The Brief

This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on Aug. 8, 2024, is the third installment in a series on the efforts to explore East L.A. cityhood. Read the first part here and the second here.

Kristie Hernandez remembers how excited she felt as an 18-year-old gearing up to vote for the first time, especially after volunteering in the campaign to elect Antonio Villaraigosa for mayor back in 2001.

But her enthusiasm quickly shattered upon realizing that, as a resident of unincorporated East L.A., she wouldn’t be able to vote in Los Angeles city elections. Hernandez assumed L.A. City Council members were her representatives. To this day, she said, “a lot of people in this community don’t know that we’re unincorporated.”

This experience as a teen led Hernandez to become a proponent of efforts to incorporate East L.A. into a city, both in 2012 – when the most recent cityhood plans failed – and today, as Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo is pushing forward a bill that seeks to explore whether incorporation is possible this time around.

Introduced in March by Carrillo, Assembly Bill 2986 calls for a study exploring whether East L.A. has the tax base to be able to sustain itself as its own city or special district. After a critical amendment in July, the bill now requires the county of Los Angeles to submit the feasibility study to the state. Carrillo has made it clear that the bill would not mandate cityhood. It would simply study the possibility of it.

To Hernandez and other residents, this bill is not just about cityhood. It’s a way to call attention to what they say is a need for increased financial transparency, services and representation for East L.A., a region of nearly 120,000 who are mostly Latino.

District 1 County Supervisor Hilda Solis represents East L.A. and portions of 20 other cities, as well as dozens of unincorporated communities and L.A. neighborhoods, encompassing nearly 2 million residents.

In East L.A., services like police, street maintenance, building and development, libraries and parks and recreation are deferred to the county.

Given the size of the region’s population and its cultural significance, some residents would like to have more say when it comes to decision-making in the region. They want to know if East L.A. is getting an equitable share of county services. And, they’re calling on the county to be more transparent in how it spends on services across the region.

For example, Hernandez wonders what happens to the money generated from parking citations in the region.

“Is that money coming back to East L.A.? How are we going to know that? You have no budget specifically for unincorporated East Los Angeles,” Hernandez said at a community meeting in April that Carrillo held to inform residents about the bill.

Kristie Hernandez (left) shares stories about growing up in East L.A. at a meeting with other East L.A. residents at La Terraza Cafe in City Terrace.

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Lack of parking is a big issue as developers build more housing in the unincorporated region, Hernandez said.

“I know we get called NIMBYs, but if you live in a community where they keep bringing development without parking … What are you going to want? Anyone with a family wants at least one parking space,” she said during the meeting.

Having local representatives, who live and are from the region, can help better address these kinds of issues, Hernandez said, “because we all know the daily struggles and the daily challenges that we face every day that impact our quality of life.”

For Genesis Coronado, a 32-year-old community organizer whose family planted roots in East L.A. after immigrating from Mexico, living in an unincorporated area feels like residents are getting “taxation without representation.” She hopes the study’s findings lead to change in her neighborhood.

“If the study comes back and says that we don’t have a lot of money to sustain ourselves, then okay,” Coronado said. “Then how do we then build? How do we then make sure that the county is investing in more small businesses on our corridors? What are the next steps to help us become financially feasible and financially sustainable?”

The latest version of Carrillo’s bill was amended to reflect language from two motions that Solis spearheaded and that the rest of the county supervisors unanimously approved in April and May.

The county said that on top of conducting the feasibility study, it would give annual reports detailing services and investments in unincorporated communities with populations of over 10,000. It would also look into the viability and costs associated with forming a town council or municipal advisory committee to better represent the needs of East L.A., acting as a bridge between the county and the unincorporated community.

With these proposals, Solis, who opposes Carrillo’s bill, is saying the county can do this work without overreach from the state. Carrillo, however, said she made these amendments as a way to hold county officials accountable.

People walk by El Pino, a landmark in the hills of East L.A., on August 5, 2024.

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Coronado used to work with former District 1 Supervisor Gloria Molina and said she understands the importance of Solis’ role in East L.A., but she added, a town council or municipal advisory committee might be the missing link between the community and the county.

She said the county should invest in the formation of a town council or municipal advisory committee that could better represent East L.A.

“I think the question is, why isn’t the voice of our community worth a couple of investment dollars?” Coronado said.

East L.A. residents can look to the unincorporated community of Altadena, which is represented by L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger. The community of about 42,000 residents also has a town council of volunteer residents who connect other residents to county leaders and services.

Diane Marcussen, one of 16 elected members on the Altadena Town Council, said the council’s connections with the county and law enforcement is beneficial for residents.

Marcussen lauded that when a developer sought to build a five-story apartment complex in Altadena in 2021, the town council got in touch with the supervisor’s office to express community concerns over the building exceeding the allowable zoned height for a residential area. Both the town council and the county were able to convince the developer to bump it down to four stories.

Since 1975, Altadena residents have been elected to volunteer to serve their neighbors. Other issues they’ve tackled have dealt with whether a resident’s backyard chickens are up to code or if pigs are allowed in someone’s front yard.

“We do big stuff, and we do pig stuff,” Marcussen said.

Dancers rehearse outside the Edward R. Roybal Health Center in East L.A.

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A retired California Highway Patrol officer, William Preciado, grew up in City Terrace and recalls patrolling East L.A.for more than 30 years.

Being on patrol helped him understand the dynamics of the region’s neighborhoods. He’s seen a lack of steady consumer tax sources from big-box stores like Costco or Home Depot.
Now a realtor, Preciado, 59, said the hilly topography in certain areas of the region makes it harder for developers to build there. Many residents’ property taxes, he said, can still be very low. These things hurt East L.A.’s tax revenue, he added.

“Let’s see those sales tax figures that are generating there. Let’s see what the property taxes are,” Preciado said.

According to Solis’ timeline, the results from the county’s study of East L.A.’s tax revenue will be publicized in the fall. If AB 2986 makes it through the state Legislature and is signed by the governor, the county will have to submit results to the state in March 2025.

The seven members of the Senate Appropriations Committee will review the bill next week.

While Preciado now lives in Chino, his mother still lives in City Terrace and he visits her several times a week. He doesn’t see incorporation as realistic, but supports increased transparency for a neighborhood in which he has deep roots.

Preciado takes great pride in being from East L.A. and lives by the motto: “Once from East Los Angeles, always from East Los Angeles.”

He thinks of his former neighbors and the families he saw grow up around him.

“We want what’s best for East L.A. If cityhood is the way to go, great. Let’s just make sure it’s done right,” Preciado said.

A new trail across the beloved natural area of Elephant Hill in Northeast Los Angeles is officially opening this weekend.

The route is years in the making, and it's a big milestone in the decades-long conservation efforts to preserve this local jewel in the community of El Sereno.

The hiking trail connects one side of Elephant Hill to the other — from the corner of Pullman Street and Harriman Avenue all the way across to Lathrop Street.

It's 0.75 miles in total, but packs a punch.

"It's a pretty straight shot, but because of the terrain — the trail is kind of twisty and curvy. There's switchbacks — and great views," Elva Yañez, board president of the nonprofit Save Elephant Hill, said.

People have always been able to access the 110-acre green space, but Yañez said the new trail provides a safe and easy way to navigate the steep hillsides.

The El Sereno nonprofit has been working for two decades to preserve the land. Illegal dumping and off-roading have damaged the open space over the years. And the majority of the 110 acres are privately owned by an estimated 200 individual owners.

Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) joined the efforts in 2018, spurred by a $700,000 grant from Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District, in part, to build the trail. The local agency received some $2 million in grants from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to add to the 10 acres of Elephant Hill it manages and conserves. This year, MCRA acquired an additional 12 parcels — or about 2.4 acres.

And the spiffy new footpath — with trail signage, information kiosks and landscape boulders — is not just a long-sought-for victory but a beginning in a sense.

"We know that it means a lot to the community," Sarah Kevorkian, who oversees the trail project for MRCA, said. "We're wrapping up the trail, but it really feels like the beginning of all that is to come."

A hint of that vision already exists — for hikers traversing the new route, courtesy of Test Plot, the L.A.-based nonprofit that works to revitalize depleted lands.

"They're able to see at the end of the trail, at the 'test plot' — exactly what a restored Elephant Hill would look like," Yañez said.

Here's a preview:

The Venice Boardwalk after sunset has generally been a no-go zone for tourists and locals alike, as the beachside bars and restaurants close on the early side and safety is often an issue. Now, a group of artists is out to bring some vibrancy to the creative neighborhood with a series of new installations that will include live evening performances – and even a “Venice Opera House.”

“Let's play with light and let's play with sound and give people a reason to come to the Boardwalk after sundown,” said artist and entrepreneur Stefan Ashkenazy, who is curating the project and owns the buildings housing them. “I mean, let's just be open 24 hours a day.”

The concept doesn’t have an official name yet, but he’s been calling it “See World.”

Artist James Ostrer's space looks out from a bed through the fence to the ocean at Venice Beach.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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William Attaway, a longtime Venice artist, created a gallery space filled with various paintings and sculptures.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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The pair of modern buildings on the Venice Boardwalk at Thornton Ave. – with their big balconies, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and seven open garage-style retail spaces – have sat mostly empty since Snapchat vacated their beachside offices in 2019. Ashkenazy recently bought the building and recruited artists to fill those front-facing spaces with creative work until a full-time tenant comes in.

Over the past several weeks the installations have been created in real-time, in public.

All of the projects are loosely along the theme of “home,” with each artist claiming a “room” in the two buildings that stretch across a full block on the Boardwalk. Several local Venice artists are featured, including William Attaway, whose intricate mosaic work is recognizable on the Venice public restrooms along the beach. Attaway’s space features a floating larger-than-life-sized statue and various works in a mini-gallery. In the next room is Robin Murez’s pieces, featuring carved wooden seats from her beloved neighborhood Venice Flying Carousel.

Ashkenazy is no stranger to wild (and wildly successful) art ideas. He’s the owner of the Petit Ermitage hotel in West Hollywood, a longtime haven for visiting artists, and the founder of the decade-old Bombay Beach Biennale, where artists install all kinds of work in an annual event near the Salton Sea. Many of the artists from that community are featured at the Venice project.

A "Venice Opera House" will host pop-up music events throughout the summer.

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Laura Hertfeldz

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LAist

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny's paintings on the wall of his Venice space.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny and London-based artist James Ostrer have brought some of their work in the Bombay Beach Biennale to the Venice project. Their windows on the Boardwalk both speak to a child-like sense of wonder and creativity.

“I think it's just kind of exploring and playing a little bit, to have the freedom to be able to do that,” Haberny says of his imagined child’s bedroom space, which includes a fort made out of puffy cheese balls. “It's a big space, too.
It's beautiful.”

Ostrer is experimenting with a performance art idea where he sits in bed amongst a room full of his own artwork, which he describes as “happy art with an edge.” Looking out at the ocean from the bed, he’s invited passersby to sit and have chats with him about his work or anything else they want to talk about.

“It’s a very intimate space, so you have a different kind of conversation,” he said. “I use art to channel human creativity, and [talk about] dark things.”

While there are open fences that block off the spaces, they aren’t sealed up at night. Both Ashkenazy and the team of artists seemed open to the idea that anything could happen and that the installations are a conversation with the public – and with that comes some risk.

Greg Haberny (right) works with his assistants on an installation featuring kid-inspired graffiti art and a "cheesy puff" fort.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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“I don't really know if I [would] say worried, but I guess it's just the cost of doing business,” Haberny said. “I don't really make things to get damaged or broken, sure. But I have done [things like] burned all my paintings and then made paint out of ash.”

While he’s felt safe – and even slept overnight in the installation – Ostrer has been collaborating with a local female artist who performs in a pig mask in front of his installation some nights. Watching her perform, he said, has taught him about the vulnerability of women in public spaces like the Boardwalk. “I've started to, on a very fractional level, have seen how scary that is. Because I've sat in the bed behind her performing at the front here… the way in which men are approaching her and shrieking at her … it's shocking.”

Ashkenazy says he will keep the artists in the space, potentially rotating new ones in, until a fulltime tenant takes over.

“This is an experiment … and after acquiring the building, the intention wasn't, ‘let's open a bunch of public art spaces,’ he said. “It is kind of …what the building wanted and listening to what the Boardwalk needed. Let's play, let's have the artists that we love and appreciate have a space to play and engage and give the locals and the visitors to the Boardwalk something to experience.”

A coalition of residents from across the San Gabriel Valley are mobilizing over a battery storage project and possibly more industrial development in the City of Industry they say could pollute communities next door.

A protest is scheduled today in neighboring Rowland Heights, targeting a 400-megawatt battery energy storage facility sited on about 9 acres that was approved by the City of Industry leaders in January.

Such Battery Energy Storage Systems, or BESS, are used to keep the power grid stable, especially as output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind fluctuate. But fires involving lithium batteries at some sites have heightened environmental and public health fears.

Because of the City of Industry’s unusual, sprawling shape stretching along the 60 Freeway, it borders on more than a dozen communities, meaning what happens there can have far-reaching impact.

“Pollution does not end right at the border,” said Andrew Yip, an organizer with No Data Centers SGV Coalition. “Pollution travels.”

Some local activists with the Puente Hills Community Preservation Association have challenged the approval of the battery facility under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Beyond environmental concerns, locals have also been frustrated with how decisions are made by officials in the City of Industry, a municipality that’s almost entirely zoned for industrial use and has less than 300 residents.

Organizers say they’ve struggled to get direct responses from city officials whom they say have replaced regular meetings with special meetings, which under state law require less advance notice.

A city spokesperson has not responded to requests for comment.

The so-called Marici Energy Storage System Facility would be run by Aypa Power. The fact that the battery storage developer is owned by the private equity giant Blackstone, a major investor in AI and data centers, has only fueled concerns that a battery storage facility would lay the groundwork for data center development.

A request for comment from Aypa was not returned.

Today’s protest is taking place at Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights across the street from the Puente Hills Mall, a largely vacant “dead” mall, which activists fear could be redeveloped into a data center and bring higher utility costs and greater air and noise pollution.

Yip pointed out that industrial developments make a lot of money for the City of Industry.

“But none of these surrounding communities receive any of those benefits,” Yip said. “Yet we have to put up with all the harmful effects and impacts from this city that does all this development without really reaching out.”

It’s about the size of a park bench and made of steel and wood. The bench’s arm rests are formed by the letters “L” and “A” in a design that’s unmistakable to any sports fan. But the welder-artist who created it says it’s not a Dodgers bench.

“This is about civic pride, L.A. pride. I made a design statement saying that it has nothing affiliated with the Dodgers,” said Steve Campos.

Campos grew up near Dodger Stadium, raised by parents who were die-hard Dodgers fans. So much, that they named him after Steve Garvey but that legacy doesn’t keep him from confronting how the Dodgers benefitted from the mass displacement of working-class people from Chavez Ravine after World War Two. That’s why he calls it an L.A. Bench, and not a Dodgers Bench.

The logo may be synonymous with the city's beloved baseball team, but the design of the interlocking letters was used by the L.A. Angels minor league baseball team before the Dodgers moved to L.A. in 1958.

“The monogram was here before the Dodgers,” Campos said.

A second-generation welder

Welding is the Campos family business. His father created gates and security bars for windows and doors for L.A. clients. That was the foundation for the work Campos has done for two decades since graduating from Lincoln High School, L.A. Trade Tech College, and enrolling in a summer program at Art Center in Pasadena.

The inspiration for the L.A. Bench came last year while he was playing around in his shop creating versions of the L.A. logo. A friend he hangs with at Echo Park Lake asked Campos to make him a piece of furniture.

“I was trying to figure out what my friend Curly wanted. He liked Dodgers and drinking and getting into fights, so I was like, 'Let me make something with the LA monogram,'” he said.

Welder-artist Steve Campos created whimsical steel sculptures with the LA logo.

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It didn’t design itself. He said he had to lengthen the legs on the “A” and lean the back of the “L” in order to make the bench functional. In the process, he’s made a piece of furniture with a ubiquitous logo that he’s embedded with his own L.A. pride, as well as city history past and present.

LA civic pride travels to Japan

Campos vacationed in Japan the last week of April and took advantage of the trip to reach out to people who may be interested in the L.A. Bench. He was caught off guard by people’s reaction when he showed them pictures of it.

“They look at it and they go, 'Oh, Ohtani bench,'” he said.

For them, it’s still a bench embedded with pride, he said, but centered around Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, an icon in his native Japan.

Campos has made four L.A. benches and is selling them fully assembled, he said, for $2,500 each — taking into account his labor and how costly the raw materials have become. For now, he’s offering the metal parts as a package for $500, which requires the buyer to purchase the wood for the seat and the back — an easy process, he said.

While he has no plans to mass produce the L.A. Bench, he does have one goal in mind that shows how hard it is for him to separate L.A. civic pride and the Dodgers.

“I would love to get a couple of them installed at Dodger Stadium,” he said.