The Brief

Today is officially the last day as a county employee for L.A. County CEO Fesia Davenport, who has been on medical leave for the past six months and received a controversial $2 million taxpayer payout that LAist brought to light last fall.

Davenport announced her planned departure last month, citing health concerns. While on leave, she has faced criticism from the public and county employees over the payout, as well as a lawsuit alleging it was an illegal gift that must be reversed. The payout was labeled “confidential” and kept secret from the public until LAist unearthed it two months later, even though state law requires settlement agreements to be public.

When announcing her plan to step down, Davenport said in a LinkedIn post last month she was doing so “to focus on my health and wellness.” She also emailed CEO office staff to say she’s learned she has a predisposition for the same type of health problem that killed her brother Raymond in 2018 and that two of her sisters experienced last year. One of her sisters will require 24-hour care for the rest of her life, Davenport wrote.

The $2 million payout, approved in secret by county supervisors, was in response to Davenport claiming she was harmed by a voter-approved measure that will change her job into an elected one in December 2028, almost two years after her employment contract was set to expire in early 2027.

The supervisors agreed to pay Davenport the $2 million she had requested, without negotiating her down from that amount. As part of receiving the taxpayer payout, the settlement deal says Davenport cannot make — nor cause anyone else to make — “negative statements or communications disparaging” the Board of Supervisors and other county officials. There are exceptions, including for required testimony and disclosing workplace conduct she believes is unlawful.

The $2 million payout was in addition to Davenport’s county salary of $630,813 in annual base pay.

Leaders of the two largest L.A. County employee unions — representing nurses, social workers, sheriff’s deputies and others — said many of their members were shocked and outraged to learn about the payout from LAist’s reporting. They said Davenport had been telling workers there was no money to give them raises, while secretly negotiating a $2 million payout for herself.

A lawsuit filed by a county resident and taxpayer in February claims the payout was illegal because Davenport did not have a valid legal dispute with the county. Under the state Constitution, local government settlement payouts are illegal gifts of public funds if they’re in response to allegations that completely lack legal merit or exceed the agency’s “maximum exposure,” according to court rulings.

If a judge finds a payment was an illegal gift, they can order the money to be paid back. County lawyers are disputing the case, saying the payout served a legitimate public purpose.

The judge assigned to the lawsuit, James C. Chalfant of L.A. County Superior Court, is retiring at the beginning of next month, before the first scheduled hearing in the case. Online court records do not yet indicate which judge will take over the case.

Last month, county supervisors ordered new transparency measures in response to LAist revealing the payout. The county will now create a public dashboard of settlements between the county and its executives, and make sure all such settlements are reported to the public on meeting agendas after they’re finalized.

Ever since Davenport suddenly went on leave Oct. 8, her CEO role has been filled temporarily by Joe Nicchitta, the county’s chief operating officer.

The county CEO oversees the roughly $50 billion county budget, labor relations with over 100,000 county employees and implementing key priorities of the county Board of Supervisors — including poverty alleviation and addressing homelessness.

County supervisors, who oversee the CEO, will be in charge of selecting a permanent chief executive.

California’s community colleges have been trying for several years to offer more bachelor's degrees. This year, they put their hopes in two sweeping bills designed to help them do that. But lawmakers made massive, last-minute changes that prompted the state’s community colleges to now oppose the legislation.

The abrupt change of heart, spurred by new limits on how much the colleges could grow their bachelor’s programs, didn’t influence the outcomes of the bills, Senate Bill 960 by Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Democrat from Napa, and Assembly Bill 2694 by David Alvarez, also a Democrat from Chula Vista. Both passed this week by wide margins in the Legislature and now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

In recent years, Newsom vetoed bills that sought to expand the community colleges’ ability to issue more bachelor’s degrees. Still, Newsom’s office was involved in the revision of the latest bills, Cabaldon said in a Senate floor speech Monday.

“This is the first time that we've been able to engage in productive conversation between the houses and the executive branch,” he said.

Combined, the bills introduce new mechanisms for determining when colleges can create bachelor’s degrees and how many they can offer. The new approach has accountability metrics — colleges would be able to offer an additional two to 12 bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028 depending on their students’ certificate, degree and transfer completion rates. No college district could propose more than three new degrees per year and districts would need to prove that there’s a workforce need in their region to justify the creation of a bachelor’s degree. That’s a claim the state's labor secretary would step in to validate if the California State University system objects, as has regularly occurred in the pitched policy disputes between the community colleges and the university.

The rules would apply to new degrees offered after 2028; existing community college bachelor's degrees are grandfathered in. Today, 49 colleges either offer or will soon offer 66 bachelor’s degrees.

Cabaldon called the bills a breakthrough that would bring long-sought clarity.

“This will give us peace,” he said in a phone interview. “That doesn’t mean everybody’s going to agree all of the time, but it does mean the endless war and bickering and fighting and more and more legislation will come to an end.”

Community college leaders said the amendments are too last-minute, too unclear and too complicated, even if they appreciate the effort by the Legislature to wrangle the thorny issues.

“We're being asked to … support a process that is not completely understood or vetted at the last minute, and so that's just not great policymaking,” said Larry Galizio, president and CEO of the Community College League of California, an association representing community college presidents and board leaders.

Why bachelor’s degrees have been so contentious

The community colleges’ sudden shift is another turn in an effort that has produced near-constant turmoil.

Historically, the community colleges and Cal State have clashed over which bachelor’s degrees the colleges can teach. A 2021 state law was supposed to establish peace in the realm, but the colleges and Cal State regularly disagreed on a key concept — degree duplication. That law said the colleges couldn’t create bachelor’s degrees that are already offered by any Cal State or University of California campus, even if a community college is hundreds of miles from the nearest public university.

Colleges and several lawmakers called that an unfair arrangement, since many community college students can’t relocate to a distant university. In some instances, community colleges created those degrees anyway, over the objections of the Cal State system, EdSource reported.

Backers and foes of more bachelor’s degrees at community colleges point to competing data.

A recent report found that 29 of the state’s 116 community colleges are located at least 25 miles from a public university. Their students are “place-bound” or can’t easily move from the area their community colleges serve. Roughly 157,000 students attend these colleges.

Some students say they need their local community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees because local employers want those — certificates or associate degrees aren’t enough. But under existing law, those colleges cannot provide them because a Cal State 500 miles away offers that degree already.

On the other hand, community colleges post low transfer rates — just 21% of students who wanted to transfer do so after four years, the state auditor reported. This may indicate a broken transfer system that could be remedied if more colleges could offer bachelor’s. Or it may demonstrate that colleges aren’t ready to widen their academic offerings because most also post low certificate and associate degree completion rates.

How the bills address duplication

In response, Alvarez and Cabaldon wrote comprehensive bills this year to allow colleges to create bachelor’s degrees, even if they resemble degrees already offered by Cal State campuses. The community colleges were on board with those versions while the Cal State system was opposed; the system instead wanted more streamlined pathways for students to start their studies at a community college and earn a bachelor’s at a Cal State campus. Others in the system have feared that an expansion of community college bachelor’s degrees would siphon away students and crucial tuition revenue at a time when some Cal States are battling enrollment declines.

The new combined bills allow community colleges to propose bachelor’s degrees even if a nearby Cal State offers a similar program, but only if that Cal State program admits fewer than 75% of applicants from that nearby community college three consecutive years. The community college would still need to submit a workforce needs report and be governed by the degree caps also spelled out in the bills. That workforce need could be that employers are having difficulty filling positions that require a bachelor’s degree, the two bills say.

And unlike the current policy, in which there’s no arbiter to settle an impasse between community colleges and the Cal States over duplication, a review by the state’s secretary of labor siding with the colleges would remove the Cal State system’s challenge to the degree. But districts face consequences for being wrong: If the labor secretary sides with Cal State, the district is barred from submitting an application for a similar program for five years.

The community colleges are generally barred from duplicating a degree a UC campus offers. Only written consent from a UC would clear the way for duplication, the bills say.

Why community colleges are now opposed 

The newly created caps on the number of degrees community college districts can offer are a problem for the community college system. Districts will be judged by their student completion rates and how those rates compare to the statewide average.

The bills “would make a district’s eligibility depend partly on how its performance

compares with every other district in the state,” a letter of opposition to Cabaldon reads from Sonya Christian, chancellor of California Community Colleges. “A district could improve its own student outcomes” but still have the same caps apply to them, “or even see its eligibility change simply because the statewide average changed,” she wrote.

Galizio of the Community College League also takes issue with the caps on degree creation. He said in an interview that campuses with low graduation rates typically serve more low-income students, the same students who need more bachelor’s degrees to get a leg up in the workforce.

But not all community college leaders think the bills are bad for their campuses, including Jose Fierro, president/superintendent of the Cerritos Community College District. Based on his college’s completion rates, he thinks he’ll be permitted to add a total of six to eight new bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028. That’s plenty for now, he said. The school has two now and plans to launch more in 2027.

“We are not trying to become a university. It's not our mission. We're trying to align with industry and provide pathways for social and economic mobility for our students,” he said in an interview.

But just because the bills aren’t a problem for him doesn't mean it's not a problem for the system.

“For some of us this is workable,” he said. For other colleges, “this is going to bring some additional challenges.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Rep. Norma Torres of Pomona is calling on California officials to intervene to protect people held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, where federal officials are under orders to improve conditions.

In a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the state Health and Human Services Agency, Torres on Friday requested more frequent investigations of the facility.

The congresswoman’s ask comes nearly two months after a federal judge ordered immediate improvements to medical care, disability accommodations and daily conditions at the facility. While federal officials have since claimed the privately run Adelanto already meets standards, people detained at the facility continue to report ongoing violations of the court order and conditions they and their attorneys call “inhumane.”

How we got here

U.S. District Judge Sunshine S. Sykes and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals have determined that the federal government is responsible for the conditions at the facility, which is run by The GEO Group, a private company contracted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In her letter, Torres asks state and county officials to conduct additional inspections to make sure the facility is complying with the court order. State law gives the California Department of Justice the authority to review conditions at immigration detention centers. It also gives county health officers the power to inspect private detention facilities — powers Torres says have been “underused.”

The letter from Torres said statements from federal officials claiming conditions are adequate at Adelanto demonstrate that the federal government “does not care about the treatment of detainees.”

“In the absence of proper federal oversight, detainees will remain vulnerable to ongoing neglect, inhuman living conditions, and severe medical risks,” the letter states. “That is why I urge you and your staff to continue oversight and conduct additional inspections at Adelanto to help ensure The GEO Group, Inc. improves conditions for detainees.”

State’s history of oversight

In a May 2026 report, the California Department of Justice reviewed conditions at seven civil immigration detention facilities operating in California. An eighth site, Central Valley Annex, began to hold people in April 2026 and is not included in the report.

That state report, based on site inspections conducted the previous year, found conditions had worsened during Trump's second term.

As the report notes, ICE holds itself to two sets of detention standards, the Performance-Based National Detention Standards and the National Detention Standards.

The inspectors identified multiple violations at all facilities visited. Among the "declining conditions for detainees" cited in the report:

• Inadequate medical care
• Delay in medical treatment
• Overcrowding
• Inadequate food
• Excessive use of force by detention facility guards
• Inadequate clothing

The report also found Adelanto was overwhelmed by the rapid increase in people held at the facility in the summer of 2025. Prior to President Donald Trump’s return to office, the number of people held at Adelanto had fallen to just three. By mid-2025, the population surged to 1,570, according to the report.

Medical and detention staffing levels failed to keep pace. As a result, the report says people were unable to access timely medical treatment or screening for health needs at intake.

People held there reported that the facilities were serving undercooked food at inconsistent times, and failed to provide enough clean drinking water.

Facility records and reports from people detained demonstrated uses of force that included “concerning uses of pepper spray.”

The report noted that there have been six deaths at immigration facilities in California between September 2025 and March 2026 — two at the Imperial Regional Detention Center and four at Adelanto. The report attributed the deaths at Adelanto to alleged substandard medical care.

What's next

Esmeralda Santos, a lead organizer with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, said her team has been hoping to see the state take a more active role in keeping people at the facility safe. Santos said the state needs to go beyond doing a “well-written report” on what inspectors find.

“The reports say over and over again that Adelanto is not fit to be caging people,” she said, “but afterwards it doesn't go anywhere.”

She said any new inspections need to be paired with actual accountability.

The Lynwood Library has reopened after its first major renovation in almost 50 years. New skylights brighten the space and there are dedicated areas for teens, kids, studying and community meetings.

“It does give you a feeling that our community matters,” said Danielle Trujillo, who grew up nearby and visited the library often. “That we deserve new books, that we deserve new furniture, that we deserve to be in a space that's welcoming, spacious, and inviting.”

The $8 million project began in 2024 and closed the library for about two years. The branch reopened Aug. 20 and celebrated with a ribbon-cutting Thursday.

“ I'm so happy to have this open, and a place for our community to gather, to connect,” said Lynwood Mayor Gabriela Camacho, who also brought her twins to the library.

Gabrielle Fata and her 3-year-old son Zennett can walk to the library from their home.

“ I just try to get him interested in loving books at a young age, so I just like him being around all the books and all the letters and everything,” Fata said.

Local leaders, including Lynwood Mayor Gabriela Camacho, Assemblymember José Luis Solache, Supervisor Janice Hahn and LA County Library Director Skye Patrick cut the ribbon to celebrate the completion of the Lynwood Library renovation.

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How the funding came together

Supervisor Janice Hahn said she advocated for part of L.A. County’s federal COVID-19 pandemic relief dollars to fund five library renovations in District 4, including the Lynwood Library. The southeast L.A. County city is home to about 64,000 people.

 “I still believe that libraries are a real treasure for communities and schools,” Hahn said. “I know a lot of young people get their information online and are on the internet, but I really believe libraries are still an important part of the fabric of a community.”

The 12,000-square-foot Lynwood Library renovation includes a new area for teens.

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The renovations were originally planned to be completed by November 2025. Hahn said she wasn’t sure what caused the delay.

“Wish it could've been open earlier, but [there] are always construction issues and problems that I think we face with almost everything we try to do in the county of Los Angeles,” Hahn said.

‘A library for the people’

LA County Library Director Skye Patrick said when the Lynwood Library was first built in 1977, the idea was to keep the space dark to preserve the books inside.

“The library is … no longer just about the books.  It's about the people.” Patrick said. “We want the space to be welcoming, we want it to be open, we want it to have a lot of airflow through it.”

 "I like how there's separate sections for different people to do things," said Jennifer Estrada, an eighth grader at a nearby middle school. "There's the study rooms, you could go with your friends or if you just wanna be alone."

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Jennifer Estrada is an eighth grader at Hosler Middle School, less than a mile away from the library, and has started visiting twice a week to study and hang out with friends since it reopened.

“ I feel like it's very open. You could be you in here,” Estrada said.

Trujillo, who is now the adult teen librarian here, said she’s excited to see the next generation embrace the library.

“ I try not to show it as much 'cause I don't wanna scare them away,” Trujillo said. “But I'm really excited that the teens are coming into the space and that they're happy with it.”

"Libraries have transformed from just checking out books," said librarian Danielle Trujillo. "People come in and they hang out with their friends, or they're studying for school."

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Trujillo said in addition to the teen space, the Spanish language and manga collections are also popular.

She said the library also welcomes feedback.

 “If anyone ever wants to come talk to us and share some ideas that they have for the library, we're completely open to that,” Trujillo said.

Fata said her son Zennett’s favorite books skew spooky, including Aaron Reynolds' “Creepy” series and Rhode Montijo’s Skeletown series.

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Visit the Lynwood Library

Address: 11320 Bullis Road, Lynwood
Hours:

• Tuesday- Wednesday: 12 p.m. - 8 p.m.
• Thursday- Saturday: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
• Sunday- Monday: Closed

Learn more: Website