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.
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Warner Bros. Discovery announced Thursday that it would accept Paramount Skydance's takeover bid. Paramount Skydance Chairman and CEO David Ellison is relying largely on the financial backing of his father, Larry Ellison — the co-founder of software giant Oracle, the lead investor in TikTok US, and one of the richest people on the planet.
Friendly ties to Trump: The Ellisons have staged what appears to be a lightning-swift ascent through social and legacy media relying heavily on their connection to the Oval Office. Behind the scenes — and sometimes in not-so-hidden ways — the Ellisons have become cozy with President Trump. Larry Ellison is a backer and adviser. On Tuesday night, David Ellison attended Trump's State of the Union address as a guest of the president's ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican. Graham tweeted out a photo of the two men making Trump's signature "thumbs-up" gesture ahead of the speech. The president has said he wants new owners for CNN — which he has blasted repeatedly as "fake news" — and has proven willing to interfere in corporate matters in his return to the White House.
What's next: The deal still hinges on acceptance from antitrust regulators in Washington and Europe, who can seek to block the transaction. California's attorney general made clear Thursday night he would also give the acquisition tough scrutiny. "If a merger substantially reduces competition in any market, it's illegal. Courts sort of take that literally," says University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner, who held a senior antitrust position in the U.S. Justice Department under former President Joe Biden. "But in practice, the Justice Department has discretion on whether to challenge these mergers," Posner tells NPR. "And the courts have discretion on whether to block them."
Warner Bros. Discovery's blockbuster announcement Thursday that it would accept Paramount Skydance's takeover bid shouldn't be thought of simply as seeking to unify two major Hollywood players, two big streaming platforms and two leading TV news divisions under one roof.
It is certainly that. The nearly $111 billion Paramount-Warner marriage would unite their studios — and their back catalogue of shows and movies. It would add such franchises as D.C. Comics, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones to Paramount's Top Gun, Mission Impossible and Star Trek powerhouse. Paramount+ and HBO Max. CBS and CNN.
But there's more to it.
Paramount Skydance Chairman and CEO David Ellison is relying largely on the financial backing of his father, Larry Ellison — the co-founder of software giant Oracle, the lead investor in TikTok US, and one of the richest people on the planet.
The Ellisons have staged what appears to be a lightning-swift ascent through social and legacy media relying heavily on their connection to the Oval Office.
Should the Ellisons receive a green light from regulators to proceed with the deal, the minnow will have swallowed the whale. Warner currently has more than five times the market value of Paramount.
That's on top of acquiring Paramount itself and a major stake in TikTok US — all in less than a year. And that's in addition to Oracle, which runs much of the digital backbone of the nation's commerce and government.
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, right, sits next to media mogul Rupert Murdoch as they listen to President Donald Trump speak in the Oval Office.
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"It's tech giants becoming media giants," argues Jon Klein, a former top executive at CNN and CBS News.
But history shows such mega-mergers often end in tears. The movie business is expensive. Cable television is highly profitable but in steep decline as viewers cut the cord. The combined company will be saddled with debt. So why would the Ellisons spend their billions this way?
David Ellison has sought to be a force in Hollywood for years. He helped to produce movies with Tom Cruise at his family's company Skydance Media. But for his father, Larry Ellison, it's about more than just making his son's very expensive dreams come true.
"Beyond any dollars that they can derive — it's the data about consumer habits, down to the specific identity," Klein says.
He says the push into artificial intelligence by Oracle creates a thirst for more insight into how people view news and entertainment and what products they buy online. The streaming channels and social media giant both offer greater and more granular information.
"That's the prism that you've got to look at this Paramount/WBD deal through," says Klein, co-founder of HANG Media, a Gen Z social video engagement platform. "Oracle... wants to be one of the major players in AI. That's what Oracle wants to get out of media."
The deal still hinges on acceptance from antitrust regulators in Washington and Europe, who can seek to block the transaction. California's attorney general made clear Thursday night he would also give the acquisition tough scrutiny.
"If a merger substantially reduces competition in any market, it's illegal. Courts sort of take that literally," says University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner, who held a senior antitrust position in the U.S. Justice Department under former President Joe Biden.
"But in practice, the Justice Department has discretion on whether to challenge these mergers," Posner tells NPR. "And the courts have discretion on whether to block them."
Friendly ties to Trump
President Donald Trump's Justice Department is a wild card. Last year, the department's then antitrust chief, Gail Slater, took an aggressive stance against Google in court. Last month, the Justice Department sued to block Hewlett Packard Enterprise's $14 billion acquisition of a wireless tech competitor. Slater resigned under duress this month, however.
The Federal Communications Commission is unlikely to intervene, as no broadcast licenses would change hands in the Paramount takeover of Warner. But its chair, Brendan Carr, may well advise the Justice Department and he has lauded David Ellison's moves at CBS.
Even before sweetening its offer this week, Paramount proclaimed its "confidence in the speed and certainty of regulatory approval for its transaction."
Publicly, it argues that such consolidation is needed to take on streaming giants, very much including Netflix but also Amazon Prime, Apple, Disney and YouTube.
Behind the scenes — and sometimes in not-so-hidden ways — the Ellisons have become cozy with President Trump. Larry Ellison is a backer and adviser.
On Tuesday night, David Ellison attended Trump's State of the Union address as a guest of the president's ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican. Graham tweeted out a photo of the two men making Trump's signature "thumbs-up" gesture ahead of the speech.
The president cares deeply about TV news. He has publicly said he wants new owners for CNN — which he has blasted repeatedly as "fake news" — and has proven willing to interfere in corporate matters in his return to the White House.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos departs the White House on Wednesday. Sarandos was there to discuss Netflix's bid for Warner Bros. just hours before Warner announced its preference for Paramount.
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Netflix chief Ted Sarandos met Thursday with administration officials at the White House — though notably not with Trump, according to an aide — in a last-gasp effort to salvage his company's competing bid. By the end of the night, Netflix had given up the fight.
The shadow cast over the process by the president has inspired sharp criticism of the path that Paramount and the Ellisons took to land the Warner deal.
"A handful of Trump-aligned billionaires are trying to seize control of what you watch and charge you whatever price they want," Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said in a statement. "With the cloud of corruption looming over Trump's Department of Justice, it'll be up to the American people to speak up and state attorneys general to enforce the law."
"It is not just the seemingly open corruption of this entire process that leaves me shaken," writes Jeffrey Blehar in the conservative National Review. "I am shaken by how little people will care."
Said Seth Stern, head of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, "Ellison will readily throw the First Amendment, CNN's reporters and HBO's filmmakers under the bus if they stand in the way of expanding his corporate empire and fattening his pockets."
CNN's future hangs in the balance
The Ellisons' acquisition of Paramount followed a similar path.
Last summer, the previous owners of Paramount announced the end of late night host Stephen Colbert's CBS show as they sought federal approval to sell the company to David Ellison.
While they cited economics, Colbert's was the top-rated late night show on network television — and he has been a lacerating satirist of the president. Colbert called the cancellation a "big fat bribe."
Ellison subsequently made additional pledges to the FCC's Carr to win support. Among them: he promised the cessation of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives throughout Paramount and the addition of an ombudsman to field complaints of ideological bias. He named the former head of a conservative think tank to that role.
Carr blessed the sale. He has since praised the shifts made at CBS News.
The question of what happens to CNN hovers prominently over the Warner sale. The network has undergone rounds of cuts under a series of owners seeking to reduce debt; Paramount would be its fourth corporate parent in under a decade.
Other elements are in play as well.
CBS's new editor in chief is Bari Weiss, founder of the center-right opinion and news site The Free Press. Ellison bought the site and added it to Paramount's portfolio.
Bari Weiss, CBS News' editor in chief, interviews conservative activist Erika Kirk in a CBS town hall event in December.
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Weiss has contended CBS and much of the rest of the media has been too reflexively hostile to conservatives and the president, and she's sought to revamp the newsroom.
CNN's Anderson Cooper, who has also served as a correspondent for CBS's 60 Minutes for two decades, recently announced that he would leave the show, citing the desire to spend time with his small children. Associates, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose internal network matters, say he was concerned about the approach that Weiss has taken at CBS.
She is considered likely to have a role over CNN as well, should the deal go through.
CNN CEO Mark Thompson urged colleagues to focus on their news coverage. "Despite all the speculation you've read during this process, I'd suggest that you don't jump to conclusions about the future until we know more," he wrote in a memo Thursday.
Perceived value beyond the bottom line
The deal David Ellison struck for Warner is valued at nearly $111 billion. The new company would carry substantial debts and have Saudi and Emirate backing. The profits are currently relatively modest.
Yet Klein contends larger motives are in play. Just look at Google, he says, which owns what many consider the dominant media company, YouTube.
"They want to know what you watch, and where you come from, and what you buy when you watch, and where you go after you buy, and what you post in the comments and what you like and love and all that," Klein says.
"And if you can combine that with your streaming content and your studio decisions and your marketing for all the content product you're creating," he adds, "you're in a very very powerful position."
The Serving Spoon has been an Inglewood cornerstone for four decades, dishing up grilled corn bread and fried turkey chops.
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Isaiah Murtaugh
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The LA Local
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Topline:
The Serving Spoon has been an Inglewood cornerstone for four decades, dishing up grilled corn bread and fried turkey chops. Now, though, the whole country is in on the secret.
More details: The breakfast and lunch spot on Centinela Avenue was announced Wednesday by the James Beard Foundation as one of six winners of the America’s Classics Award, an honor the foundation says goes to “timeless” local institutions. The foundation is also responsible for the James Beard Award, one of the nation’s top culinary honors.
Other winners: The Serving Spoon joins a pantheon of other L.A.-area eateries to win the classics award including Guelaguetza, Langer’s Deli and Philippe the Original.
The Serving Spoon has been an Inglewood cornerstone for four decades, dishing up grilled corn bread and fried turkey chops.
Now, though, the whole country is in on the secret.
The breakfast and lunch spot on Centinela Avenue was announced Wednesday by the James Beard Foundation as one of six winners of the America’s Classics Award, an honor the foundation says goes to “timeless” local institutions. The foundation is also responsible for the James Beard Award, one of the nation’s top culinary honors.
The Serving Spoon joins a pantheon of other L.A.-area eateries to win the classics award including Guelaguetza, Langer’s Deli and Philippe the Original.
Jessica Bane, part of the third generation to run the family-owned restaurant, said the honor is still sinking in, but that it validates decades of work. “It’s being done out of love,” Bane said.
The Serving Spoon has been an Inglewood cornerstone for four decades, dishing up grilled corn bread and fried turkey chops.
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Isaiah Murtaugh
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The LA Local
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The award announcement hailed The Serving Spoon as an “anchor” of L.A.’s Black community, run by staff who genuinely care for their customers.“The restaurant is cherished for its joyful hospitality and as a place where all can gather and feel at home,” the announcement read.
The Serving Spoon didn’t exactly need Beard recognition — the diner is often packed and already has pedigree as Snoop Dogg and Raphael Saadiq’s breakfast spot of choice in the 2000 Lucy Pearl song “You” — but Bane said the award takes the diner’s reputation national.“The recognition is beyond appreciated,” Bane said.
The Serving Spoon was founded in 1983 by Bane’s grandfather, Harold E. Sparks. He passed the restaurant down to Bane and her brother, Justin Johnson, through their parents.
The menu looks much the same as it did four decades ago, Bane said, though some of the dishes have been renamed for regulars.
During the Thursday lunch rush a day after the announcement, The Serving Spoon’s vinyl booths were packed, as usual. Bane oversaw the dining room while Johnson marshaled plates of fried catfish through the kitchen.
Tina and Kevin Jenkins waited for a table outside. The L.A. natives each have been coming to The Serving Spoon since childhood. They live in Lancaster now, but make sure to come back to the diner whenever they’re in town.
“It’s the atmosphere, our people, our music,” Tina Jenkins said.
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A cargo ship moves into its place as it docks at the Port of Long Beach in Long Beach, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025.
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Long Beach Post
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Topline:
Despite taxes on imports at levels not seen in a century, Long Beach’s seaport had a good year in 2025. And a decent January.
More details: Port officials said Wednesday they started the new year by leading the nation in trade, responsible for moving more than 847,000 shipping containers in January — 51% of the total cargo at the San Pedro Bay Complex, which it shares with neighboring Port of Los Angeles.
Why it matters: Many companies managed to avoid price increases last year in part by stockpiling inventory in the first half of the year to be sold through Christmas and the start of the year. As stock dwindles, many businesses might be less willing to eat the cost of a new set of tariffs.
Read on... for more about on the Long Beach Port.
Despite taxes on imports at levels not seen in a century, Long Beach’s seaport had a good year in 2025. And a decent January.
Port officials said Wednesday they started the new year by leading the nation in trade, responsible for moving more than 847,000 shipping containers in January — 51% of the total cargo at the San Pedro Bay Complex, which it shares with neighboring Port of Los Angeles.
In a call with reporters, Port CEO Noel Hacegaba said that despite a “fair share of doom and gloom” at the time, the seaport finished 2025 as its busiest year on record.
This comes days after President Donald Trump signed new, across-the-board tariffs on U.S. trading partners, and later added he would raise the tariffs to 15%. It’s a direct response to a recent Supreme Court decision that found his tariffs announced last April were unconstitutional.
The new tariffs would operate under a law that restricts them to 150 days, unless approved by Congress.
Asked to measure how much this will affect the seaport, traders, logistics companies and consumers, Hacegaba reiterated a word he has evoked heavily in the past 10 months: uncertainty.
“Our strong cargo volumes do not suggest we are not being affected by tariffs,” Hacegaba said, adding the Port saw a 13% decline in imports driven by major reductions in iron, steel, synthetic fibers, salt, sulfur and cement.
Economists are somewhat more confident, saying it would take nothing short of a national economic crisis to reverse the seaport’s fortunes. “Even if the market is affected, our standing at the Port of Long Beach, even compared to other ports, is strong,” said Laura Gonzalez, an economics professor at Cal State Long Beach.
But experts caution that the ruling will heap the most damage on businesses, especially smaller enterprises, as well as the average consumer who already bore the tariff’s costs last year.
Noel Hacegaba, CEO of the Port of Long Beach, held his first State of the Port in Long Beach on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026.
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Long Beach Post
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Tariffs added $1,700 in costs to the average U.S. household, as importers raised prices to offset higher import taxes — especially on clothes, shoes and electronics from China and other Southeast Asian nations.
Consumers, Gonzalez said, should budget over the next six months “for essentials.”
Priyaranjan Jha, an economics professor at UC Irvine, said historically trade policies since 2018 have shown that for every dollar of duty imposed, consumer prices rose by about 90 cents.
Even if tariffs are reduced or reversed, and pressure is relieved on importers, consumers shouldn’t expect lower sticker prices right away, he said. “Firms do not always reduce prices as quickly as they raise them, especially if contracts or inventories are involved.”
Richer San, a former banker and business owner in Long Beach, said he’s in regular talks with shops across the city’s historic Cambodia Town that have been crushed by the increased prices of imported ingredients.
“Most of these are family-owned businesses operating on very small profit margins,” he said, adding there is little to no margin to “absorb higher costs.”
Many companies managed to avoid price increases last year in part by stockpiling inventory in the first half of the year to be sold through Christmas and the start of the year. As stock dwindles, many businesses might be less willing to eat the cost of a new set of tariffs.
Marc Sullivan, president of Long Beach-based Global Trade and Customs, said his logistics company saw a brief boom last year in ordered goods, mostly medical equipment and pharmaceuticals.
But by June, orders dropped 35%, a trend that continues today. It’s forced him to freeze any new hiring in the past year and at least through the next six months as he waits for federal officials to settle on tariffs that will determine the cost of shipped goods.
“For the companies that I work with that are importing into the state here, it’s just ‘hold on and let’s see what happens,’” he said.
“I’d like to hire a salesperson to go out and chase new business, … but it’s just a bleak outlook,” he added.
In the interim, he’s received a steady flow of calls (that started “within minutes” of the ruling) from importers looking to claim refunds or recoup their tariff expenses. The U.S. Treasury had collected more than $140 billion from tariffs enacted under emergency powers, and the Supreme Court left the decision of how to appropriate the refund proceedings to lower courts.
His response: They might be stuck waiting for a while. “Customs doesn’t pay anything back quickly,” he said. “It could be a year before you ever see anything back to you.”
Sullivan said he knows of companies that spent upwards of $20,000 per shipment for months.
“They’re going to want that money to be able to reinvest it,” Sullivan said.
But some experts say that consumers, as well as small businesses, deserve a share of refunds.
“The importer may receive a refund even though consumers bore much of the cost,” Jha said. “Courts generally refund the statutory payer, not downstream buyers, but that opens the possibility of follow-on litigation. Small businesses that directly imported goods and paid tariffs should qualify for refunds.”
Erin Stone
is a reporter who covers climate and environmental issues in Southern California.
Published February 27, 2026 11:00 AM
This green sea turtle, nicknamed Porkchop, had to have her flipper amputated after being rescued by aquarium staff from a tangle of fishing line in the San Gabriel River. She has since recovered and will be released back to the wild soon.
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Erin Stone
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LAist
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Topline:
Porkchop, a three-flippered green sea turtle that was rescued nearly a year ago after becoming severely entangled in fishing line and debris in the San Gabriel River, was released back to the wild today.
A long turtle lineage: Dubbed “Porkchop” by aquarium staff due to her hefty appetite, the young female green sea turtle represents one of seven sea turtle species worldwide (six of which occur in U.S. waters). These animals have called our oceans home since at least the time of the dinosaurs — about 110 million years ago, according to NOAA.
Porkchop’s healing journey: Aquarium vets had to amputate Porkchop’s right front flipper after tangled fishing lines severely cut off her blood flow. She also had a fishing hook removed from her throat. First rescued after being spotted in the San Gabriel River by volunteers with the aquarium’s sea turtle monitoring program last March, her healing journey took nearly a year.
Keep reading...for more on Porkchop the sea turtle and her release back to the wild.
Topline:
Porkchop, a three-flippered green sea turtle that was rescued nearly a year ago after becoming severely entangled in fishing line and debris in the San Gabriel River, was released back to the wild Friday.
A long turtle lineage: Dubbed “Porkchop” by aquarium staff due to her hefty appetite, the young female green sea turtle represents one of seven sea turtle species worldwide (six of which occur in U.S. waters). These animals have called our oceans home since at least the time of the dinosaurs — about 110 million years ago, according to NOAA. All species of sea turtles found in the U.S. are listed as either endangered or threatened and are protected by the Endangered Species Act.
Porkchop’s healing journey: Aquarium vets had to amputate Porkchop’s right front flipper after tangled fishing lines severely cut off her blood flow. She also had a fishing hook removed from her throat. First rescued after being spotted in the San Gabriel River by volunteers with the aquarium’s sea turtle monitoring program last March, her healing journey took nearly a year. She now swims and eats as well as her four-flippered kin and after a final physical exam, blood sample and X-ray, vets determined she was ready to return to her wild roots. She also now has a microchip, so if she ends up stranded again, scientists will know it’s her.
An ambassador for conservation: Porkchop became the aquarium’s first public-facing ambassador for its expanded green sea turtle rescue efforts. A new holding tank, viewable by the public, doubles the aquarium’s capacity to rescue green sea turtles and provides firsthand education about their conservation efforts. The aquarium is currently caring for another larger and older female green sea turtle — she weighs more than 200 pounds — rescued from the San Gabriel River in January. She’ll be in the public viewing tank in the coming months when she’s recovered a bit more.
How to help local green sea turtles: Green sea turtle populations are actually doing quite well in the San Gabriel River, but trash, debris and pollution remains a big threat. If you fish the San Gabriel River, never litter fishing lines or hooks. If you see a stranded sea turtle in the San Gabriel River or elsewhere, call the West Coast Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Stranding Network’s hotline at (562) 506-4315. You can also donate to the aquarium’s rescue program.
