The Brief

Five miles southeast of Downtown Los Angeles lies a unique, bustling little city, self-described as “exclusively industrial.” It faced accusations of political and ecological corruption so serious that a dozen years ago the State Legislature came within a hair’s breadth of abolishing it.

The city of Vernon survived that near-death experience, which would have seen it dissolved as an independent city and remade as an unincorporated area of L.A. County. Vernon’s survival was thanks to a huge lobbying campaign by its city government — as well as business interests anxious to preserve it as a sanctuary that offered firms substantial savings to locate there. Some labor unions joined the campaign, fearful that businesses might leave a disincorporated Vernon and take with them tens of thousands of jobs for blue collar commuters that included some union members.

Ultimately, these pro-Vernon forces cut a deal with a key legislator who persuaded colleagues to let the city survive in return for its promise to reform its governance and double the size of its extremely small residential population.

The 5-square-mile city made good on those promises, but remains dogged by environmental woes:

• The South Coast Air Quality Management District estimates that Vernon’s cancer-risk rate is 40% higher than Southern California’s generally.
• Nearly 600 of approximately 1,800 businesses, located throughout the city, handle or store hazardous chemicals, mostly at high volumes, according to a city report. Records show that nearly 40 of these businesses handle high volumes of extremely toxic chemicals regulated by the state, such as ammonia and chlorine gas, whose accidental release could impact large areas.
• Long known as a transportation hub, the city is home to very high levels of truck and rail traffic. Much of the city is crisscrossed by 130 miles of railroad tracks and much of that has been contaminated by herbicides and spilled chemicals. Vernon is also laced with underground pipelines, many of which carry potentially explosive materials, according to a city report.
• Three facilities have been identified as hazardous materials release sites by the California Department of Toxic Substance Control, 25 sites have been found to have had leaking underground storage tanks. A city map shows dozens of other locations with real or suspected soil contamination issues.

As the city put it in a report to the state last year, “serious environmental conditions [including] hazardous materials storage and processing, background contamination, noxious odors, noise pollution, and truck and railroad traffic generated by the City’s pervasive industrial land uses.…. render the majority of sites throughout Vernon unsuitable for residential development.”

Soil contamination risks in Vernon, included the large contamination zone left by the Exide lead battery plant.

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Geotracker, Envirostor, Department of Toxic Substances Control, City of Vernon

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“Some people might say it’s still the same city,” said Fred MacFarlane, a media consultant who worked as the city’s spokesperson for five years during and after the disincorporation fight. MacFarlane was in this role as government reforms were being conceived and implemented.

“It is and it isn’t … The city is in much better shape from a governance standpoint.”

Former Assembly Speaker John Pérez, who led the attempt to disincorporate Vernon and is now on the board of regents for the University of California, acknowledged “positive steps” but added: “I don’t think anybody can look at this and say things have fundamentally changed.”

What has changed

Vernon is a mainly industrial area near Downtown Los Angeles and Boyle Heights.

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Since it headed off the effort led by Pérez, Vernon increased its decennial Census count from 112 residents to 222 with a new affordable housing project that opened in 2015. This added 45 new apartments to an existing total citywide housing stock of only 31 dwellings.

This summer, in a major break with tradition, the city council opened the door for developers to further expand the number of dwellings in the city dramatically — from 76 to more than 900 — by building along the city’s western edge, the area farthest removed from the heaviest industry.

Before the affordable housing project opened, Vernon’s electorate consisted mainly of city employees who were given heavily discounted rents for city-owned housing, according to court, legislative and city records. Since this was virtually the only housing in town, those in power were in a rare position to select nearly all the voters who could keep them in power and there was an expectation that those voters would do just that.

The way city officials operated had one Superior Court judge comparing Vernon to a fiefdom. The city effectively had a permanent local government with a mayor who served for decades while living most of the time in a mansion out of town. He and his wife were convicted of voter fraud and perjury for falsely claiming to live in Vernon.

Another top administrator lived in a wealthy enclave near San Francisco, flying first class to Southern California while earning $1.65 million in salary and consulting fees in a single year. Still another longtime administrator who was being paid as much as $900,000 per year pleaded guilty to misusing other public money for expenses that prosecutors said included golf outings and massages.

These extreme practices ended after the disincorporation fight. Term limits were imposed, administrators’ salaries that were once among the highest in the state were reduced to normalcy, and a lottery procedure was implemented to decide who got to move into city-owned housing when vacancies occurred.

For the first time, those holding elective office would not be able to choose their electors.

Over a decade later, city government, Vernon-style, remains unusual, dedicated to what its website calls “a public-private partnership” — meaning business plays an outsized role, with its own designated representatives serving on city commissions.

The leader of the business community says he is optimistic about the city’s ability to overcome its environmental problems. Steve Freed, a warehouse complex owner who holds the rotating chairmanship of the city’s Chamber of Commerce, said the city is “slowly and surely transitioning from heavy, heavy industry to businesses that are more environmentally friendly.”

He estimated that half of all businesses in the city now are involved with goods storage and distribution rather than manufacturing. He also said he believes the city’s polluted soils can be made safe: “I don’t know of a single site in Vernon that couldn’t be remediated.”

The outsized role of business

An aerial view of the since-shuttered Farmer John slaughterhouse and complex.

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Vernon became an industrial mecca by welcoming businesses, including those that were unwelcome elsewhere, and offering them speedy government services and discounted fees, taxes and utilities compared to what they would pay elsewhere in the state.

During the disincorporation fight, Vernon’s Chamber of Commerce quantified these discounts, asserting that Vernon businesses saved up to 2,000% on local fees and taxes and anywhere from 20% to 40% on electric bills by buying power from Vernon’s municipal utility instead of from Southern California Edison. The discounts continue, but no estimates of their current value were available.

Following the disincorporation battle, the chamber has continued to play a dominant role in city politics through the financing of city elections. Five years of campaign contribution records reviewed by LAist show that political committees sponsored by the chamber have been the only reported source of funding for city council campaigns. These committees provided financial support for the campaigns of each of the five current part-time city council members, one of whom colleagues designate as mayor. None of the candidates’ campaigns reported receiving donations from anyone else.

The city’s highest stakes race (a pivotal election)

The chamber was especially active in 2021, in the most highly contested council races since the disincorporation threat passed. Business leaders who said they feared a return of corruption that could spark another disincorporation attempt backed the recall of two council members who’d pushed for a solar and wind project on land owned by the municipal utility — a main revenue source for the city. That set off alarms because some of the backers of that project were embroiled in a corruption probe in the City of Industry. Four men still face felony charges in that case, according to the L.A. District Attorney's office, with a preliminary hearing set for latest this week for three of the defendants.

A chamber-sponsored political committee raised $78,000 for the successful recall campaign, in which the two council members denied any wrongdoing. Of those funds, $50,000 came from the national headquarters of a labor union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. One of its local branches represents workers at the municipal utility.

The sums raised were extraordinary for a city with a total electorate of only 119. The council members were recalled and replaced by others whose candidacies received financial backing from the chamber.

The recall election appears to have invigorated efforts to expand further the city’s electorate by adding housing.

A larger residential population lies ahead

The city’s new expansion plan , approved by the city council at the beginning of August, envisions Vernon’s newest residents living in a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood of mixed residential, commercial and light industrial uses on the city’s far western boundary — the area farthest removed from its heaviest industries. Most buildings in the area now are small warehouses.

Plans call for new housing in Vernon.

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The city's report on expansion includes these preliminary concept drawings for residences on two privately owned lots.

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City planners say they hope the new neighborhood would eventually mesh with other neighborhoods developing in the Arts District of Los Angeles a few miles to the north.

The city is billing the residential expansion idea in part as a good government move — a way to produce a more robust electorate better able to resist the influence of any would-be corrupters. City planners observed in the report to the state that the current population “is still inadequate to ensure good governance and to avoid the threat of disincorporation, as manipulation of a small number of voters by an individual or entity could allow for a relatively easy takeover of control of the city.”

In approving the plan, the city council took pains to assure businesses that Vernon would not be straying from its primarily industrial nature. The council voted to require future renters or condominium buyers to sign acknowledgements that they are aware of the risks of living “in an industrial area in which annoyances or inconveniences associated with proximity to industrial uses such as odors, truck traffic, vibrations, noise and other neighborhood impacts are likely to be present.”

Given the housing shortage in greater L.A., history suggests this will not be much of an obstacle. When just one of Vernon’s city-owned apartments became available this summer, the city reported that more than 170 people signed up for the lottery.

Despite the city’s moves toward government transparency, which include council meetings that are available to watch online, most of its part-time elected officials appear media-shy.

Four council members, including the mayor, did not respond to interview requests.

The fifth, Melissa Ybarra, 46, responded to questions in writing. Ybarra is the only council member who grew up in Vernon.

Asked how she dealt with the city’s environmental challenges, she wrote in an email: “As a resident, I always saw Vernon as a hub for endless economic growth and job opportunities. As a council member, I have encouraged and supported the city's direction on improving our environmental challenges.”

The backstory on the disincorporation attempt

At the time of the disincorporation attempt, it wasn’t Vernon residents who were complaining about Vernon’s corruption and pollution problems. It was people who lived in the residential cities that surround it, whose air and land its industries were also fouling.

John Pérez, pictured in a 2010 visit to Washington, D.C. when he was speaker of the California Assembly.

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They got the attention of then-Assembly Speaker Pérez, who represented Vernon and the surrounding area, and in December 2010 Pérez took the bold step of introducing the bill that would have disincorporated the city and placed it under the jurisdiction of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors as an unincorporated area — the same status held by East Los Angeles.

His move set off a political firestorm that in turn launched a big payday for lawyers and lobbyists. The city spent about $9 million to fight disincorporation, while Vernon’s chamber mounted a smaller parallel campaign. Both predicted that disincorporation would lead to a regional economic catastrophe, with businesses choosing to leave once they no longer had their discounts, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands of blue-collar jobs.

Although most of the workforce in the city was unorganized, major unions that represented slivers of the workforce, including the Teamsters, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the United Food and Commercial Workers, lined up with employers to make the same point.

The fight was bitter, and Pérez, a former union official himself, recalls being at odds with old friends from labor, confronted by strangers in restaurants, tailed wherever he went by private detectives presumably hired by the bill’s opponents, and followed by Vernon police every time he drove through the city. These experiences were painful enough that, when LAist recently asked for his recollections, he wise-cracked, “Are you willing to pay the therapist’s bills after I talk to you?”

Pérez’s legislation sailed through the Assembly. But it hit a roadblock in the state Senate, where a political rival who represented the same area objected. Then-state Sen. Kevin de León, who had lost a battle with Pérez to be Assembly Speaker before moving on to the Senate, recognized that Vernon had to change. But his method was to negotiate.

De León, now on the L.A. city council, did not respond to interview requests. De León recently decided to run for reelection despite calls for him to resign following his participation in a secretly recorded conversation that featured racist language.

To avoid disincorporation, the city agreed to de León’s demands that it make democratic reforms and agreed to hire the late John Van de Kamp, a former Los Angeles County district attorney and California attorney general, to advise it on ethics.

The result was a sea change in governance culture. In a few years, administrators’ salaries were reduced to normal ranges. The city’s top administrator, a position that once paid as much as $1.65 million annually, is now paid $349,000. Competitive elections were held. City employees were accorded job security. Term limits on elected officials were imposed. Public records became easy to obtain, a lottery was created for city-owned residences and the city agreed to create additional housing in the form of the affordable housing project on city-donated land.

Dilia Ortega, Youth Program Coordinator at Communities for a Better Environment, photographed near the now closed Exide plant. This is a stop in the "toxic tours" led by Ortega and other members of Communities for a Better Environment.

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Unfortunately, the affordable housing project wound up being in the path of airborne lead contamination from Vernon’s now-shuttered Exide battery recycling plant. The state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control is attempting to remediate.

The city disavowed only one aspect of the deal it had made with de León. Vernon city officials had pledged to make $60 million in contributions over 10 years to neighboring cities — as a sort of unofficial penance for having allowed its industries to pollute them.

Once the city’s survival was assured, Vernon’s leaders backed away from that pledge, blaming a state action that restricted access to certain funds the city had counted on to fulfill its commitment. The city instead has doled out $10 million over 12 years, according to city spokesperson Margie Otto.

De León, who had statewide political ambitions at the time, didn’t publicly object and got a nice political plum out of the abridged deal. Not only was he hailed by Vernon’s business interests, he was also treated as a hero in the neighboring city of Huntington Park, where Vernon helped pay for new synthetic turf on the main public soccer field. When it was unveiled, that turf bore the politician’s name in big letters: “Hon. Kevin de Léon Campo de Fútbol.”

Federal forecasters say this year the planet could see the strongest El Niño event on record. It's already being called "Super El Niño" and even "Godzilla El Niño." El Niño is a natural climate pattern that has far-reaching impacts across the planet, potentially affecting hundreds of millions of people.

Where those impacts happen can vary drastically from one El Niño to the next. Here are the basics of what this historic event could bring.

What is El Niño?

El Niño occurs every two to seven years. It develops when a vast amount of water in the eastern Pacific Ocean warms up around the equator. That water releases massive heat, redistributing warmth from the ocean to the atmosphere. That shifts weather patterns around the world.

The flip side of El Niño is a La Niña, which is marked by relatively cool water in the tropical Pacific around the equator. These events are responsible for some of the biggest weather variability the planet experiences.

El Niño is like dropping a rock in a pond, says Daniel Vimont, professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Even though you're not where the rock hit, you still may feel the effects of those waves," he says. "El Niño is the same thing, except it's an enormous rock in our entire Earth's system, and we feel the response."

How strong is it?

Sure, "Godzilla El Niño" is catchy, but technically, NOAA forecasters say this year's El Niño will fall into the "very strong" category. It's measured by the temperature of the ocean in a particular region off South America. The warmer the water, the stronger the El Niño. When that water is more than 2 degrees Celsius warmer than average, it qualifies as a "very strong" El Niño.

The last strong events were in 2015-16, 1997-8 and 1982-83. El Niños typically peak in November and December, but already, this El Niño is the strongest ever measured for this time of year. NOAA forecasters expect it to last through early 2027.

What will the impacts be globally?

All that added heat in the atmosphere raises temperatures globally. El Niño years tend to be the hottest on record. Forecasters say this year may get close to taking the top spot, but it's very likely that temperature records could fall in 2027. The planet is already warmer due to climate change, because emissions from burning fossil fuels are trapping more heat in the atmosphere.

El Niño also shifts rainfall patterns globally, raising the chances for destructive flooding in some parts of the world. Other regions get drier, exacerbating droughts. Both impacts can be catastrophic to agriculture around the world. The United Nations World Food Programme estimates that El Niño could push at least 49 million more people into acute food insecurity by the end of 2027.

What will the impacts be in the U.S.?

In El Niño years, the southern U.S. tends to see more intense rainfall because the jet stream shifts to the south. That raises the risk of floods along rivers and in cities. Still, in the Southwest, more rain could alleviate drought and recharge underground aquifers.

"El Niño tends to juice up those storms so that you get more really strong rain events," says Martin Hoerling, meteorologist and adjunct lecturer at the University of Colorado Boulder. "So if you were running a deficit in your water supply, a big El Niño, especially like the one we're having, can really get you into recovery mode that otherwise might have taken you years."

The northern half of the country gets warmer and drier, something that could exacerbate the current drought in the Intermountain West. Some states experience mixed effects during El Niños, like California. The state saw historic flooding in the 1997-98 El Niño, but was drier than average during the 2015-16 one. Climate experts say the current El Niño is so strong, it's more likely California will experience extreme rain.

El Niños can also lead to fewer hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, since it's more difficult for the storms to form. In the Pacific Ocean, hurricanes can get more frequent, fueled by warmer ocean water. Already this year, hurricanes have intensified rapidly in the Pacific, and Hawaii has had close calls with several hurricanes that brought destructive rain and wind.

Can we blame it all on El Niño?

Certain weather changes are common during El Niños, but there are no guarantees that extreme weather events this winter will match those predictions for every region.

"El Niño is like loading the dice," Vimont says. "While we're loading the dice for a certain type of response from El Niño, we still know that in any given year, there are still natural fluctuations that may mask that or cause the response to be slightly different than what we might expect."

In addition to that natural variability, weather events are also being affected by climate change. The most intense storms are already producing more rainfall in most of the U.S., since a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor. Heat waves and droughts are also getting more intense due to rising temperatures. Climate experts say El Niño and climate change impacts will both play out this winter, but while El Niño will fade, the effects of climate change will continue.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Fans of Hollywood Burbank Airport have a new way to rag on LAX-ers.

Burbank’s ambitious new terminal building has been completed on time and on budget. The long-awaited structure, known as the Elevate BUR project, is ready for prime time.

It’s slated to open to the public on Oct. 13, with a new entrance at Winona Avenue and Hollywood Way. On Monday, LAist got a look inside.

Why now?

The $1.3 billion terminal is a decade in the making. The project comes from Burbank’s Measure B, which voters passed in 2016.

Burbank Mayor Tamala Takahashi said the new building will replace the terminal that opened in 1930, which will eventually be demolished.

“ The old building is not to code, so it can’t be reused. It’s too close to the airstrip. That’s why we had to do this in the first place,” she said.

The new facility is more than 50% larger. Plus, it has a slate of improvements needed to meet FAA safety standards and state building requirements. That includes new seismic and accessibility features and more runaway space.

The new terminal will have the same 14 gates but with a lot more room.

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The entrance to TSA. Once you're in, you either go left or right to your gate number after screening.

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Takahashi said the new terminal will open up  capacity because all of the gates will be able to accommodate modern planes.

“What that means is that we’re going to have the same number of flights, the same number of planes, the same number of gates, but more people going through the airport every day,” she said.

There’s one thing travelers can count on to stay the same: You’ll still be able to board your plane on the tarmac.

The Hollywood touch

Tyron Hampton, president of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority, which owns the airport, said it’s time everyone knows about L.A.’s best insider tip for flying.

“ This is no longer a secret,” he said. “We want people to come here. We want people to see this experience.”

Hampton said the new building has space for more amenities, which feature local retailers like Jones Coffee and Octavia’s Bookshelf.

The specs on the ceiling are supposed to mirror one of Marilyn Monroe's dresses.

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Art is also woven into the design. Brent Kelley, who worked on the architecture at Corgan, said one of their themes was classic Hollywood.

For example, small dots on the ceiling are meant to evoke Marilyn Monroe’s glimmering dress during her iconic “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” moment.

A “silver screen” canopy extends across the building outside, alongside an installation that honors the time the buildings were covered in camouflage during World War II.

California State University is betting that artificial intelligence will transform the workplace — and that its 470,000 students need to learn how to use it before they graduate.

Last year, CSU became the nation’s first public university system to pay for students’ access to ChatGPT Edu. It has awarded over $3 million in grants for faculty to experiment with how to use AI in classrooms. Several campuses now train students in how to responsibly use the technology.

Those measures are all pieces of CSU’s strategy to prepare students for a future labor market reshaped by AI. But the investment in AI has come under criticism from some CSU faculty, and some students remain skeptical of the value of knowing how to use AI even as most are concerned the developing technology will threaten their chances of landing a job and keeping it.

The success of CSU’s AI strategy will depend on the extent to which AI affects the workforce that today’s college students will soon enter.

Hiring is frozen in many sectors right now as employers wait to see the true extent artificial intelligence will change the labor market, said Eric Bettinger, a leading education economist with Stanford Graduate School of Education. But it’s not clear if the slowdown in the labor market can be attributed to AI.

As with previous emerging technologies, AI is forcing employers to decide whether they should replace workers with the technology, or hire more employees who can leverage AI to be more productive, Bettinger said.

New graduates are facing a difficult labor market, considering the unemployment rate for this population has steadily risen since 2022, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

“The reality is that the world outside of school isn’t slowing down, and we need to prepare our students for that reality,” James Frazee, San Diego State University’s vice president for information technology, told EdSource.

Students worry AI is taking their future jobs

Ismaeel Malik, a San Jose State University justice studies student, said he worries about AI taking over jobs in his desired field.

“Entry-level jobs are work that people don’t want to do,” Malik, who will graduate next spring, told EdSource. Malik said he doesn’t think AI proficiency will make it easier to win a position out of college.

Other San Jose State students who spoke with EdSource say they think some majors will be more affected than others. San Jose State prenursing student Jade Goodewin said the “hands-on” part of her preferred future career seems fairly AI-proof. But second-year student Vien Tang, who is studying advertising, said that AI could replace some of the work of entry-level jobs in the advertising industry.

“It’s definitely a possibility, because I think a lot of companies try to cut costs,” Tang said. “There’s a likelihood of that happening.”

Given SJSU’s proximity to Silicon Valley and many companies whose technologies are reshaping the workforce, the university hopes to be a leader in AI adoption, said Sandra Hirsh, special assistant to the university’s provost for AI initiatives.

“We need to be preparing students with whatever the latest opportunities are, but also prepare students for the fact that change and evolution are going to continue to happen,” she said.

Hirsh said companies want graduates to have a basic understanding of AI and how to use it in their work. Despite the nebulous changes happening in the job market, companies that hire SJSU graduates have told university leaders that students also need skills in leadership, inventiveness and ethics.

The CSU system is paying $13 million a year to provide ChatGPT Edu to all 470,000 CSU students.

Artur Gafurov, president of the California State Student Association and a fourth-year student at San Jose State, said many students appreciate access to AI tools like ChatGPT Edu, but don’t necessarily know how to use them responsibly and effectively.

“I know a lot of students who are taking it upon themselves to learn a bit more about the tool and restrict themselves with how they use it,” Gafurov said.

Some question the value of AI initiatives 

Other private and public universities have signed agreements with companies such as OpenAI to give students access to large language models, including ChatGPT Edu. Large public university systems, such as State University of New York, have also developed systemwide AI policies, and some colleges, such as Northwestern University, have launched AI majors.

But not everyone at CSU has embraced the growing use of AI on campuses. Some professors pushed back on the OpenAI deal after CSU signed it in early 2025. Martha Lincoln, an anthropology professor at San Francisco State University, said CSU administrators did not clearly explain how AI would be used on campuses and in classrooms by students.

“What will students be doing with AI that’s so valuable? If it’s so valuable to them professionally, educationally, where is that value and what does it look like?” Lincoln said.

Martha Kenney, a professor in the SFSU Department of Women and Gender Studies, said CSU’s claims that AI is helping prepare students for the changing labor market are dubious because the university has not clearly identified skills young people should develop for their future careers.

“It’s possible it has no use for our students in this way,” Kenney said.

According to an OpenAI spokesperson, ChatGPT Edu provides students with access to the company’s latest large language model, and includes plug-ins that students and faculty can use to personalize their accounts for teaching and learning.

University officials say providing access to tools like ChatGPT is essential to prevent a digital divide for CSU students who may not be able to afford subscriptions to these technologies.

“We believe we’re doing the right thing to serve our mission to prepare our students for the future workforce,” said Ed Clark, CSU’s chief information officer.

The future workforce

Erika McEntarfer, the former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and a policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, said some experts in recent years have forecast that AI would wipe out white-collar workers’ jobs. There’s little evidence that has happened, she said.

It’s difficult for universities to predict which skills will be in demand in the future, she said, but colleges should prepare their students for disruptions to their careers. She noted that roughly 60% of today’s jobs didn’t exist in 1940.

Universities need to prepare students for a tough labor market, and not just because of AI, McEntarfer said. The recent rise in the unemployment rate among new graduates started before ChatGPT was introduced in 2022, she said.

McEntarfer’s advice to recent or soon-to-be graduates is to develop skills that make you a good “human” worker, such as small talk, showing up to work on time and meeting the needs of company leaders.

“With AI you need to make sure you’re using it as a personal trainer, not a human forklift,” McEntarfer advised future college graduates. “Hopefully that’s what colleges are doing.”

Mariana Sanchez is a fourth-year journalism major at San Jose State University and a member of the EdSource California Student Journalism Corps.

This story was originally published by EdSource.