necessary to receive federal funding, but employees and unions are resisting the directive.

In the memo, a department human resources deputy director asked employees to comply with a series of deadlines that culminate on April 10. A separate document distributed by the department said that failing to complete the verification may result in the state losing a contract with the Centers for Disease Control for the national death index, which collects death certificate data from authorities nationwide.

The department is also making the move to address incomplete employment eligibility records identified in a recent audit, according to the Service Employees Union International Local 1000, which represents roughly 3,000 department employees.

As at other U.S. employers, all new California health department employees complete a federal I-9 form to prove their eligibility to work. The department is now asking them to enroll in E-Verify, a program administered by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration. That system compares information provided by an employee on the I-9 to records in federal databases, including at Social Security and the Department of Homeland Security. In some cases it also prompts employers to compare each applicant’s identification document photo with the one they provided during the E-Verify process. The memo said employees will specifically use E-Verify+, which combines filling out an I-9 with verification. Employees hired before November can opt out of using that specific version of E-Verify.

SEIU Local 1000 President Anica Walls told CalMatters in an email that forcing all employees to use E-Verify “raised serious concerns for our members about privacy, data security, and the unnecessary re-verification of workers who are already legally employed.”

The union sent a petition to executives in charge of the state agency last month to express concern about the verification and underline that employees submitted documents to prove their work eligibility when they were hired. Walls told CalMatters the health agency is currently the only California state department the union is aware of that has asked their employees to recertify their legal status. The union represents about 100,000 state employees at 140 state agencies, boards, commissions and departments.

“When federal systems and funding conditions are used to justify expanded data collection from workers, it raises red flags — especially when those workers have already met employment eligibility requirements,” she wrote. “Our members are concerned about their personal data being sent to federal systems with known accuracy and security issues. And this is coming at a time when both U.S. citizens and immigrant workers are understandably concerned about how employment data could be accessed or used by federal agencies.”

The E-Verify+ requirement is creating fear and uncertainty among employees and may affect employee recruitment and retention in the future, said Jacqueline Tkac, president of the California Association of Professional Scientists-UAW Local 1115, a union that represents roughly 800 health department employees. Amid reports of ICE activity at workplaces and people being taken off the street, the timing could not be worse.

“E-Verify+ is not a neutral administrative tool. It’s deeply integrated with DHS databases, including systems used by ICE, and relies on biometrics and cross-agency data sharing,” she said in a statement shared with CalMatters. “Introducing this at a time when immigrant communities and public health scientists are being openly targeted by the current federal administration is extremely chilling.”

The California Department of Public Health did not respond to multiple requests to answer questions. State information officer Nicole Skow told CalMatters that the California Department of Human Resources does not monitor how state agencies verify employment eligibility and that use of E-Verify is determined at a department level.

Since it became available in the 1990s, E-Verify has been, by default, a voluntary program for employers, but it has become mandatory for more and more of them over time. The federal government has required E-Verify for certain contracts since 2009 and more than 20 states now require E-Verify for their own contracts or to issue business licenses. Earlier this month, Florida lawmakers passed a bill that requires employers of all sizes to use the federal program.

Critics of E-Verify say the program needs reforms to address instances in which it makes mistakes, including cases where people commit identity fraud to get jobs they shouldn’t have and false positives leading people to lose jobs that they were lawfully allowed to have. Based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data and the E-Verify error rate, if Congress passed an E-Verify mandate today, the work eligibility status of more than 120,000 people would get inaccurately labeled, allowing ineligible immigrants to work and labeling some authorized workers ineligible, which could lead to loss of wages or jobs, said Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, during a hearing last month where members of Congress debated a bill that would require E-Verify use for all federal contracts.

The health department’s push to prove eligibility comes at a time when the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is ramping up I-9 audits that may precede raids. It also comes on the heels of ICE agents shooting and killing two people in Minnesota, the deaths of multiple people in ICE detention facilities, and multiple news reports that the Department of Homeland Security wants to bring similar tactics to California and New York.

It’s possible the department wants to prepare for or forestall an audit from ICE. I-9 audits increased in Minnesota in recent weeks, Minneapolis-based immigration attorney Matthew Webster told CalMatters. Webster said some appear indiscriminate, with audit notices “basically just being dropped off door to door,” and some seeming to be retaliatory, like a hospital where staff protested ICE’s treatment of a patient shortly before the hospital was audited, and a St. Paul toy store that gave away whistles that protesters use to alert their neighbors to ICE activity, also shortly before it was audited. Webster expects such audits to become more commonplace as tens of billions of dollars continue to pour into the law enforcement agency from the federal budget.

A set of “Frequently Asked Questions” drafted by the California Department of Public Health and distributed to employees describes E-Verify+ as intended to “reduce errors, streamline onboarding, and improve the overall employee experience.”

But one employee, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid retaliation, told CalMatters that in light of recent events, they’re concerned about the department providing employee photos to the Department of Homeland Security under E-Verify. They also said the health department should have made it clearer that employees could opt out of the “plus” version of E-Verify and should extend this option to people hired since November, who must always use E-Verify+, according to the questions document.

“Nowhere in the memo does it tell us we can opt out,” they said. “That information only came after employees raised concerns to the director.”

For the record: The original version of this story did not correctly describe what health department workers are being asked to verify. It is employment eligibility, whether through citizenship or other legal channels.

A new free record shop for survivors of last year’s Eaton and Palisades fires is celebrating with a grand opening party Saturday night.

After losing his home in the Eaton Fire, Brandon Jay founded Altadena Musicians to get instruments back into the hands of musicians who lost their gear in fires.

Now he’s doing that with vinyl records, too.

“We want to be here to help replace those items and support music in people’s lives that can’t necessarily afford it right now because they’re saving all their pennies just to live and also just to rebuild their homes,” Jay told LAist.

Jay says they’ve seen roughly 3,000 records donated so far. Now they have a dedicated space on Lincoln Avenue where fire survivors can sign up for time slots and shop for up to 10 records a month.

“It’s a really lovely distraction but it kind of keeps me going as well just to know that we’re trying to build something great for the community and keep us all moving forward,” Jay said.

The store will carry copies of the benefit album, Gimme Shelter: Songs for LA Fire Relief. The compilation features cover art by Shepard Fairey and L.A. specific tracks from artists like Elliott Smith ("Angeles" of course), Norah Jones, The Flaming Lips, as well as a cover of "Burning Down the House" by Talking Heads performed by Jay and about 50 other fire-impacted musicians.

Reggae star Ziggy Marley has spent decades carrying one of music’s most celebrated legacies. But until now, he had never written a song directly about his father, Bob Marley.

That’s changed with “Many Mourn for Bob,” a track on Marley’s ninth solo album Brightside, his first release recorded in his new studio in North Hollywood.

Marley was just 12 when his father died of cancer in 1981. Now 57, Marley says the song instinctually emerged after years of life experience and producing the biopic One Love, which revisited his father’s struggles like an assassination attempt amid political violence in Jamaica.

“He went through some things that was really tough on a human being – and just understanding him in that light is to have a little bit more emotional, deeper connection to his experience,” Marley said in an interview at his studio.

Searching for the bright side

The deeply personal track is part of a splashy return for Marley, who's touring behind Brightside and will perform at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21.

The new album blends political themes, optimism and musical experimentation.

Its lead single, “Racism Is a Killa,” featuring Big Boi, pairs the heavy topic with an upbeat groove that he hopes will make the song more accessible to young people.

“We just wanna come out straightforward, like I never want to come out tiptoeing,” Marley said. “I want to say something that can catch your ears or catch your thoughts.”

That tension between darkness and hope runs throughout Brightside. Marley described the album as a reflection on enduring difficult periods – from the pandemic to the Los Angeles wildfires – without losing sight of optimism.

“Sometimes we get lost in that so much that we don't realize that there is always a bright side,” Marley said.

The 432 Hz experiment

The album also experiments sonically: Marley recorded Brightside using 432 hertz tuning instead of the standard 440 hertz in most mainstream music. Advocates of 432 hertz believe it produces a warmer, more meditative sound better synced to the natural world. (You can hear the difference for yourself here.)

“It's a lower musical frequency, but it's a higher frequency in a next sense of your spirituality and emotion,” he said. “So even though the numbers go down, the frequency actually go up.”

Marley sees the move as part of a larger search for new creative approaches.

“I'm very open-minded and always trying to evolve and just experiment with life and music,” Marley said.

The Grammy winner, who joins James Blake and Ed O’Brien of Radiohead as the most high-profile artists to record at the lower frequency, floated the idea of a larger movement among artists.

“Let's just have a revolution in the music industry,” he said. “Let's change the frequency.”

Building a dream

Marley works out of his Rebel Lion Studio in North Hollywood, its name a nod to his 2018 album Rebellion Rises while also a play on the word “rebellion.”

He described the studio as an extension of the independent spirit his father built with Tuff Gong Studio in Jamaica.

Musicians set up for rehearsal ahead of the next leg of Ziggy Marley's tour.

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“My father had a dream, and I had a dream too,” Marley said.

Like with Tuff Gong, Marley also plans to expand the studio operation to include vinyl pressing as records continue their resurgence in the streaming era.

“There’s always gonna be a vinyl present going on,” Marley said. “A thousand years from now, people that we're still gonna need vinyl records to listen to music.”

Ziggy Marley in the hallway of his new studio in North Hollywood.

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For years, Marley said, he worked out of smaller home setups and rented facilities before deciding to build a larger permanent space in L.A.

Marley said the city has become central to his own creative evolution over the last two decades of living and working here.

Drawn initially by music, friends and the city's small but tight-knit Jamaican community, he says being surrounded by creatives from different backgrounds helped push his artistry in new directions.

“I left my safety and my community, my tribe, and come out by myself to L.A.,” he said. “But it's a great experience. It really helped my growth as a human being being here.”

What’s next

Fresh off the release of Brightside, Marley says he’s already working on another album – a notably quicker turnaround since his last album, the family-music release More Family Time in 2020,

“We're doing back to back,” he said.

Ziggy Marley will be performing at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21 as part of a tour supporting his new album Brightside.

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He’s also busy writing a children’s book based on his feel-good hit anthem “True to Myself” and eyeing opportunities in front – or behind the camera – inspired by his time working on One Love and making the video for “Racism Is A Killa.”

“Same philosophy, same message, but within visuals, you know?” Marley said excitedly. “I want to create some stories and try out. I feel it coming. I can feel it.”

A City Council committee voted Friday to shelve a proposed ballot measure aimed at cutting L.A.'s “mansion tax” nearly in half.

The ad hoc committee on Measure ULA voted 2-1 to set aside a proposal by Councilmembers John Lee and Marqueece Harris-Dawson that would have asked voters in November to reduce the ULA transfer tax rate for multifamily and mixed-use properties to somewhere between 2% and 3.5%, down from the current rate of up to 5.5%.

However, the ballot measure proposal was also referred to the City Council’s rules, elections, and intergovernmental relations committee, which could still choose to move it forward.

Instead, the ad hoc committee advanced a narrower pilot program that would reduce the property transfer tax only for newly built affordable housing projects.

The pilot program won't need voter approval in the form of a ballot measure. Committee Chair Ysabel Jurado, who introduced the substitute language, said she believes the city should avoid a ULA ballot measure because it’s still too early to evaluate the measure’s long-term effects.

“ I'm against going to the ballot, but I'm for making fixes that make this better,” Jurado said.

Voters will see a separate proposal on their ballots by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association to effectively repeal Measure ULA.

If the L.A. City Council does not approve reforming the measure, the only decision on the ballot in November may be whether to keep the mansion tax in its current form or end it.

About the mansion tax

L.A. voters approved Measure ULA in 2022 to fund affordable housing and homelessness prevention. The measure taxes real estate sales over about $5 million. Since taking effect in April 2023, ULA has raised just over $1.1 billion from 1,633 real estate transactions, according to the city’s housing department.

The city projects it will generate about $500 million in the coming fiscal year — about half of what proponents initially promised. It has funded about 800 new affordable units and helped stabilize thousands of renters facing eviction, according to the housing department.

But critics say the tax has suppressed housing development. Several studies link the tax to a slowdown in apartment construction in Los Angeles, but ULA supporters say high interest rates and broader economic conditions are to blame.

The City Council's ad hoc committee on Measure ULA was formed earlier this year to study how the measure is working and develop potential reforms. That work took on more urgency inside L.A. city hall after the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association qualified a statewide ballot measure for November that would effectively repeal Measure ULA entirely.

Joe Donlin, director of the United to House LA coalition, which campaigned for the original measure, said the City Council committee made the right call by rejecting broader exemptions.

“By not taking up the extreme calls for broad, 15-year waivers that could cost the program about a third of its revenue, the committee acknowledged that ULA is working,” Donlin said in a statement.

A separate group of housing developers, union workers and advocacy groups calling itself the “Mend It, Don’t End It” coalition has been urging city hall to make changes to ULA. On Friday, the group said it supports the measure, but believes targeted reforms are still needed.

“Independent research shows that Measure ULA has slowed housing production in Los Angeles at a time when we need more housing, not less,” said Melanie Mendoza, a coalition spokesperson.

What the data show

The debate over ULA's impact played out in the committee room Friday morning. The city's chief legislative analyst reviewed seven independent studies on ULA’s impact. Three of those studies concluded ULA had suppressed housing production and reduced property tax revenues, while four found no meaningful negative impact.

Before ULA took effect, Los Angeles collected about $22 million a month in transfer tax. After that, it dropped to about $13 million. But city legislative analyst Henry Flatt told the committee a similar decline happened in cities without the tax, including Glendale, Long Beach, Pasadena and Santa Clarita.

“We are not currently convinced that Measure ULA has had an extremely negative impact on general fund revenues,” Flatt told the committee.

The county assessor's office read the same period differently. Scott Thornberry, an assistant assessor with L.A. County, told the committee that commercial and industrial property sales are falling in the city but not elsewhere in the county.

“We are seeing, we believe, a trend line of impact to property tax revenue growth in the city of L.A. specifically," Thornberry said.

What the committee did

Instead of the ballot measure, the committee voted to develop a five-year pilot program cutting the ULA tax to 1.5% for newly constructed affordable housing projects that meet specific requirements.

Lee, whose ballot measure was replaced with language advancing the pilot program, said he hadn't seen the substitute prior to Friday’s meeting and voted against it.

“This was just placed in front of me,” he said. Lee objected to a provision in the substitute recommendations calling for $30 million in new spending on homelessness support.

“Without knowing where this money's coming from, I'm going to have to vote no,” he said.

Lee told LAist he supports stronger oversight and technical improvements to Measure ULA, but believes a ballot measure is the right approach.

“Voters deserve the opportunity to consider targeted changes that would preserve the intent of the measure while addressing its unintended impacts on housing production and real estate activity in Los Angeles,” the councilmember said, in a statement.

Friday's meeting was the committee's final scheduled hearing. The committee, which is set to dissolve June 1, also voted to advance a narrower nonprofit tax refund limited to organizations that can prove all sale proceeds went directly to affordable housing.

The committee continued a separate motion on fire exemptions for Palisades fire victims, which will be heard by another council committee. A motion to loosen eligibility rules for the ULA Citizens Oversight Committee was noted and filed.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who introduced several of the committee's motions, said the process had been guided by a commitment to protect the measure.

"My goal has always been to listen carefully, bring people into the conversation, and protect ULA while honoring the voters' intent," she said at Friday’s meeting.

In her closing remarks, Jurado reflected on the three-member committee’s past work.

“We released $14 million in rental assistance to the most vulnerable Angelenos and $300 million for affordable housing,” she said. “We did in six or seven meetings what others couldn't do in five years.”

The ad hoc committee's recommendations now move to the full City Council.

Harris-Dawson and Lee’s ballot measure motion will be considered by the City Council’s rules committee at a later date, officials said.

Monsterpalooza, the annual movie-monster bash for horror fans, returns to the Pasadena Convention Center this weekend, starting Friday night (May 29) and lasting through Sunday.

What to expect

Now in its 18th year, devotees can rub elbows with legendary beastie creators, browse hundreds of vendors who traffic in the weird and unsettling, and marvel at practical effects that’ll make your flesh creep.

Dozens of panels and presentations are scheduled, including a deep-dive into the 95th anniversary of the Dracula and Frankenstein movies by writer Julian David Stone.

Writer Julian David Stone gives a presentation at a past Monsterpalooza event.

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Stone said that the two classic movies have left a lasting impact.

“Dracula is a movie about supernatural horror..... and Frankenstein is about technological or man-made horror," he said. "You can just trace those two themes all the way forward to this past year with Sinners and Megan 2.0."

Richard Redlefsen's Armageddon Rat at the PPI Booth at a past Monsterpalooza.

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Stone first attended the convention in 2008, returning over the years as a fan, spectator and presenter.

“It’s just a terrific convention that celebrates all things horror,” Stone said. “There’s a lot of celebrities you can meet who were in these horror films and you can get pictures with them." He added that he’ll never forget when he met Carla Laemmle in 2010 — the last living cast member of the original 1931 Dracula.

Mike Mekash and Chris Nelson re-created Twisty the Clown on Dan Gilbert at the PPI Booth at a past Monsterpalooza.

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Who's attending

If you’re jonesing to be photographed with high-profile entertainers (expect a fee for many), this year's event has a line-up that includes musician Alice Cooper, actress Lin Shaye from the Insidious movie franchise and David Howard Thornton, who plays Art the Clown in the popular Terrifier movie series.

Cosplay and crazy costumes are encouraged, although a T-shirt celebrating a classic horror movie will also do. Just come ready to adore all things that gnaw and gash.