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
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LAist
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Topline:
The longtime partner — and now wife — of Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do's top aide was hired by a nonprofit to carry out a $275,000 mental health contract funded by the county, but the work was never completed, a county spokesperson confirmed to LAist. Supervisor Do told the nonprofit to hire the woman, Josie Batres, to do the work, according to multiple people briefed on the contract.
What was the contract for? The work was intended to advise the county on how to increase access to publicly funded mental health services. The contract called for carrying out a series of monthly listening sessions in the community, and providing quarterly updates, an annual report and a final report to the Health Care Agency.
What we know about what happened: A county spokesperson told LAist they had received none of the work required under the contract, including the reports. Public records show — and the spokesperson confirmed — that all the money was paid out.
It's unclear how many of the listening sessions were carried out. Mind OC said they found a single report connected to the contract, but didn't know whether any work had been turned over to the county.
The longtime partner — and now wife — of Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do's top aide was hired by a nonprofit to carry out a $275,000 mental health contract funded by the county, but the work was never completed, a county spokesperson confirmed to LAist.
Supervisor Do told the nonprofit to hire the woman, Josie Batres, to do the work, according to multiple people briefed on the contract.
At the time, Batres was the longtime girlfriend of Chris Wangsaporn, Supervisor Do's chief of staff. The two were married in December 2021, a year into the two-year contract.
The contract required the nonprofit, Mind OC, to run community listening sessions and submit reports to help the county increase access to publicly-funded mental health services, especially among non-English speakers, foster youth, and other underrepresented communities. The people who spoke with LAist about Do's alleged directive did so on the condition they not be named, saying it could compromise their careers.
Neither Batres nor Wangsaporn responded to multiple requests for comment about the contract. Do did not respond to a voicemail left on his cell phone. Reached by phone, Do's attorney, Paul Meyer, acknowledged receiving a list of questions about the contract from LAist and said he could not talk.
The contract was issued to Mind OC, without competitive bidding, by Clayton Chau, the county Health Care Agency director at the time, according to the agency’s spokesperson. Chau told LAist he didn't remember the contract or any related directive from Do.
In a phone interview, Frank Kim, who was then the county's CEO and supervised the Health Care Agency director and other county executives, also said he did not remember the contract or any related directive from Do.
"If it happened, I'm not aware of that," he said.
He added that Do was closely involved in efforts to improve mental and behavioral health care and had frequent communication with county officials about the county’s programs.
“Supervisor Do had strong opinions,” Kim said. “Did he exert influence? Sure, he was a supervisor."
Jeff Nagel, the county's behavioral health chief, oversaw the contract for the county. He was deeply troubled to learn several months into the contract that Do directed that Batres be hired for the work, according to several people familiar with the situation.
Nagel left the agency in January 2022. He declined an interview for this story.
Marshall Moncrief, who was Mind OC’s CEO at the time of the county contract and now works elsewhere, didn’t respond to multiple phone and text messages for comment.
In a statement to LAist, Mind OC’s current CEO Phil Franks, who was hired after the contract ended, said he had no knowledge of a directive from Supervisor Do to hire Batres.
Ellen Guevara, a spokesperson for the O.C. Health Care Agency, told LAist the agency never received the work required in the contract. That work was supposed to include quarterly updates, an annual report and a final report.
Franks, Mind OC’s CEO, told LAist in a statement that the organization found a single report from Batres' home-based HR consulting firm TalentGate related to the contract, but didn't know whether it or any other related work had been turned over to the county. He didn't respond to a request from LAist for a copy of the report.
It's unclear whether payments went to Batres or TalentGate. Guevara said Mind OC hired Batres as their employee for the contract; Mind OC told LAist it subcontracted with TalentGate to fulfill it.
LAist made multiple requests for documentation of the hiring to the Health Care Agency and Mind OC but has yet to receive any.
The details of what happened
The $275,000 in taxpayer money was paid out to Mind OC over two years in six installments, according to county records.
Multiple people briefed on the contract told LAist that Supervisor Do directed the O.C. Health Care Agency to award the contract to Mind OC, and told Mind OC to hire Batres to do the work.
Josie Batres was hired by the nonprofit Mind OC to carry out a $275,000 mental health contract funded by the county, according to a county spokesperson.
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The contract is one of several LAist has uncovered over the past year in which Orange County taxpayer funds went to people close to Do 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.
LAist has reported that Supervisor Do directed more than $13 million in taxpayer funds to a nonprofit where his daughter Rhiannon Do held top leadership positions, most of it awarded outside public view, according to county records. Supervisor Do didn’t disclose his family relationship, and county officials say the group has refused to account for what happened with most of the money.
In August, county officials sued Rhiannon Do and others connected to the nonprofit, Viet America Society (VAS), for civil fraud, alleging they “brazenly plundered” millions in public funds for home purchases and renovations, and made “voluminous, unaccounted for ATM cash withdrawals.” Last month, Supervisor Do was publicly condemned by his colleagues on the O.C. Board of Supervisors through a censure. He’s facing multiple calls to resign, including from fellow Republican elected officials. He has not attended board meetings since his home — and homes owned by Rhiannon Do and others with ties to Viet America Society — were searched by federal agents on Aug. 22.
Rhiannon Do, a UCI law student, previously told LAist in April that she worked hard to buy the house and has done nothing wrong.
The contract was awarded without going on a public meeting agenda for a vote by the full Board of Supervisors.
Instead, it was awarded by Chau under COVID emergency contracting authority the board established during the pandemic, according to the county’s contracts database and Guevara, the county Health Care Agency spokesperson. The contract itself doesn’t say it’s related to COVID or the pandemic — nor was there a memo explaining why it was issued through emergency authority, as other contracts issued that way did at the time.
The contract was authorized by Chau, the then-director of the Health Care Agency and county health officer, according to Guevara. Chau told LAist that since the contract was small, it was unlikely to have been something he followed closely.
He added later via text message that his primary concern at the time was responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. "I had to rely on my department head to do their job on small contracts," he wrote.
In business filings with the state, Batres is listed as the CEO, CFO and secretary of TalentGate, the company Mind OC hired to fulfill the contract. TalentGate’s city business license listed it as a “home office for human resource consulting” located in San Gabriel at the time of the contract. Batres and Wangsaporn lived at the company’s address at the time they were married in late 2021, according to their marriage certificate.
TalentGate's LinkedIn profile says it’s a human resources company that addresses “organizational bottlenecks across the employee lifecycle.” Mental health is not listed in the "specialties" section of the company profile.
The county Health Care Agency says it never received the required reports detailing the results of the contract work. Guevara, the agency’s spokesperson, told LAist in an email that the county’s behavioral health team does not know whether the listening sessions were carried out and has no records showing how the money was spent.
“The funds were paid to [Mind OC],” Guevara wrote. “No details on what [Mind OC] did after that.”
She said the $275,000 was funded by the Mental Health Services Act, a voter-approved tax that’s meant to pay for mental health services, including treatment and prevention.
Pandemic contracting rules
In most cases, government contracts are subject to competitive bidding. Before the pandemic, county rules required a vote from the O.C. Board of Supervisors for all non-competitive service contracts (also called “no-bid” contracts) above $75,000 per year.
But starting in March 2020 the board waived this and other rules for awarding contracts, in order to fast-track hiring vendors for “services related to the COVID-19 Emergency.” Instead, for about the first year of the pandemic, county staff were allowed to award large contracts outside public view. In some cases that was done in response to requests by individual supervisors.
The state has passed several reform laws in recent months inspired by LAist's investigation into millions in COVID funds awarded by Supervisor Do to Viet America Society with little oversight and no public disclosure of family ties.
The full O.C. Board of Supervisors must now take a public vote before awarding district discretionary funds to a nonprofit or community group, and the details of the agreements must be posted online.
Statewide, it will become a crime starting in January 2026 for elected officials to be involved in awarding government contracts to organizations if they know their adult child is an officer or director of the vendor, or if their adult child has at least 10% ownership.
Statewide, starting this coming January, all county supervisors will have to disclose any family ties to a nonprofit’s employees or officers before awarding public funds to the group.
The O.C. Board of Supervisors also directed its internal auditor to review all county contracts to ensure oversight and compliance, including those funded by federal COVID dollars. The auditor's report is due before the end of the year.
Payments from Viet America Society to Batres
Federal tax filings for Viet America Society — the nonprofit accused of fraud by the county — show it paid $40,000 to a company named "TalenGate" in 2020, based at the same home address as Batres’ company TalentGate. It was the organization's highest paid independent contractor that year, receiving $40,000, according to LAist's review of a VAS public tax filing.
That year, Viet America Society 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 also is suing Hand to Hand for alleged fraud in diverting those taxpayer funds in 2020, which Supervisor Do also had awarded.
The following year, VAS’ public tax filing shows it paid "TalenGate" another $10,000, while VAS’ financial ledger it filed with the county shows it paid the same amount to Batres herself in January 2021.
Reached by phone in April and this month, Batres declined to answer LAist’s questions about what the payments were for. VAS’ attorney, Mark Rosen, told LAist last week that he could not answer questions about them. The tax filings list the payments as being for “PUBLIC RELATION.” No further detail was provided.
Relationship between Chau and Mind OC
Chau worked as a high-level executive at Mind OC before he took over the county health agency in May 2020, according to a county news release about his hiring. Mind OC's public tax filing shows it paid Chau $133,000 that year for that work — the same year the agency awarded the no-bid contract at issue to Mind OC.
Mind OC has faced recent troubles in its relationships with the county and O.C. cities.
In August, the county abruptly canceled a major contractwith the group to manage 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. 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.
In a joint statement, the county and Mind OC said the decision was "based on an ever-evolving public, private partnership model."
Additionally, two cities, Newport Beach and Anaheim, recently canceled their contracts with Mind OC to provide mobile mental health crisis response to residents. Newport Beach City Councilmember Lauren Kleiman told LAist the service hadn't been effective in getting unhoused people with mental health problems off the streets.
"Given the voluntary nature of street outreach, the data over the past year did not demonstrate their ability to produce street exits in a way that justified the use of taxpayer funds to extend the contract," Kleiman wrote in an email to LAist in late August.
When asked about Anaheim ending the contract in September, Mind OC CEO Franks told LAist in a statement that the organization and the city had mutually agreed to sunset their agreement. A spokesperson for Anaheim said the city no longer needed the services.
Supervisor Do’s ties to Mind OC
Mind OC was formed in 2018 to coordinate a public-private network of mental health providers and resources known collectively as Be Well OC. The concept arose, in part, from a Board of Supervisors ad hoc mental health committee formed in 2015 and run by Supervisor Do and then-Supervisor Lisa Bartlett. At the time Mind OC was created, the county was under fire for failing to spend state funds allocated for mental health services, and for the severe shortage of psychiatric care available to residents.
Supervisor Do has been a consistent champion of Mind OC and Be Well. In a video posted earlier this year to his YouTube channel, Supervisor Do dates the origin of Be Well to a meeting seven years ago between himself, county health care leaders, and Dr. Richard Afable, a former Hoag Hospital CEO who has been Mind OC’s board president since the group was formed in 2018.
O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do (left) and Dr. Richard Afable, the president of the Mind OC board of directors, speak in a 2024 video about the Be Well campus under construction in Irvine.
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O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do's YouTube page
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The highly produced video features Supervisor Do and Afable — in hard hats and bright yellow vests — signing beams at the construction site of a planned Be Well campus in Irvine. Do and other supervisors have awarded the organization at least $40 million in public funds to build that second campus.
Afable did not respond to a request for comment.
In May, the county signed an additional $95 million, three-year contract with Mind OC to run the Irvine campus, starting in January.
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.
If it seems like traffic is getting worse where you live, that's because it probably is. After dropping during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers say, congestion has equaled — and, in many places, surpassed — pre-pandemic levels.
From researchers: "We are back. But the delay kind of has a different feel to it than it did before," said David Schrank, a senior research scientist at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, which has tracked congestion since the 1980s in its annual Urban Mobility Report.
Record levels: For decades, Schrank says, those patterns barely budged. Then came 2020, when congestion plunged during the pandemic lockdown. Now it's back at record levels, he says, with the average American spending 63 hours per year stuck in traffic.
Read on... for more about this report on traffic congestion.
A few weeks ago, Taelyr Vecchione vented her growing frustration with traffic in San Diego.
"Do you remember when traffic started at, like, 5?" she said in this video posted on TikTok. Vecchione filmed herself sitting in her car, lamenting how things in her Southern California hometown have changed.
"Now," she says, "there is always traffic. Always!"
In fact, there is data to back her up on this. San Diego has seen a significant jump in traffic delays, researchers say, as congestion across the U.S. climbed to record levels in 2024.
If it seems like traffic is getting worse where you live, that's because it probably is. After dropping during the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers say, congestion has equaled — and, in many places, surpassed — pre-pandemic levels. And those delays are spreading to more times of day and more days of the week.
"We are back. But the delay kind of has a different feel to it than it did before," said David Schrank, a senior research scientist at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, which has tracked congestion since the 1980s in its annual Urban Mobility Report.
For decades, Schrank says, those patterns barely budged. Then came 2020, when congestion plunged during the pandemic lockdown. Now it's back at record levels, he says, with the average American spending 63 hours per year stuck in traffic.
There are some other notable differences from past years too. The rush-hour peaks are still the worst times to drive, Schrank says, but there's more congestion at other times of day as well.
"It's spread out over more of the day, and thus it's not just a commuter issue," Schrank said in an NPR interview. "Everyone is experiencing more of that delay."
Those aren't the only changes researchers are seeing in the data. Schrank says there's more delay on weekends. Traffic on Mondays tends to be noticeably lighter than on the other weekdays, he said, while Thursday has nearly caught up with Friday as the heaviest traffic day of the week.
"There's more variability day to day than there was pre-pandemic. The day of the week matters, and the time of the day matters," Schrank said.
Trucks are causing more congestion as well, according to the Texas A&M report. While some truck traffic shifted toward off-peak hours during 2020 and 2021, the most recent data shows that truck-related delays during rush hour are climbing back toward their pre-pandemic level.
Schrank and his colleagues ranked every metropolitan area in the U.S. by hours of traffic delay. San Diego saw the largest percentage jump in hours of delay per commuter since 2019, at more than 37%. Miami, Phoenix and the San Francisco Bay Area saw significant jumps too.
But no city caught up to Greater Los Angeles, where the average commuter lost 137 hours to delays last year, according to the Texas A&M report.
Traffic on Interstate 210 during the morning commute in Pasadena, Calif., this month. Researchers say the average driver in Los Angeles lost 137 hours to traffic delays in 2024, the most of any U.S. city.
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Mario Tama
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That came as no great surprise to Michael Manville, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. He warns against reading too much into the individual city rankings but says the overall findings make sense.
"Congestion moves largely in sync with broader patterns in regional economies. And so if you have the economy doing well, congestion tends to be worse. If you have a recession, it tends to be a little bit better," Manville said.
Researchers at Texas A&M also identified a few regions where congestion is down compared with before the pandemic — most notably, Washington, D.C. That could be linked to the persistence of remote work in the federal government in 2024. And it might also have something to do with regional efforts to fight congestion, including a tolling strategy known as dynamic pricing.
"If you're going to contribute to the excessive congestion during the peak and the evening rush hours perhaps, you're going to be paying more for the tolls," said Robert Puentes, a vice president and transportation expert at the Brookings Institution.
Puentes lives in Northern Virginia, which has adopted an extensive system of tolls on major highways that charge different prices at different times. And he says that this seems to help reduce congestion.
"It's something that really could be applicable in other metropolitan areas. We see places in Texas and California, in other places, that are using it. I think it has a real future in this country," Puentes said.
Another ambitious effort to fight congestion is happening in New York City, where car drivers now pay as much as $9 to enter Lower Manhattan.
That congestion pricing plan has already cut traffic in the toll zone since its launch in January. But it's still too early to say how much it's changing commuting patterns across the region.
Copyright 2025 NPR
This morning, FIFA will conduct the draw for the top men's soccer tournament, taking place across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. L.A. is one of the host cities.
Where and when: The draw — at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. — will determine which opponents all 48 teams participating in the World Cup will eventually face in the initial group stage.
What's next: LAist will have more on the teams playing in Los Angeles shortly after the announcements.
It's one of the most anticipated events ahead of the 2026 World Cup.
On Friday, FIFA will conduct the draw for the top men's soccer tournament, taking place across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The draw — at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. — will determine which opponents all 48 teams participating in the World Cup will eventually face in the initial group stage.
The draw will be attended by the three leaders of the countries hosting the event, including President Trump, in an event that has become quite the spectacle over the years.
Here's what to know about the draw for the World Cup, with the ceremony set to kick off at 9 a.m. PT.
What is the draw for?
Next year's tournament is the biggest ever, with 48 teams set to be split among 12 groups of four.
These groups make up the first stage of the tournament, which determines which teams advance to the knockout rounds. The top two sides of each group automatically qualify, along with the eight best third-place teams.
Not all teams that will take part in the 2026 World Cup are known, though. So far, 42 countries have qualified, with the remaining six — including Italy — set to compete in playoffs next March to determine the final list of participants.
How will the teams be drawn?
Ahead of the draw, all teams have been placed in four pots, primarily based on their most recent FIFA rankings.
Pot 1 will include top-ranked teams such as Spain and Brazil, along with the three hosts. Pot 4 will include the lowest-ranked teams, including World Cup debutants Cape Verde, Curaçao and Jordan, as well as placeholders for the six teams that have yet to qualify.
Teams will be drawn randomly from each pot — but there are a few rules.
There can be only up to two European teams per group and only one team per group from each of the remaining five continental confederations under FIFA. That means, for example, that an African team such as Tunisia cannot be drawn into the same group as Ghana, even if they are in two separate pots.
In addition, in a quirk for this year's tournament, FIFA has determined that the top two-ranked teams — Spain and Argentina — will be placed in groups that would end up on opposite sides of the tournament bracket should they each win their respective groups. That ensures these two early favorites would not meet until the final.
The same rule will apply to France and England, the third- and fourth-best ranked teams according to FIFA.
When will we know where teams will play?
In another quirk, teams will not know at Friday's draw where or when they will play. The locations and kickoff times for each team across all 16 host cities will be determined on Saturday, at a separate event.
FIFA has said it wants to try to take travel times for teams in mind, while also ensuring that teams are drawn into kickoff times that are more favorable for spectators in their respective countries. For example, evening start times would likely be better for Asian sides, ensuring games are taking place when it's roughly the following day for spectators back home.
Spain is considered one of the early favorites to win the 2026 World Cup. Pictured here is star player Lamine Yamal, celebrating a goal against France in the semifinal of the UEFA Euro 2024 tournament, which Spain eventually won.
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Does this all matter?
The draw helps determine how easy — or difficult — the path to the knockout rounds will be for most teams.
Just like in any tournament, all teams would prefer to face the ones they view as weaker and avoid being placed in the "Group of Death," the moniker given to the group perceived to be the most difficult in a tournament.
"You don't want to be one of these heroes — like, 'give me the best,'" says Herculez Gomez, who played for the U.S. in the 2010 World Cup and now hosts the Men in Blazers podcast Vamos."That's not how it works. Even the best don't want the best at the World Cup."
But World Cups are unpredictable. Strong soccer powerhouses have failed to advance past the World Cup's group stage before, including Germany in 2018 and 2022, and Spain in 2014.
That said, this year's tournament is bigger. Even finishing third in a four-team group can ensure qualification, although where each team ends up within its group will determine its path through the knockout rounds.
Which are the early favorites and the teams to watch?
Predictably, among the early favorites are recent global soccer powerhouses such as Spain, England and France, along with South American teams, such as Argentina and Brazil.
But there will be interesting storylines to watch outside the favorites, including Curaçao, which became the smallest country to qualify for the World Cup, with a population of just over 150,000 people.
And, of course, there will be enormous interest in which teams the three hosts will end up facing in their respective groups.
The U.S. men's national team, for example, is approaching the World Cup draw with some momentum after staying undefeated in the past five games. Its most recent record marks a big improvement after a rocky period under coach Mauricio Pochettino and previous coach Gregg Berhalter, which included an early exit from last year's Copa America regional tournament.
NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan contributed to this report. Copyright 2025 NPR
Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at Google’s San Francisco office about a joint effort with major tech companies.
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Tayfun Coskun
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Topline:
Gov. Gavin Newsom is a longtime ally of the tech industry. Asked about its leaders’ rightward shift, he downplayed the moves while still offering some criticism.
Why now: His comments at a New York Times finance summit underscored the governor’s balancing act with the tech industry, even as his relationship with its major businesses has been strained by President Donald Trump this year.
The backstory: While Newsom has signed some bills, particularly ones in which advocates negotiated with tech companies, he’s also vetoed several out of concern that overregulating a nascent industry would drive it out of state. And he’s vehemently opposing a proposed wealth tax that would undoubtedly touch tech executives.
Read on ... for more on Newsom and tech industry.
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
Despite watching one after another of his state’s tech titans head to the White House to seek President Donald Trump’s favor, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday he doesn’t begrudge the industry’s rightward swing — mostly.
“It’s very situational with a lot of these guys,” he said when asked about tech businessmen going to “the other side.” “They are and they aren’t. … I don’t see it as as big a shift as perhaps others do.”
His comments at a New York Times finance summit underscored the governor’s balancing act with the tech industry, even as his relationship with its major businesses has been strained by Trump this year. Though he has excoriated law firms and universities for “selling out” to Trump administration demands this year — even threatening to pull state funding from California universities that sign certain agreements with the president — Newsom has walked a finer line when it comes to tech.
“I think it’s a little bit more, I don’t want to say the word transactional, but it’s fiduciary,” he said of tech leaders’ decisions to curry favor with Trump.
Newsom, who was San Francisco mayor in the 2000s, has long been close with tech leaders. As governor, he counts on the industry’s outsized gains to keep a massive state budget balanced. As a possible 2028 presidential contender, he could find Silicon Valley’s deep-pocketed donors helpful.
The relationship has made Newsom a reliable politician in the industry’s corner as lawmakers in his own party increasingly push for regulations on social media and its effects on children, data centers’ use of environmental resources and artificial intelligence’s proliferation into workplaces, adolescent relationships and daily life.
While Newsom has signed some of those bills, particularly ones in which advocates negotiated with tech companies, he’s also vetoed several out of concern that overregulating a nascent industry would drive it out of state. And he’s vehemently opposing a proposed wealth tax that would undoubtedly touch tech executives.
Tech titans cozy up to Trump
That’s been the case this year despite Silicon Valley’s increasing coziness with Trump, whom Newsom has criticized for threatening industries with tariffs to extract concessions and demanding loyalty from private business executives. The relationship has affected California in a number of ways, from Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s aggressive pursuit of federal firings and cost-cuttings earlier this year to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff’s suggestion that Trump send the National Guard to San Francisco, precipitating a nervous few days in October as the president moved to start immigration raids there. Benioff later walked back his statements and Trump said he relented after talking with him and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
Peter Leroe-Muñoz, a senior vice president at the industry group Bay Area Council, praised Newsom for nevertheless understanding “the value of the innovation our member companies produce.”
“While the governor may not always agree with innovation companies and how they choose to operate or conduct themselves, at the end of the day the governor recognizes that we all have a stake in the success of California and so not cutting off ties or undermining those industry players is in the long term success of the Golden State,” Leroe-Muñoz said last month.
There needs to be levels of ethics that are demanded of these leaders.
— Gov. Gavin Newsom, referring to tech leaders who make deals with Trump
Still, Newsom offered some criticism of the industry’s relationship with Trump on Wednesday, calling it “self-dealing” that the president’s AI and crypto czar David Sacks, along with many other investors and chipmakers, have reportedly been in line to profit from Trump’s AI directives.
“There needs to be levels of ethics that are demanded of these leaders,” he said. “That entire ecosystem has benefited from it. California has benefited from it. But I do not think it’s healthy for capitalism.”
And he called Apple CEO Tim Cook’s ability to strike a deal with Trump to get tariff exemptions for critical parts of the iPhone supply chain “by definition, crony capitalism.”
“How about the farmers and ranchers in California, how about all the small businesses that can’t pick up the phone and get an exemption on their tariffs?” Newsom said. “It breaks my heart.”
But he acknowledged Cook was serving his shareholders: “Do I begrudge that? Yes. Do I begrudge him? Not as much.”
Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler in "Stranger Things: Season 5."
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Courtesy Netflix
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Topline:
Part one of the last season of Stranger Things is out now. From demogorgons atop a driving truck to a made up decibel systems device, special effects designer Shane Dzicek says the hands-on aspect of practical effects will keep his industry alive.
The context: Beyond Stranger Things, Dzicek worked on the Faztalker device in the most recent Five Nights at Freddy’s film, the jets on Top Gun: Maverick and the Roomba-esque vacuum cleaner shoes in Hocus Pocus 2.
Read on… to hear what props Dzicek designed and his thoughts about the SFX industry.
From demogorgons clasping onto a white truck to a decibel reader device, much of the props in Stranger Things were designed with the intention to feel vintage and authentic.
Much of that is thanks to Shane Dzicek, a special effects designer based out of Burbank. Beyond Stranger Things, Dzicek worked on the Faztalker device in the most recent Five Nights at Freddy’s film, the jets on Top Gun: Maverick and the Roomba-esque vacuum cleaner shoes in Hocus Pocus 2.
LAist’s Julia Paskin talked with Dzicek about working on this latest season of Stranger Things and what it’s like to design special effects in the age of AI.
The process of designing the props in “Stranger Things”
Julia Paskin: What can you share on this date in terms of anything that you worked on in the new season?
Shane Dzicek: One of the things that I was excited to work on was a device that Steve actually has in the squawk van. It's this great device that counts from zero to 99.
I put in an alpha numerical display. Back in the ‘80s, they might have used different tech…And the original one weighed like 35, 40 pounds. So I hollowed the ones that we remade from scratch. So that way, Steve [Harrington] could have this thing with him and not have to worry about the weight.
A screengrab from the "Stranger Things" season 5 trailer. Special effects designer Shane Dzicek created the decibel system device to the right of Joe Keery's character Steve Harrington.
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Courtesy of Netflix
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Julia Paskin: In the trailer, there's the truck with demogorgons on top of it. And you did some work on that. Can you tell us about that as well?
Shane Dzicek: Murray [Bauman] was driving the truck. [The actors inside] need to be able to act. They need to have cameras right there, so you can't always have this all strapped on a big truck or on a process trailer moving down the road. So we built rigs that we can move the trucks around [and] be able to do any type of heavy riding, if there's big bumps they gotta go over, if you gotta move and flip the truck over any of that type.
A screengrab from the trailer for "Stranger Things" Season 5. Special effects designer Shane Dzicek rigged the truck to withstand heavy riding.
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Courtesy Netflix
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The impact of AI on the SFX industry
Two years ago, actors and writers in Hollywood went on strike, demanding protections from AI in TV and film writing. Last year, those same fears creeped into labor negotiations between the Animation Guild and studios and streaming companies, with the Guild calling generative AI a top concern.
But when it comes to special effects, Dzicek is optimistic about his field withstanding AI’s threats to job security.
Julia Paskin: Are you dealing with the same kind of AI anxiety that other industries are fearful of, including myself?
Shane Dzicek: [AI] is a powerful tool. I'll probably end up seeing directors and producers and creative people that might be using it as references, being like: "Hey, I AI generated a thing now. I need you to make this come to life and be physical and practical." So I don't see AI necessarily taking that practical part of making this a real thing. That takes a lot of just ingenuity and years of education on how to fabricate and build things and bring all these elements together to create a working prop.
The other thing is you gotta train AI on the knowledge that we have. And [this] kind of knowledge is all handed by word of mouth. It's not written down anywhere. So good luck trying to protect that. Good luck trying to get the information out of all of us.
These excerpts have been condensed and edited for clarity. Watch the full interview below.
