The Brief

It’s now nearly impossible to pass through the majority Latino neighborhood of Oak View in Huntington Beach without being captured on camera. The city quietly signed two contracts in April to install 10 high-tech surveillance cameras trained on the main entrances, arteries and gathering areas of the densely-packed neighborhood that covers about half a square mile.

The AI-equipped cameras have 360 degree vision, night vision, and most are capable of magnifying a subject up to 32 times, like a telescope, without losing image quality. They also expose long simmering tensions in Oak View.

On the one hand, some residents of this historically neglected neighborhood told LAist they welcomed the added surveillance if it helps deter crime and catch criminals.

But others question the city’s motives at a time when local officials have pledged to support the federal government’s efforts to find and deport hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants. They worry the cameras could be used to facilitate racial profiling, or that they could lead to Oak View residents being targeted for federal immigration enforcement.

“The truth is we need more security in this community,” said Hortensia Villanueva, who said she’s lived in the community for more than three decades.

At the same time, Villanueva said things were already “tense” in the community since immigration agents began chasing, tackling and detaining suspected undocumented immigrants across Los Angeles and Orange County.

“What we’re seeing on television, the children are freaking out thinking their parents are going to be taken away or beat up,” Villanueva said. “That affects all of us.”

She said she has mixed feelings about the cameras, and hopes they will only be used to catch criminals, and to curb crimes like graffiti and drunk driving.

In an emailed response to questions about the cameras from LAist, City spokesperson Corbin Carson wrote that the Oak View cameras “were installed due to incidents of vandalism, gun violence, and assaults.” He said additional cameras are being installed throughout the city.

“These cameras will provide real-time officer safety information to responding officers by delivering critical, situational awareness before officers arrive on scene,” he wrote.

LAist also reached out about the cameras to City Council members Gracey Van Der Mark and Casey McKeon, who also sit on the city’s Oak View Task Force, but did not receive a response.

Split contracts, no city council vote

Public records show the city signed two separate contracts in April with the security company Convergint to install the 10 cameras in and around the Oak View neighborhood.

Rules require City Council approval for any contract for services worth more than $100,000.

The contracts, if combined, would have met that threshold.

One of the contracts was for four 360-degree cameras at a cost of $50,488; the other, at a cost of $96,058, was for six camera pairs that allow for 360-degree surveillance, 32x optical zoom, movement tracking and audio detection.

Approving the contracts without a City Council vote “raises red flags,” said Mark Bixby, a local watchdog and publisher of Surf City Sentinel, who discovered the camera contracts.

By avoiding a vote, the city also avoided a public debate about the cameras and a chance for city council members to ask questions about their intended use.

Carson, the city spokesperson, said the contracts were “completed at different times with different funding sources” and one being a grant. “Therefore, the contracts were procured separately,” Carson said.

But both contracts are dated April 3, 2025, in the city’s contract database. They were both signed by Burns and other city officials, and approved by City Manager Travis Hopkins. Burns told LAist he didn’t recall approving the cameras, and didn’t have any information about them.

A 360-degree security camera is affixed to a light pole in Oak View.

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LAist

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In February 2023, the council did unanimously approve funding for five security cameras that year to address retail crime in the city at a total cost of $50,000. During the meeting, police department leaders said they hoped to install 25 security cameras around the city over the subsequent five years, focused on areas with the most retail crime. But it’s unclear if the cameras in Oak View are part of that plan. There are retail businesses around the perimeter of the neighborhood, but not in the vicinity of most of the cameras.

Oscar Rodriguez, a former City Council candidate who grew up in Oak View, said he and other community leaders have questions, including “if this type of surveillance is going to be used for immigration enforcement in some way, shape, or form or capacity? And if so, is the city of Huntington Beach and the Huntington Beach Police Department going to assist immigration officials with their immigration enforcement?”

Huntington Beach’s growing surveillance network

The cameras add to a growing surveillance network around the city, with a particular focus on Oak View. The city also has three automated license plate readers from the company Flock Safety at major exits from the neighborhood, which appears to be an unusually high density for a residential area compared to the rest of the city, according to the crowd-sourced website, deflock.me. Data from license plate readers in other Southern California cities has been shared with federal immigration authorities in the past.

The city’s most recent contract with Flock Safety, in effect as of July 2024, includes a clause stating the company “may access, use, preserve and/ or disclose the Footage to law enforcement authorities, government officials, and/ or third parties, if legally required to do so” or if the company “has a good faith belief” that providing access to the footage “is reasonably necessary to comply with a legal process, enforce this Agreement, or detect, prevent or otherwise address security, privacy, fraud or technical issues, or emergency situations.”

Just this week, Huntington Beach police launched a new “drones as first responders program” to deploy drones to crimes or public safety incidents. Police Lt. Chris Nesmith said Tuesday that the drones will only record footage when responding to an emergency call.

“ The citizens don't need to worry about officers spying in their backyards or surveilling them,” he said. “This isn't a Big Brother program.”

City leaders say the drones can respond to a call for service in under 2 minutes.

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Jeramie Scott, who heads the surveillance oversight program at the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center, said he’s skeptical of using surveillance cameras to prevent crime, especially in neighborhoods.

“Surveillance equipment and surveillance, in general, are a lot of times a crutch for bad social policies,” he said. “They don't solve the underlying issues of crime.”

He noted that the new system installed in Oak View has the ability to analyze information and alert officers. Scott said he would be concerned the cameras could be used by police to hone in on residents or locations based on “shaky parameters,” like loitering, “as a flag for potential criminal activity.”

“People loiter all the time. It's not indicative of a crime, per se,” he said. “So if [the camera system] is being used in that way, then all of a sudden you're having increased police presence.”

Scott also questioned how the data from cameras would be stored and under what conditions it could be released to other law enforcement agencies, including federal immigration authorities.

Carson, the city spokesperson, said the city follows California law limiting data-sharing with federal immigration authorities. “Unless legally compelled through a valid court order or warrant, we do not provide non-public video footage or other records to immigration enforcement,” he wrote.

The city recently used a $5 million grant from Caltrans to make improvements in the neighborhood, including street signage, landscape, and ongoing graffiti and trash abatement.

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Jill Replogle

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LAist

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Oak View’s history of neglect 

Oak View has long been among the city’s poorest neighborhoods. The median household income is around $74,000 compared to around $120,000 for the city as a whole, according to Census data.

Once a Japanese American settlement, the neighborhood is now majority Latino, compared to the city as a whole, which is only about 20% Latino, according to Census data.

Nearly 60% of residents living in the Census tract that encompasses Oak View speak a language other than English at home, and 28% are foreign-born.

Despite a 2016 legal settlement with trash hauler Republic Services to enclose its adjacent transfer station, the smell of ripe garbage still occasionally wafts through the rows of bungalows, two-story apartment complexes, and modest single-family homes.

Residents have historically complained about crime and gang activity in Oak View, although rates had reportedly dropped in the years leading up the pandemic. Current crime data for the neighborhood is not publicly available, and LAist was unable to obtain data from the city in time for this story.

Last year, the city invested $6.5 million ($5 million from Caltrans) to repave Oak View’s streets, improve street lighting and landscaping, and add colorful signs and crosswalks. That grant, said Carson, also paid for some of the new security cameras.

“Once that project was completed, the [police] department received numerous complaints about vandalism to the revitalized area," he wrote. "To identify those responsible and deter additional costly damage, public safety cameras were installed.”

Rodriguez, the former City Council candidate, said the relationship between the community and the city government and police department had improved over the last decade. The city also holds periodic town hall-style meetings in the community.

 ”I think it's important for the community to have that trust with the city,” Rodriguez said. “That's the goal, right?”

But that trust has been put to the test under the current local and national administrations.

All-MAGA council declares HB a 'non-sanctuary city'

Huntington Beach’s defiantly conservative city government has made national headlines in recent years — over its efforts to restrict controversial books at the city’s public library, install a “MAGA” plaque for the library’s anniversary, and implement a voter ID rule that runs contrary to state election rules.

The plaque that has generated all the controversy in this beach city.

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At the council’s first meeting of 2025, the day after President Donald Trump was inaugurated, Huntington Beach City Council members voted unanimously to declare the city a “non-sanctuary city.” It was a direct challenge to the state’s sanctuary law, the California Values Act, which restricts local law enforcement agencies from assisting with federal immigration enforcement except in the case of individuals convicted of violent crimes.

The city and the police department also sued the state of California over the state’s sanctuary law, arguing that it forces the city to violate federal law. They also argued in a March 2025 court filing that the city is “harmed by the presence of increased numbers of illegal aliens,” including lowered tax revenue and property values and “increased expenditure of public funds to provide public services to illegal aliens.”

America First Legal, a law firm co-founded by Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration strategy, is representing the city.

The state has argued that the city can’t challenge a state law in federal court. The case is ongoing.

Shortly after Huntington Beach passed its “non-sanctuary city” resolution, city leaders held a town hall meeting for Oak View residents at a nearby Catholic church. At the meeting, then-City Attorney Michael Gates sought to assure the crowd that officers wouldn’t out undocumented immigrants to the federal government unless they landed in police custody. (Gates is now a deputy assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice.)

“We can all go to the grocery store without concern,” he told the standing-room-only crowd. “We can go to church without concern, we can go to the doctor without concern. Living day-to-day, there's no concern that there's immigration enforcement in our police department.

“But if you've committed a crime in Huntington Beach and you're in police custody, they will communicate with the federal government."

Oak View residents told LAist they were unaware of any major ICE presence in the neighborhood in recent months. But there have been round-ups at some nearby car washes and Home Depot parking lots.

Gina Clayton-Tarvin, a trustee at the Ocean View School District, which includes Oak View Elementary, said she worries the neighborhood cameras — including one near the school’s entrance and a second camera on school district property near the preschool — will be used to “spy on” families.  

”People are already nervous in the community,” she said, adding that participation in the school’s summer meals program, and at the local Boys and Girls Club, had dropped precipitously compared to recent years.

“And then these cameras are magically just in the Oak View community, they're not in my neighborhood and I live a half a mile from Oak View,” she said. “So really what's going on? Really what I feel is it's like a form of racial profiling. It's a way to scare people."

Yusra Farzan contributed reporting.

The wood crates are lined up on folding tables in a church parking lot in San Fernando. Each crate is filled with russet potatoes, knobby purple and orange carrots, plump garlic, red apples and more. It's produce from the Santa Ynes Valley in Santa Barbara County that could easily be found in farmers' markets in upscale neighborhoods.

But here, it’s free.

“ I wanted to find a way to distribute food to people that was done with dignity,” said Lindsay Chambers, president of non-profit Together We Thrive

The crates, the quality of the produce, much of it organic, and other details intentionally blur the line between farmers' market and food bank. Before starting these, Chambers volunteered at eight food banks across the nation to a get a sense of how they work. When she saw how much people love farmers’ markets, she decided she'd make her new food bank look like one.

Together We Thrive buys produce to give away from small farms in Southern California.

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“Instead of just receiving a free handout, they're coming in person and they get to select. It looks like a regular farmers' market,” Chambers said.

She opened her first Together We Thrive food bank in Canoga Park in January 2025. The L.A. fires led her to start another in Pasadena. Then this one in San Fernando.

The concept is straightforward: the organization buys fruits and vegetables from California small farms. They bring them by electric trucks to the weekly giveaways staffed by paid staff and volunteers.

Lindsay Chambers, right, founded Together We Thrive to provide free produce at L.A. area food banks.

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Chambers said they serve about 300 people weekly at this San Fernando location, more in Pasadena. As the cost of living has squeezed many people, hundreds of food banks have sprouted across Southern California. This one has built a loyal following in part through their approach.

Very helpful

The San Fernando food bank sets up at Latin American Church of the Nazarene. People bring their own reusable bags or get a paper bag. The free food is welcomed by many.

“I have a 94 year-old father, and with finances the way they are, this is very, very helpful. Then I come for my other coworker for her elderly parents as well,” said Katherine Balarezo, a high school special education assistant who lives in nearby North Hollywood.

Katherine Balazero has visited the Together We Thrive food bank about 15 times.

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While other food banks offer pre-selected boxes or bags filled with dry food, or may require registration of some kind, that's not what happens here. People can just walk up and choose their own produce.

 ”It's not canned stuff. This is fresh vegetables so you can do a lot and the shelf life is longer,” Balarezo saying it's good for people like her who like to cook their own, healthy meals.

Patrons of various ages and backgrounds

On this day, at this location, people who came represented various races, ethnicities, and ages. Some said their pocketbooks are tight, others said they were doing OK.

“I'm currently a college student, so I'm trying to save as much cash as I can so I can pay for my books and my tuition every semester,” said Allam Reyes, who lives about five minutes away.

He’s going to juice the carrots and may cook the potatoes in the air fryer. He said this bag of produce would cost him about $20-$25 at the supermarket. His roommates may like what he makes.

“If I can share it, then I'll share it, but if not, I'm going to make it for myself,” Reyes said.

Allam Reyes visits the Together We Thrive food bank in San Fernando.

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Chambers, the founder of this food bank says this multiplying effect, that the food given away here to one person goes on to serve more, is one of the things that drives the organization to keep on giving. Together We Thrive plans to open a similar food bank in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A self-proclaimed pet psychic is in L.A. for a national tour of pop-up readings, with a few sold-out days of connecting with pets in Pasadena and Highland Park this week.

Tucked away at the back of Doggee Club pet shop on Raymond Avenue, pet psychic Cynthia Okimoto was posted up at a table. There was no crystal ball, just a small sign that read: "Pet Psychic Readings: $35."

Dogs, cats... and snakes too 

Jason Mendieta and Cristina Becerra sat for a reading with their small poodle, Bishon.

“He says he’s a social guy, he’s popular and he’s hoping to have more followers on Instagram. Does he have an Instagram account?” Okimoto said in a very matter-of-fact way.

“He doesn’t. He has almost no social media presence,” Becerra replied.

“Well that’s gotta change soon,” Okimoto said.

It was on a spiritual retreat in Siberia where Okimoto said she was told by some high priestesses that she had the gift of animal communication.

Flash forward years later and she’s traveled across the United States and even to Japan and Korea to help people connect with their pets. After Los Angeles, her tour includes stops in Vegas and Houston, before wrapping back to Orange County and San Diego.

Brenda Teng, owner of the Doggee Club, said she took her time to get to know Okimoto before inviting her for this psychic pop-up. She even did a reading with her own dog.

“She’s so amazing and the things that she can be so specific about your dog is spot on,” Teng said. “Then I was like, no brainer, let’s bring you in, it would be such a gift for our community.”

Okimoto said she’s not here to convince anyone or sell products. Some of her own friends don’t believe in what she's doing and she said that’s OK with her.

And to people who say this is just snake oil: she reads reptiles too.

“I did connect with a snake that had run away,” Okimoto recalled. “And I knew that it was in the person’s home hiding under the mattress, because I could see that there was a rip in the mattress lining and I could see what the roommate’s bedroom looked like. And I’m like, ‘I know he’s in there. I just don’t know how to get him to come out...' I don’t talk to too many snakes. So that was surprising."

Levity aside, Becerra and Mendieta seemed genuinely pleased with Bishon the poodle’s reading. They had suspected he always wanted to be a show dog. With Okimoto’s help, now they feel like they know for sure.

“It’s always nice to hear that I’ve shed some light on a pet’s health and happiness,” Okimoto said.

It was the end of an era for a sign of the times.

On a rainy March day in 1999, a 70-foot billboard perched at the doorstep of the Sunset Strip was taken down and trucked away. That spot on Sunset Boulevard and Marmont Lane had long been the home of the rough-hewn, lasso-toting Marlboro Man — so much a fixture it became part of the glitz and glam of L.A.

"It was such an iconic ad — such a tall billboard with this very handsome image up there," said John Heilman, current and then-mayor of West Hollywood. "Right there by the Chateau Marmont and near a lot of music venues that we have up on Sunset."

Billboards along the Sunset Strip, including one for Marlboro, in December 1985.

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That's how I came to know about these larger-than-life Marlboro billboards, going to the Roxy and the Whiskey to see shows, and to the Sunset Tower Records for music in the 1990s. I didn't know it at the time, the image apparently changed every couple of years, but the vibe was so consistent it felt like one, long seamless spell.

 "When you came in on Sunset, that is what you saw," said Neil Ford, head of sales for central U.S. and the West Coast at Big Happy, a digital and mobile ad agency based in Chicago. "It really captured what out-of-home [advertisement] was at that moment, what it meant."

The Marlboro billboard on Sunset Boulevard.

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Elisa Leonelli

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Ford said the campaign was groundbreaking — advertising at its most effective.

"You think about that image of the Marlboro Man. It was a different size, it had presence and it captured your attention," Ford said.

It was a gamechanger for Philip Morris. Sales for Marlboro hit $5 million in 1955, a more than 3,000%  increase a year after its debut.

In other words, it attracted more smokers.

 "It was obvious that the image of the rugged Marlboro Man encouraged generations of men to smoke," said Paul Koretz, a former West Hollywood council member who was at the sign on that March day to celebrate its fall.

The total pivot

Hypermasculinity aside, Marlboro was originally marketed to women as a luxury brand peddling a mild flavor when it was introduced in the 1920s.

The pivot came three decades later, when the company was looking for a way to sell men on filtered cigarettes, long considered effeminate and less flavorful.

Enter Chicago ad man Leo Burnett, who engineered what many consider one of the greatest brand reinventions of all time by creating a new series of mascots — not just butch cowboys, but tough-as-nail sailors, hunters, businessmen, sportsmen, writers.

At the end, the cowboy won out, becoming the brand's reigning Marlboro Man.

" They brought this masculine symbol — image, visual — and really re-created what Marlboro as a brand meant," Ford said. "And it just was one image, there was very little copy. It had the logo on it. It was its own creation at the time."

The campaign propelled Marlboro to the top of the domestic industry by the 1970s, even as the toll on public health from the use of tobacco products racked up.

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that some 480,000 people in the U.S. die every year from cigarette smoking, including exposure to second-hand smoke. At least four actors who portrayed Marlboro Man died from smoking-related diseases.

In 1971, the U.S. banned cigarette advertising on television and radio. Brands then shifted to other mediums, in particular billboards.

The Sunset Strip

A street view looking west from the northern side of Sunset Boulevard near Chateau Marmont at night. In the background is the billboard for Marlboro.

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The 1.7-mile stretch of Sunset Strip in West Hollywood has never been a stranger to grabby billboards. In fact, it was where the medium became art.

"It's always been known for very creative advertising," Heilman, West Hollywood’s mayor, said.

Its golden era was arguably the 1970s, when giant, hand-painted rock ‘n’ roll signs lined the Strip, a veritable checklist of who’s who in the music world.

Various billboards on the Sunset Strip and Horn Avenue during a full moon in June 1980.

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The phenomenon started in 1967, with Elektra Records taking out a billboard to promote the debut album of a little-known local band called The Doors.

Two years later, The Beatles’ "Abbey Road" appeared, followed by Led Zeppelin, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen.

The era came to a close in the 1980s with the advent of MTV, which changed the playbook of music marketing, says photographer Robert Landau in his book, Rock 'n' Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip.

"Other types of billboards focusing on the entertainment industry were very popular," Heilman said. "A lot of the new movie releases, new album releases, new product releases."

And the Marlboro Man stood amid this hit parade in one of the most commanding spots on The Strip since at least the late 1970s.

"As I recall, at one point they actually had steam coming out of it to simulate smoke," said Heilman, who has lived in West Hollywood for more than four decades.

Night view of large billboards along Sunset Strip circa 1980.

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Roy Hankey

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Los Angeles Photographers Photo Collection / LAPL

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Billboard ads along Sunset Strip in November 1985.

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Paul Chinn

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Los Angeles Herald Examiner Photo Collection / LAPL

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The billboard predates the incorporation of West Hollywood as a city in 1984. Helping to lead the cityhood efforts was Koretz, who went on to become a City Council member for West Hollywood before serving on the state Assembly and the Los Angeles City Council.

"I actually lived near the Sunset Strip, so I thought about it every time I drove by," he said of the Marlboro Man ad. "It was one of the most effective symbols of tobacco marketing."

Both his parents, Koretz said, were heavy lifelong smokers who died from the addiction.  As a lawmaker, Koretz led a number of anti-smoking efforts, including a smoking ban in restaurants in West Hollywood — as well as a near total ban on tobacco advertising in the city.

Large billboard of the Marlboro Man, located on the Sunset Strip at Marmont Lane in West Hollywood, circa 1985.

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That ban was passed in the final months of 1998, just before a settlement agreement between the nation's biggest tobacco companies, including Philip Morris, and dozens of state attorneys general. The $206 billion deal settled lawsuits filed by the states to recoup health care costs for smoking-related illnesses. It also banned youth marketing, as well as outdoor advertising.

As a result, Los Angeles's most famous Marlboro Man stepped down on March 10, 1999 — about a month before the official removal deadline.

That day, Koretz held a news conference to send the sign off. He said not everyone was happy to see the landmark go. But the ban, among a slew of other anti-smoking policies, have made an impact.

Last year, the American Cancer Society reported cigarette smoking among U.S. adults dropped from  42% in 1965 to 11% in 2023.

" It was always controversial. There are always people that didn't like it," Koretz said of the billboard ban. "This is largely a success story."

Shortly after, a new billboard went up in the place of the Marlboro Man on Sunset.

It was still a cowboy, looking eerily similar to its fallen predecessor, but with a limp cigarette hanging from his mouth.

Instead of Marlboro, it read, "Impotent."

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen were ensconced in the Orion space capsule when they dropped into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego at 8:07 p.m. Friday. The USS John P. Murtha is stationed near the splashdown zone to help recover the crew.

The USS John P. Murtha is stationed near the splashdown zone and will help recover the crew. A team will head out to the floating capsule and install an inflatable raft just below Orion's side hatch. The crew will be examined by a flight surgeon, then helped out of the capsule. From the transport ship, they will hitch a ride back to Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Risk of reentry

There's always risk when returning from space. Glover said that he has been thinking about this portion of the mission since he was selected for it back in 2023, and he's been looking forward to it ever since.

"We have to get back," he said from the Orion capsule Wednesday. "There's so much data that you've seen already, but all the good stuff is coming back with us. There's so many more pictures, so many more stories, and, gosh, I haven't even begun to process what we've been through."

To get back, the capsule must hit the atmosphere at a precise angle.

"Let's not beat around the bush," said Jeff Radigan, Artemis II's lead flight director. "We have to hit that angle correctly. Otherwise, we're not going to have a successful reentry."

All eyes will be on the heat shield — this is the piece of hardware beneath the capsule that protects the crew from the extreme temperatures during reentry. NASA tested it out on Artemis I, the previous, uncrewed mission, and found that the heat shield wasn't performing as designed.

NASA mission planners and the Artemis II team worked on a way to mitigate that risk. Instead of "skipping" through the atmosphere like Artemis I, this mission would hit the atmosphere steeper and faster, limiting the time the spacecraft spends in those fiery, energetic moments of reentry.

"It's 13 minutes of things that have to go right," said Radigan. "I have a whole checklist in my head that we're going through of all the things that have to happen."

Mission success

The Artemis II mission is a key flight test for Orion, and thus far, mission managers have been pleased with the results. The spacecraft has taken humans farther from Earth than they've ever been, breaking a record set by Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970.

The crew tested the manual control of the spacecraft, which will be needed for future missions that will dock with a lunar landing system. The mission tested the spacecraft's life support systems and ability to keep four astronauts comfortable within the confined space.

Artemis II returned humans to the moon for the first time since the Apollo program over 50 years ago. And while some astronauts back then did see the far side of the moon, the Artemis II crew was able to observe it from a vantage point never before seen by humans. Their images and geological notes will help better determine what the moon is made of and where it came from.

While some of the astronauts' observations may help scientists understand the distant past, others will help mission managers better plan for the future. Case in point: The crew tested out the very first toilet to go to the moon, and it quickly ran into issues during flight. Multiple times during the trip, the crew had to use manual urinals instead. The issue, NASA said, was not with the toilet itself, but the system that dumps the urine overboard when it gets full.

The Orion capsule will return to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida after the mission, where engineers will examine the spacecraft after its flight, including a closer look at the spacecraft's plumbing. The team will be picking apart the spacecraft to see how it performed — and make any necessary changes ahead of the next mission, Artemis III, set to launch next year.