The Brief

It’s that time of year, when city, county and state governments are discussing budgets for the fiscal year. While some cities in Orange County are scrambling at the end of the fiscal year looking to cut corners and tighten spending on city services, others are able to make forward projections. Fiscal years typically start on July 1 and end on June 30 of the following year. Budget forecasts determine how your tax dollars are spent: law enforcement, city facilities like libraries and parks, water and sewer service, resources for the unhoused, seniors and childcare. City budgets will also include federal and state funding sources.

Here’s a look at the proposed budget for Orange County and some of its cities:

County of Orange

The total county budget for the next fiscal year is $9.5 billion. Around $3.7 billion of that will go towards the county’s Social Services Agency, Health Care Agency, child support services and for awarding city contracts and grants. The General Purpose Revenue – with around 93% of revenue generated from property taxes in the county - will go towards public safety with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department receiving most of the funding. In 2023, the Board of Supervisors approved a pay increase for Orange County sheriff deputies. The OC Health Care Agency gets over $100 million from the General Purpose Revenue.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a budget shortfall in the state budget and this could affect the county, according to the proposed budget put together by county staffers. At the county level, the Public Defender’s Pilot Program could lose out on its last year of funding. The program was created by a state grant to help public defender offices that were understaffed with case backlog specifically related to those who were eligible for early release. County programs for housing could also see cuts along with cuts to funding that addresses drug overdose prevention and MediCal.

To learn about the County’s budget, click here.

Santa Ana

The city of Santa Ana is yet to release its budget for the upcoming fiscal year. But earlier this year, city officials sounded the alarm as revenue generated from the Measure X sales tax is set to reduce in 2029. Currently, the sales tax is responsible for 22% of the general fund budget.

Voters in the city approved Measure X in the 2018 election, where Santa Ana’s sales tax went up by 1.5%. That tax is set to reduce to 1% in 2029 with the city set to lose $30 million.

What could this mean for your city services? Funds generated from the sales tax goes towards emergency response services, street repairs and the upkeep of parks and senior services.

At a council meeting in April, city staff said projections show that since expenses are increasing faster than money coming in, Santa Ana could see a budget deficit next year.

Old Santa Ana City Hall.

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Eli Pousson, CC BY-SA 2.0

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Wikimedia Commons

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The city council is set to discuss and adopt the next fiscal year budget at the June 4 city council meeting. If you would like to weigh in, you can attend the council meeting in person or follow along online to provide your feedback via public comment.

To explore Santa Ana’s budget in detail: www.santa-ana.org/budget.

Orange

The city of Orange is looking at a $19.1 million budget deficit and is exploring cutting services or raising the costs of fees for city services. To save on costs, city staff have proposed either selling Taft Library or not filling vacant positions, and cutting down on park clean ups.

Currently, visitors to Old Towne Orange can park at the parking garages for free. However, with the city down on money, that could soon change too.

City leaders have not decided which measures to go ahead with it as the fiscal year looms and could potentially bring it up at the next council meeting slated for June 11. The agenda for the meeting is yet to be posted.

Westminster

In the current fiscal year set to end on June 30, Westminster is facing a $9 million deficit. That could be partly alleviated with voters in the March election approving the ballot measure Measure E, which will increase Westminster’s sales tax by 0.05%.

Revenue from the tax is projected to add $8 million to the city’s coffers every year.

The Asian Garden shopping mall, also known as Phước Lộc Thọ in Little Saigon.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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In 2016, voters in the city approved Measure SS raising the sales tax by 1%. Again in 2022, they approved a ballot measure to keep that 1% tax increase through March 31, 2043. If the measure had not passed in 2022, city staff had warned that Westminster could face bankruptcy.

Westminster is set to adopt the next fiscal year budget later in June. Staff reports show expected revenue to be $143 million while the expenditures are expected to be $147.3 million.

Huntington Beach

Huntington Beach has been involved in a range of litigation with the state of California including over state housing mandates and voter ID requirements. For the 2023/2024 fiscal year, Huntington Beach’s city attorney Michael Gates’ office oversaw around 95% of litigation in house.

In the fiscal year that will conclude on June 30, the budget allocation for the city attorney’s office increased by over 30% to over $3.7 million. For the proposed budget for the next fiscal year, the office is expected to see a 13% increase in budget to $4.2 million.

To learn more about Huntington Beach’s proposed budget, click here.

Anaheim

Anaheim is looking at a proposed budget of $2.3 billion, up 9% compared to the last fiscal year budget. The city continues to rely on the general fund for expenditures with the city expected to spend $490.9 million in the next fiscal year with over 60% of it going towards the police and fire department.

Majority of the funding for the general fund comes from a 15% tax that hotels, motels and short term rentals charge guests.

For the 2023/2024 fiscal year, the transient occupancy tax is projected to bring in the city over $256 million, a 14% increase from the previous and is the highest in Anaheim’s history. This is the first full fiscal year the tax is being collected since Measure J went into effect in January 2023. Under Measure J, online and travel booking companies are required to levy hotels, motels and short term rentals the transient occupancy tax based on the total amount a guest pays them. Previously, online and travel booking companies charged a flat tax fee agreed on with the hotels, motels and short term rentals.

Anaheim is slated to hold a public discussion on the proposed budget on June 11. For more information, click here.

Tustin

While Tustin sets its budget on a biennial basis, the fire in the North Hangar at the former Marine Corps Air Station has led to the finance director asking the city council to increase the revenue budget and allow payments related to the fire by a further $27 million.

Since the fire broke out last November, the city has spent $85 million to clean the debris, monitor air quality, sample air dust and soil and deconstruct the doors of the hangar, among other costs incurred.

The historic blimp hangar, at right, seen as it burned on Nov. 7, 2023.

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Jae C. Hong

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Associated Press

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“However, the true total fiscal impact on the City, County, and region remains unknown at this time and will continue to be assessed,” staff wrote in the report to the council.

The city has received $33.5 million in reimbursements from the Navy which owns the Hangar and is expected to receive a further $88 million.

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.”