The Brief

In November 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the first 18 projects in the state’s plan to build a public broadband infrastructure system which would help bridge the digital divide between those who have access to high speed internet and those who don’t. That list included underserved communities of Southeast and South Los Angeles, Oakland and the Coachella Valley.

The plan is part of a “once-in-a-lifetime,” $6 billion state and federal investment, which includes $3.8 billion to build a backbone network of high-capacity fiber lines throughout the state, state officials said.

Over the last two years, the California Department of Technology, the agency responsible for mapping the broadband infrastructure, used community input and analysis from the state Public Utilities Commission to create its “ideal” map for the broadband network, said Mark Monroe, deputy director of the department’s middle-mile broadband initiative, at a July meeting.

Then this summer, some community leaders and advocates noticed that portions of the initially proposed broadband network would no longer be built with available funds. Instead, some of the neediest communities were pushed to an unfunded “phase 2” portion of the plan.

“It feels like we’re getting sent to the back of the line again,” said Isabel Aguayo, mayor of the Southeast L.A. city of Paramount.

Advocates and state and community leaders confronted state officials, asking why after years of working with community members to build an infrastructure system that would bridge the digital divide, some parts of the plan were suddenly defunded or deprioritized. Meanwhile, portions of the network infrastructure in wealthier areas, like Beverly Hills, have already been leased.

The Department of Technology responded recently to CalMatters that the governor is committed to funding the entire network with a 2024 budget allocation and that the project will no longer be completed in separate phases.

But the state is facing a $30 billion budget deficit, and some community leaders and advocates are skeptical that the governor will be able to keep his promise. They also said they’re frustrated by the state’s lack of transparency regarding changes to the network.

Broadband for all

Advocates of digital equity and state leaders worked for years to push for the 2021 law that would fund the new broadband infrastructure.

In California, 15% of households, or about 2 million residents, don’t have access to high speed internet, said Niu Gao, a researcher for the Public Policy Institute of California.

Often a few internet service providers have a monopoly over service in an area, which means they can determine pricing and choose where to do business. That has left lower-income and Black, Latino, tribal and rural communities underserved or paying unaffordable prices for internet access, Gao said.

The COVID pandemic shed light on an existing internet equity problem.

School districts provided hotspots and free devices to help students who lacked computers and internet accessibility at home, so they could complete school assignments while their schools were closed. But even with the technology, a lack of broadband infrastructure meant many students experienced slow internet speeds, which made it difficult for them to stay on track.

A 2021 photograph of two elementary-age Salinas girls doing their homework in a Taco Bell parking lot using the restaurant’s WiFi went viral, creating a flurry of concern over the now obvious digital divide.

The same year Newsom signed the bill approving broadband funding, saying the state was committed to addressing internet connectivity challenges the pandemic exposed. The state would use mostly federal dollars, including funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.

“This $6 billion investment will make broadband more accessible than ever before,” he said, “expanding opportunity across the spectrum for students, families and businesses — from enhanced educational supports to job opportunities to health care and other essential services.”

The broadband system would include “middle-mile” broadband networks and “last-mile” networks. Middle-mile broadband network refers to the fiber optic backbone network that will be built out across the state. Last-mile networks connect homes, businesses and schools to that larger state network.

The state would own and manage the system and municipalities, nonprofits, internet service providers and education agencies would tap into the network, in theory creating competition and lowering broadband prices for all Californians, said Gao, the public policy researcher.

Will Newsom keep his promise?

The California Department of Technology said in its July Middle-Mile Advisory Committee meeting that unexpected costs and inflation meant the funds allocated to the project weren’t enough to cover the 10,000 miles of middle-mile broadband that the state planned. The money would only cover 8,300 miles, leaving the remaining 1,700 miles of broadband unfunded.

In Los Angeles, middle-mile broadband infrastructure plans along major highways in South and Southeast L.A. cities were initially cut from the phase one plans, while infrastructure plans for Beverly Hills and West L.A. moved forward.

And in the Bay Area, broadband infrastructure in suburban Livermore and Pleasanton were in phase one plans, but some communities in Oakland were relegated to phase two, said Patrick Messac, director of Oakland Undivided, an organization that aims to help bridge the digital divide.

Although state officials previously spoke about the plan in terms of a “phase one” and “phase two,” after inquiries from media and digital equity advocates, they now say that work for the entire 10,000 miles is underway, although much of it is not yet funded.

“No one area is being prioritized over another by (the California Department of Technology),” said Bob Andosca, a spokesperson for the department. “The work will be authorized immediately in every area where Caltrans completes pre-construction work, and many projects will proceed simultaneously.”

A screenshot of the California Department of Technology’s Middle-Mile Broadband Initiative webpage.

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Image via Wayback Machine on Aug., 11, 2023

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Daniel Lopez, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, said closing the digital divide has been a top priority for Newsom.

“The governor’s commitment to that mission has not wavered and his January (proposed) budget will double down on the state’s work to deliver high-speed internet access to all communities across California and will fund the full 10,000 miles of middle-mile projects,” Lopez said.

The governor’s office did not answer specific questions about how much funding would be needed to cover the entire network, nor how the budget allocation would be possible if the state is facing a budget deficit.

“It’s really hard for the people of Oakland to trust more promises when so many have been broken in the past, and the state describes this broadband for all as a once-in-a-generation investment,” said Messac of Oakland Divided.

“The governor’s commitment to that mission has not wavered and his January (proposed) budget will double down on the state’s work to deliver high-speed internet access to all communities.”DANIEL LOPEZ, A SPOKESPERSON FOR THE GOVERNOR’S OFFICELeaders of the California Community Foundation say they’re grateful the governor has committed to funding the whole network, but they worry the rollout has not been equitable and they are skeptical the project can be completed by the December 2026 deadline, given the overall budget deficit.

Jarrett Barrios, chair of the Digital Equity Team’s Angeleno Project, said the underserved communities were “lifted up” as the reason for seeking funding for a broadband project.

“Communities get overlooked again and again and again and that’s why they are underserved,” he said. “And it becomes habit.”

Assemblymember Mia Bonta, a Democrat from Oakland, met with top-level members of Newsom’s administration at the end of the legislative session to discuss the shortfall in funding.

“Assemblymember Bonta was upset to see a pattern in which the communities that were deprioritized were low-income and communities of color,” said Tomasa Duenas, her spokesperson. “This includes a major portion of Oakland that has historically been underserved by broadband but has a huge need for proper infrastructure … She, along with the California Legislative Black Caucus and others, will be watching to make sure (Newsom) keeps his promise. Too much is at risk.”

Rural and underserved cities left behind

The state’s $6 billion investment includes $2 billion for state grants to go to local governments, internet service providers, nonprofits, libraries and education agencies that plan to build last-mile networks connecting to the state’s network.

The technology department received 483 applications from entities in every county, requesting a total of $4.6 billion, more than twice the grant money available.

But with the changes to the middle-mile plan, some communities that applied for those grants are wondering if their work was in vain.

The middle-mile changes likely will determine which municipalities and agencies are prioritized for the grants. The farther away a last-mile project is from the middle-mile network, the more expensive it is, making broadband projects in underserved communities less tenable, said Shayna Englin, director of the California Community Foundation’s Digital Equity Initiative.

Some groups chose to scale back ambitious plans because they no longer know what middle-mile networks are guaranteed.

Others have chosen to wait to see if the state Public Utilities Commission has answers about which projects will be funded or delayed, Englin said.

One of those project applicants is the Gateway Council of Governments, a group of 26 Southeast Los Angeles-area cities, including Compton, Paramount, Bellflower and Lakewood.

The leaders of the council were excited to learn in November 2021 they would be prioritized. They immediately got to work.

The group applied for the state grant and invested two years developing a cost analysis and initial design plan to link their communities to the state’s broadband network, said Andrew Vialpando, a spokesperson for Paramount’s mayor. Now the group has chosen to scale back its plan, cutting out six underserved cities, including Paramount, Compton and Bellflower.

“It was something we were all getting behind,” said Compton Mayor Emma Sharif. “We were excited about it. All of a sudden we looked up and said ‘Wait a minute, what happened?’ It was devastating for us. This is something I was really hoping to bring to my community.”

Similarly 40 rural counties that make up the Rural County Representatives of California came up with a joint plan to build last-mile projects in 37 jurisdictions. They weren’t expecting the state to change the plan.

The most recent change to the maps the group used for its planning happened on or around Sept. 29, the day that applications were due, said Tracy Rhine, senior policy advocate with the Rural County Representatives of California. That change means a project they hoped to build in the majority Latino, farmworker community of Greenfield in Monterey County may no longer be viable.

Both groups still submitted their grant applications by the deadline. They said they’re unsure if they’ll receive the grants and haven’t received clarity or guidance from the state Public Utilities Commission about how to modify their applications based on the middle-mile network changes.

The California Public Utilities Commission, the agency in charge of disbursing funds for last-mile projects, declined interview requests from CalMatters. It did provide a statement in response to questions.

Terrie Prosper, a spokesperson for the state Public Utilities Commission, wrote applicants got “extensive technical assistance” before the applications were due and commission staff continues to work with applicants.

In the July 21 meeting, Public Utilities Commission officials said the grants will be disbursed in the first quarter of 2024.

The Department of Technology declined CalMatters’ request to interview department officials but answered questions via email.

In order to roll out the middle-mile network in the most cost efficient way, the Department of Technology is using a mix of methods, including purchasing or leasing existing fiber optic networks, which the state would operate and maintain, along with building new infrastructure. The state so far has spent $1.8 billion on various lease, purchase and joint-build agreements that will deliver 6,500 miles of the middle-mile network.

Most of that, $1.2 billion, went to leases for existing infrastructure. The state has contracts with 10 lease providers — private sector companies, government organizations and nonprofits — covering about 4,699 miles of the network. That includes leases for infrastructure in Beverly Hills and parts of West L.A.

Advocates also say the state is underestimating the number of households lacking broadband services because agencies are relying on flawed information from service providers.

Based on such Federal Communications Commission data, less than 10% of the population, or 20 million people, lack broadband internet, Gao, of the Public Policy Institute of California, said. However reports from broadband research organizations estimate about 42 million people are underserved.

Prosper, from the Public Utilities Commission, said state and federal officials acknowledge their broadband data is flawed.

Regardless, Sharif, Compton’s mayor, said cities in the second phase are keeping an eye on the broadband funding decisions, hoping Newsom will keep his promises.

“Our cities can’t afford to be pushed aside and forgotten,” she said. “These are critical steps to closing the digital divide, and we want to make sure we are part of that and that we are being thought of.”

A federal judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to stop using “coercive” and threatening language to convince unaccompanied immigrant children to agree to deportation, court documents show.

The judge said earlier this week that by using threats of prosecution and coercive language, the U.S. government violated a 40-year-old court order that bans immigration agents from attempting to coerce unaccompanied children to voluntarily leave the country after being detained.

In a separate order, the court also denied government lawyers’ request to end those same longstanding protections.

The two decisions were issued Monday by Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald, who wrote in the orders that the government’s threat of prolonged detention for immigrant children who choose not to self-deport “disturbingly mirrors the testimony” of Jose Antonio Perez-Funez, whose trial in 1985 led the court to first order the protections for children the following year. Perez-Funez and others in that class action case testified that they were not informed of their rights to apply for bail or asylum, leading them to involuntarily waive their rights while they were detained by immigration agents as children.

Mark Rosenbaum, a lawyer for the nonprofit law firm Public Counsel has been representing immigrant children who were detained by the government for decades and helped win the 1986 court order in the Perez-Funez case.

He said the case has now shown new evidence that the Trump administration has no intention of respecting the rule of law.

The administration’s goal, as Rosenbaum sees it, “is to amp up [deportation] statistics of children who represent no threat to the national interest, who are among the least culpable individuals on the planet.”

LAist reached out to DHS for comment but has not heard back.

The language that has been banned

Last October, LAist reported that DHS had begun targeting unaccompanied children with a “voluntary option” to return them to their countries of origin. Through court documents in the current case, more has been confirmed about how this so-called “voluntary option” was actually presented to children.

Unaccompanied children who are detained for suspected immigration violations are first held by DHS, before generally being turned over to Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services. At ORR, children are required by federal law to be provided a confidential legal consultation within 10 days, along with other support.

Court documents show DHS was presenting children with the option to self-deport, along with threats of prosecution and prolonged detainment if they refused, before they were transferred to ORR and guaranteed the chance to speak with an attorney.

Fitzgerald wrote that presenting this ultimatum to children violated the 1986 court order.

“It is difficult to imagine a scenario more coercive than the one faced by [unaccompanied immigrant children] in the 72 hours before they are transferred into ORR custody,” Fitzgerald wrote in court documents, “particularly for noncitizen children who likely do not know whether they possess any rights at all.”

According to evidence presented in court, children were told that if they did not accept voluntary deportation, they would be detained “for a prolonged period of time” and if they turned 18 years old while in custody they would “be turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for removal.”

They were also told they may be “barred from legally applying for a visa” and that their sponsor in the U.S. “may be subject to criminal prosecution” if they didn’t agree to voluntary deportation.

This information was read to children or presented to them in a document DHS called the “UAC Pathway Processing Advisal”, but Rosenbaum told LAist he sees even the document’s name as misleading.

 ”It wasn't an advisal, it was a coercive document,” Rosenbaum said. The government has admitted it used the document since September 2025, according to the court order that now bans its use.

How did it come to this?

Rosenbaum said that after the 1986 court order, which also requires unaccompanied children to be allowed telephone access to relatives or legal support, organizations like Public Counsel and  the National Immigration Law Center monitored the government’s compliance with the order.

Other than a few exceptions, he said, the injunction had been followed until recent years.

“  When the Trump administration began its immigration activities in the second term of the president,  that all changed,” Rosenbaum said, “and it changed in a hurry.”

Court records show that DHS notified the court last November that they would be asking for the 1986 court ordered protections for children in the department’s custody to be ended. When organizations monitoring compliance with the order saw this, Rosenbaum said they investigated and found that in nearly all circumstances, children were no longer allowed to talk to lawyers and were being coerced to take voluntary departures from the country.

Despite the court order, Rosenbaum said, children were “separated from family, separated from their communities and separated from their constitutional rights.”

Peter McGraw, deputy legal director at the National Immigration Law Center, told LAist that the court order was issued to specifically protect children’s Fifth Amendment rights to due process.

He said that when unaccompanied children arrive in the U.S., they don’t have an adult there with them to help them understand their decisions about whether to pursue a number of protections that may keep them from being deported.

“ What due process requires is that the government provide children with notice of their ability to apply for asylum or for other protections — withholding from removal or protection from removal under the convention against torture — to ensure that they are not sent back to countries where they would be in danger,” McGraw said.

The Aquarium of the Pacific is putting out a call for donations to raise $50,000 for a surgery to save the front flipper of its newest green sea turtle, Meatloaf.

The 240-pound turtle was taken to the aquarium in January after being found entangled in fishing line and rope in the San Gabriel River.

For two months, she has undergone rehabilitation and several surgeries to nurse her front-right flipper back to health. Dr. Lance Adams, the aquarium’s director of veterinary services, said the plan is to keep Meatloaf for at least another six months as they redress her wounds.

Dr. Lance Adams watches Meatloaf, a green sea turtle, swim in a rehabilitation tank at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach on Wednesday. The turtle was rescued from the San Gabriel River after she got tangled in fishing line and rope.

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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Wide as a manhole cover and several times the size of the facility’s former tenant, Porkchop, Meatloaf is the latest ward at the aquarium’s newly expanded turtle rehabilitation center — one of two able to care for them in Southern California.

Right now, Meatloaf’s swollen flipper is more than twice the size it should be. Adams said aquarium staff repeatedly have cleaned out the wound and used a number of methods to drain it. Past surgeries were done to remove scar tissue that had built up.

But Meatloaf’s fluid buildup, called edema, persists and likely will require reconstructive surgery. It’s hard to tell, Adams said, as turtles are slow to heal.

Turtles tended to at the aquarium include loggerheads, leatherbacks, ridleys and green sea turtles, which arrive on the coast and warmer waters each summer to mate, nest and battle natural and human-made threats: speedboats, water skiers, baited hooks, urban runoff, tons of garbage and harassment.

Green sea turtles like Meatloaf can grow up to five feet long and weigh 500 pounds. They typically have tropical haunts — sandy beaches along the Mexican coast where they lay eggs.

But in recent decades, the chunky oddballs have continued to wander upstream, usually in search of food, toward the San Gabriel River’s mouth in Long Beach. Aquarium officials say there can be a dozen to nearly 100 turtles in the river at a time.

They eat almost anything they can clamp their mouths on, including snails, eel grass and — to the ire of scientists — rotting garbage along the waterway floor.

It’s an unfortunate circumstance that volunteers with the aquarium’s Southern California Sea Turtle Monitoring community science program see on a weekly basis.

But it’s not all bad. Adams said workers have seen their most recent graduate, Porkchop, at least three times since the three-flipped turtle left their waters and ventured out on her own.

Each time, they’re sure to say hello.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Boyle Heights residents have seen it all when it comes to finding a place to park: cars in the red, blocked driveways, double parking and even people sitting in lawn chairs to save a spot. At times, disputes over parking spots have escalated into arguments between neighbors. 

The longstanding struggle for parking in the neighborhood only seems to be getting worse as more developments go up across the city — often with limited parking — and multi-generational households share space. Many people have memorized their block’s street sweeping schedules and no-parking zones to avoid a ticket. 

That frustration is showing up in the data.

A city of Los Angeles parking violation sits on the windshield of a car near Michigan Avenue and Cummings Street in Boyle Heights on Wednesday, March 18.

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Laura Anaya-Morga

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Boyle Heights Beat

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Parking tickets in Boyle Heights have increased at a rate much higher than the city of Los Angeles as a whole, making it one of L.A.’s most ticketed neighborhoods, according to an analysis of city data by Crosstown. Residents say they aren’t sure what could help remedy the issue but acknowledged that multiple parking tickets feel even heavier as gas and grocery prices rise. 

What the numbers show

Last year, Boyle Heights was the sixth-most ticketed community among the city’s 114 neighborhoods, receiving a total of 60,695 citations, an average of 5,057 per month. 

Between 2023 and 2025, the number of parking tickets handed out across the city of Los Angeles increased by 4.9%. In Boyle Heights, however, the rise was more than three times that — the 60,695 citations dispensed in 2025 was 17.6% more than two years prior, the Crosstown analysis of public parking citation data shows. 

A bar graph showing years 2023 through 2025 where parking tickets increase by year from 51,627 to 60,695.

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Courtesy of Crosstown LA

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That is likely an undercount, as city citation data is not available after Dec. 14, 2025 (the Los Angeles Department of Transportation was unable to identify why this happened or when it will be fixed). Even so, the increase in Boyle Heights surpasses that in some other frequently ticketed neighborhoods. Van Nuys registered an increase of 4.5% during that time, while citations in Hollywood fell by 9.6%.  

Some areas suffered even sharper rises: Tickets in downtown and Koreatown rose 21% and 33.5%, respectively.

Hernan Gabriel, who has lived in Boyle Heights for 10 years, said parking hasn’t always been easy, but tickets have been part of his routine. 

On a recent afternoon, he stood outside his home near Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and Chicago Street, keeping an eye on the time before street sweeping restrictions began.

“This is my first ticket of the year,” Gabriel said, as he pulled a $73 parking ticket from the dashboard of his truck that he received in February.

Hernan Gabriel received a $73 parking violation in February for failing to move his vehicle for street sweeping near Cesar E Chavez Avenue and Chicago Street.

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Laura Anaya-Morga

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Boyle Heights Beat

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But it hasn’t been his only one. In 2023, he racked up over $2,800 in parking tickets while working deliveries downtown.

“Since I received those tickets, I’ve been paying closer attention,” Gabriel said. While he has access to a parking spot at his home, many of his neighbors don’t. 

A disproportionate impact

Not only are tickets increasing in Boyle Heights, but residents are being cited at higher rates than in much of the city. 

People in the neighborhood of roughly 81,000 residents received 60,695 citations last year — about 0.75 tickets per resident. 

Citywide, the rate is significantly lower: 0.48 citations per resident, based on 1.87 million tickets issued across Los Angeles. 

The types of violations also mirror city trends but at higher concentrations.

Approximately one of every four tickets written in Boyle Heights is for parking in a street sweeping zone — a $73 infraction. Last year, 16,776 such tickets were issued.

The second-most frequent infraction is parking in a red zone — a $93 hit. In Boyle Heights, these made up 20.9% of the community’s total, well above the citywide rate of 12.4%.  

A pie chart showing types of parking violations in 2025.

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Courtesy of Crosstown LA

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Stephanie Sanchez, a lifelong Boyle Heights resident, has gotten used to the struggle of looking for a spot and avoiding parking tickets.

“It’s expensive,” she said. “I’ve noticed people from a couple blocks away coming to park here or people who live here going a couple blocks away just to park because it is so cramped.”

Last year, Sanchez received five parking tickets totaling over $350. 

“[I could] buy more groceries, lots of things for my day-to-day living. It would help with gas because gas is ridiculous right now,” she said.

What LA officials say

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) said the number of citations issued across L.A. is a “direct result of posted restrictions, driver behavior, and officer staffing.” According to the department, of the 502 traffic officers deployed citywide, 115 serve the Central Division, with 24 officers specifically assigned to Boyle Heights.

In response to community concerns regarding street congestion and parking, LADOT said in a statement, “street improvements require identifying specific locations and coordinating between multiple City departments. LADOT remains committed to collaborative solutions that address the needs of every neighborhood.”

A spokesperson from Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s office echoed the community’s sentiment about parking issues in the neighborhood and said Jurado is looking into addressing them.

Boyle Heights hot spots 

The most ticketed location in Boyle Heights is Cesar Chavez Avenue and Chicago Street, where 1,070 tickets were dispensed for illegally parking in a bus lane, a $293 infraction. 

Just south is the neighborhood’s second-most ticketed location. A 76-space public parking lot at 249 Chicago St. produced 669 citations in 2025. Most were for an expired meter.

On the stretch of Cesar Chavez between Boyle Avenue and Fickett Street, more than 3,200 bus-lane parking tickets were given out. On a recent visit to the area, there were no easily visible signs warning about bus zone infractions.

No easy fixes in sight 

For many residents, solutions feel limited while the problem gets worse. 

Maria Solis and Orlando Cervantes have lived in Boyle Heights for 30 years and said finding a spot to park in their neighborhood is harder than ever before. After 5 p.m., it is nearly impossible, Cervantes said. 

They suggested limiting how many cars a single person can have. 

Another more obvious solution would be for the city to create more parking lots but that comes with its own problems. “The more parking there is, the more cars you will see,” Solis said.

Sanchez echoed that concern. 

“Theres no space to even create like a parking lot, even then I feel like that would be expensive to pay for a spot,” she said.