The Brief

A high-profile nonprofit returned $275,000 in taxpayer mental health funds to Orange County after a demand from county health officials spurred by LAist reporting.

That demand came after county officials said they found “no evidence Mind OC performed any of the services under the Contract,” when they reviewed records requested by LAist through public records law.

The demand noted that Mind OC “apparently subcontracted its work under the Contract to Josephina (Josie) Batres or her company, Talentgate, Inc.” and goes on to say Mind OC “cannot substantiate” that work was done. Batres is the wife of a top aide to disgraced former county Supervisor Andrew Do.

As LAist reported last month, Batres is the longtime partner — and now wife — of then-Supervisor Do’s chief of staff, Chris Wangsaporn. According to multiple people briefed on the contract, Batres was hired by Mind OC for the work at Do’s direction.

The contract called for two dozen community listening sessions and subsequent reports to help the county increase access to publicly-funded mental health services. Under the contract terms, the work was supposed to start in late 2020 and be completed by Nov. 30, 2022, in exchange for the $275,000.

The records show that Mind OC paid Batres the vast majority of those funds — $255,000, or about 93% of the total.

County officials now say the invoices and work product Batres did on behalf of Mind OC fall far short.

“None of the records Mind OC produced to the County — not a single one — show Mind OC performed any work under the Contract,” Leon Page, Orange County’s chief counsel, wrote in the demand letter dated Nov. 1.

Still, payments from the county to Mind OC and from Mind OC to Batres continued despite a lack of any record of Batres organizing the 24 listening sessions required by the end of 2021, or writing the reports stipulated under the contract, according to county officials and an LAist review of Mind OC documents.

Batres and Wangsaporn didn’t return LAist’s voicemail messages or emails requesting comment Thursday and Friday.

How LAist obtained the records

LAist filed a public records request with Mind OC and the county to obtain those records after discovering a contract provision that required Mind OC to turn over records to the county if asked to do so by a member of the public. Mind OC then provided the records to the county, which LAist then obtained through a records request to the county.

After receiving Mind OC records, county officials demanded a full refund.

“The invoices not only fail to show any work was performed under the Contract," wrote the county’s top attorney, Leon Page, in his Nov. 1 demand letter to the nonprofit, which cites LAist’s records request. "Mind OC’s vendor did not even bother at times to change the invoice number or month of services performed in seeking payment from Mind OC.”

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County of Orange records

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Three days later, Mind OC agreed to give back all of the money. In a letter to the county, its lawyer said LAist’s records request and the county’s demand Mind OC produce them had “triggered an internal investigation at Mind OC into this matter.”

In a phone interview with LAist, Desiree Thomas, Mind OC’s chief operating officer, said the organization used reserve funds to pay back the county. She said they hadn’t yet decided whether to pursue a claim against Batres or any others. “We are reserving the right to pursue financial damages to our reputation by those who caused it,” she said.

About the refund decision

Chris Wangsaporn, chief of staff to O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do, at the O.C. Board of Supervisors meeting on Dec. 19, 2023.

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Nick Gerda / LAist

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Josie Batres was hired by a nonprofit to carry out a $275,000 mental health contract funded by the county, according to a county spokesperson.

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Screenshot via YouTube

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Ellen Guevara, a spokesperson for the O.C. Health Care Agency, confirmed the refund was received Nov. 6 — a few weeks after LAist published a story about the contract and apparent lack of work performed.

Wangsaporn, who has been married to Batres since December 2021, resigned from his position the day after LAist’s story was published last month. His resignation also came shortly before federal prosecutors announced Do had agreed to plead guilty to a felony bribery charge in connection to millions in taxpayer dollars Do directed to a nonprofit led on-and-off by his daughter, Rhiannon Do.

At the news conference held to announce the plea agreement, O.C. District Attorney Todd Spitzer told LAist: “I can only say that there's an ongoing investigation with respect to Mr. Wangsaporn and his wife.”

What the records show

The contract was issued by the O.C. Health Care Agency to Mind OC in late 2020, during the pandemic, with no competitive bidding. The work was supposed to focus especially on non-English speakers, foster youth, and other underrepresented communities. According to multiple people briefed on the contract, Mind OC was awarded the contract and in turn hired Josie for the work at the direction of Do.

Last month, Guevara, the county health agency spokesperson, told LAist the county never received the work required by the contract, which was supposed to include quarterly updates, an annual report and a final report.

Records obtained from the county by LAist show that Batres’ home-based HR consulting firm, TalentGate, billed Mind OC $5,000 in consulting fees under the contract in January 2021, and $10,000 each month after that through Feb. 2023 — for a total of $255,000. TalentGate also billed MindOC for $1,851 in mileage reimbursement. The remainder of the $275,000 was retained by Mind OC.

The records show the last payment from Mind OC to TalentGate under the contract cleared on March 3, 2023.

A single report on three listening sessions

The records obtained by LAist include a single report from a series of three listening sessions — all carried out in February and March 2023, more than a year after the deadline for completing work outlined in the contract. The report, which was attached to the county’s refund demand letter, is less than four pages long and includes a list of participants and bullet points indicating “major themes” and “key findings.”

Mind OC records also include a “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion [DE&I] Strategic Plan” authored by Batres and prepared for Mind OC’s chief executive at the time, Marshall Moncrief. It’s unclear how this internal-facing report about Mind OC, dated after the contract time period, is tied to the contract’s goal of increasing equity across all of the county’s mental health services. The 16-page plan, which is also attached to the county’s refund demand letter, focuses on Mind OC’s own diversity and equity as an organization. Page, the county counsel, referenced the report in his Nov. 1 demand letter to Mind OC:

“The report from Ms. Batres to Mind OC included with the documents produced appears to be a draft report of boilerplate statements that do not reference any prior meetings or listening sessions.”

County demands refund

An excerpt from the Nov. 1 letter demanding a refund. Click to read the full correspondence.

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Courtesy County of Orange

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In his Nov. 1 letter, county counsel demands a full $275,000 refund to the county from Mind OC, within a week. Page, the county lawyer, also demanded that Mind OC preserve all records related to the contract.

He addressed the letter to Mind OC’s current CEO, Phillip Franks, and the organization’s prior CEO at the time of the contract, Moncrief. He left Mind OC last year.

Bruce Dizenfeld, a lawyer for Mind OC, responded to the county’s refund demand letter on Nov. 4, agreeing that the organization would refund the $275,000. In his reply, Dizenfeld said Mind OC intended “to identify the parties responsible for the financial damage and damage to Mind OC’s reputation caused by intentional, reckless or negligent conduct by the parties involved who owed a duty to the County, Mind OC, and the people of the County of Orange.”

The lawyer also demanded that the county preserve all of its records related to the contract, noting that the county paid out $275,000 in taxpayer funds under the contract despite not receiving any of the required work.

“Mind OC needs to understand why it took almost two years to discover the shortcomings of the Talentgate Project requested by the County,” the letter states. “Mind OC needs to be assured that in the future there will be timely communications regarding project needs and project deficiencies from both the County and Mind OC so that corrective action can be taken timely.”

Catch up on the backstory

The Orange County contract is one of several LAist has uncovered over the past year in which federal taxpayer funds went to people close to former Supervisor Do despite county records indicating much of the money did not go to the required work. These contracts were initiated during the pandemic without competitive bidding or disclosure on public agendas. In several cases, contractors didn't provide proof of how the money was spent, as required under those contracts, according to county lawsuits and documents reviewed by LAist.

Do pleaded guilty in October to conspiring to receive kickbacks from $9.3 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds he directed to his daughter’s nonprofit, Viet America Society (VAS). Federal prosecutors, while announcing their findings against Do, said only 15% of funds meant to feed people in need were used as intended.

Viet America Society also paid Batres

Federal tax filings for VAS show it paid $40,000 to a company named "TalenGate" in 2020, based at the same home address as Batres’ company TalentGate, which was formed several weeks after VAS was registered with the state. The company was VAS’ highest paid independent contractor that year, according to the tax filings.

That year, VAS was funded by county dollars meant to feed needy seniors, which flowed to VAS through another nonprofit, Hand to Hand Relief Organization, according to public records obtained by LAist. The county is suing Hand to Hand for alleged fraud in diverting those taxpayer funds in 2020, which then-Supervisor Do also had awarded.

VAS’ public tax filings show it also paid "TalenGate" another $10,000 in 2021, while VAS’ financial ledger it filed with the county shows it paid the same amount to Batres herself in January 2021. The tax filings list the payments as being for “PUBLIC RELATION.” Reached by phone in April and this month, Batres declined to answer LAist’s questions about what the payments were for.

Batres’ husband later signed forms authorizing $30,000 in county event dollars to VAS in his capacity as Do’s chief of staff, according to county records obtained by LAist.

Mind OC’s relationship with the county

Mind OC has been the county’s highest-profile mental health contractor in recent years, with the county awarding tens of millions of dollars of mental health contracts to the group. But its relationship with the county has faced challenges in recent months.

In August, the county abruptly canceled a major contract with the group to manage service providers at the county's signature mental health campus, Be Well, in the city of Orange. That contract was ended a little over two years into a three-year, $63.8-million deal with the county.

In a recent interview with LAist, Franks, the CEO of Mind OC, said he was “shocked” when the county canceled that contract. The rupture came after an audit found Mind OC failed to provide proper oversight of mental health and substance use treatment services on the campus.

But Franks said the group had already submitted a corrective action plan to the county. He said he had met with leaders of the O.C. Health Care Agency the day before the contract was terminated and that they seemed “supportive of the changes we were making.”

Franks also questioned why the county had paid Mind OC the full $275,000 under the mental health equity contract if the county believed the required services weren’t being provided.

Those payments were all issued while Clayton Chau was the county health agency’s director. Right before working for the county, Chau was a top-level executive at Mind OC. Chau told LAist he had no comment for this story.

In May, the county signed a new $95 million, three-year contract with Mind OC to run a new Be Well mental health campus set to open next year in Irvine.

Do investigation timeline

In November 2023, LAist began investigating how millions in public taxpayer dollars were spent. In total, LAist has uncovered public records showing more than $13 million in public money that was approved to a little-known nonprofit that records state was led on and off by Rhiannon Do. Most of that money was directed to the group by Supervisor Do outside of the public’s view and never appeared on public meeting agendas. He did not publicly disclose his family ties.

Much of the known funding came from federal coronavirus relief money.

• Read the story that launched the investigation: Top OC official helped direct millions to his daughter’s center without disclosing family connection
• Since LAist started reporting, we’ve also uncovered the group was two years overdue in completing a required audit into whether the meal funds were spent appropriately.
• And LAist found the amount of taxpayer money directed to the nonprofit was much larger than initially known. It totals at least $13.5 million in county funding — tallied from government records obtained and published by LAist. 
• After our reporting, O.C. officials wrote demand letters to the nonprofit saying millions in funding were unaccounted for. They warned the nonprofit that it could be forced to repay the funds.
• And, LAist found the nonprofit missed a deadline set by county officials to provide proof about how funding for meals were spent.
• On Aug. 2, LAist reported O.C. officials were demanding the refund of more than $3 million in public funds awarded by Do to VAS and another nonprofit, Hand to Hand.
• Six days later, LAist reported Orange County officials had expanded demands for refunds of millions in tax dollars from the nonprofits and threatened legal action.
• On Aug. 15, LAist reported O.C. officials sued VAS and its key officers and associated businesses, including Rhiannon Do. The lawsuit alleges that county money was illegally used to purchase five homes and was converted into cash through ATM transactions. 
• Then, on Aug. 19, LAist reported O.C. officials had announced a second lawsuit against Hand to Hand and its CEO to recover millions of taxpayer dollars that were directed by Supervisor Do.
• LAist broke the news on Aug. 22 that federal agents were searching Rhiannon Do's home in Tustin. Later that day, Supervisor Do's home, and other properties, were also raided.
• On Oct. 16, LAist reported that the wife of Supervisor Do's top aide was hired for a $275,000 contract. County officials say the work was never turned in and two days later LAist reported that a court filing confirmed a federal grand jury had been convened and subpoenas issued.
• Six days later, federal prosecutors announced Andrew Do had agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. They said Do accepted over $550,000 in bribes for directing and voting in favor of more than $10 million in COVID funds to VAS. He resigned as supervisor the same day.

How to watchdog local government

One of the best things you can do to hold officials accountable is pay attention.

Your city council, board of supervisors, school board and more all hold public meetings that anybody can attend. These are times you can talk to your elected officials directly and hear about the policies they’re voting on that affect your community.

• Read tips on how to get involved.
• The next scheduled board meeting is Tuesday, Nov. 19. You can check out the O.C. Board of Supervisors full calendar here.
• Learn how to submit a public comment to the O.C. Board of Supervisors.

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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Courtesy Steve Campos

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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.

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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LAist

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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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LAist

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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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LAist

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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 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:

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.”