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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Screenshot via YouTube
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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.
Cato Hernández
reports on issues that impact daily life in Southern Californians, including the courts.
Published July 24, 2026 3:56 PM
The Stanley Mosk Courthouse
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Rich Fury
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Getty Images
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Topline:
Are L.A. County Superior Court judges setting higher bail for Latino defendants? Some court-watchers say yes, according to a new report.
What does it cover? Between January and November 2025, La Defensa’s Court Watch LA volunteers observed 140 random criminal cases that included felonies and misdemeanors.
What did they find? The report details multiple findings, including that defendants who appeared to be Latino had an average bail amount more than 15 times higher than white defendants.
How accurate is this? This is a sample from over 200,000 cases. It’s based on human observation, so the organizers acknowledged that there are gaps. But they’ve asked the court to share its own data, which they say they have not received.
Read on…. to see the L.A. County Superior Court’s response.
A criminal justice watchdog is calling into question whether Latinos in the L.A. County Superior Court get a fair shot at bail.
The new report from the nonprofit La Defensa, which advocates for reform in the legal system, analyzes a sample of pretrial decisions from 2025 which had been documented by community court-watching volunteers.
One of the key findings was that defendants who were perceived to be Latino had an average bail amount of $157,700 — more than 15 times higher than white defendants and nearly three times higher than Black defendants.
Studies show that inability to pay bail can affect defendants’ livelihoods and their ability to defend themselves, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.
“ Most families — no matter what they did, no matter what they sold — cannot actually purchase that person’s freedom to give them the fighting chance to go against the state,” Titilayọ Rasaki, La Defensa’s state policy and legal affairs director.
The L.A. County Superior Court says it’s following the law on bail requirements and that the findings are missing context because observation is limited.
How court-watching works
La Defensa’s Court Watch LA program is a community-led effort to document and hold the courts accountable. They train volunteers to go in and observe cases.
The volunteers take notes on the charges, the judge’s conduct and the person’s criminal history, if it comes up. That then gets analyzed against publicly available case information and state law. Programs like this exist in several other cities around the country.
For the latest report, La Defensa volunteers observed 140 felony and misdemeanor criminal cases, chosen at random, between January to November 2025.
Judicial accountability lead Bryanna Siguenza explained how she decided where to send the volunteers.
“ I choose a department, specifically ones that are pretty busy, have high case loads, and are arraignment and pretrial,” she said.
What watchers saw
Racial disparities in pretrial settings have been researched at local, state and national levels, but La Defensa’s findings are based entirely on human observation, Siguenza said.
The volunteers are trained to listen for important details that come up in proceedings, but they may not always get the full story behind the charges, like a defendant’s criminal history.
L.A. County Superior Court spokesperson Rob Oftring said the report needs more context.
“Many of the report’s findings, for example, do not appear to account for charge severity or criminal history, both of which are legally significant factors in any release decision…” he wrote in a statement.
La Defensa did not include in its report what charges had been filed in the cases observed. However, according to the report, comparable charges still had disproportionate bail outcomes that “couldn’t be explained by charge severity alone.”
The severity of charges legally informs bail decisions. The Superior Court is required to have standard bail amounts based on the crime, which judges have discretion to adjust.
State law also requires judges to weigh issues like public safety in bail decisions, as well as the defendant’s ability to post bail. According to the volunteers’ observations, the judges considered the latter in just a quarter of cases when setting bail.
Oftring said the court has taken steps to reduce money bail’s usage as allowed by law.
“Bail at arraignment is set only after both the defense and prosecution have been heard and the judge has weighed the specific facts of the case,” his statement read.
The limits of the findings
Oftring said the court values the role organizations like Court Watch LA play in keeping the justice system accountable, but that the sample size of the researchers used in their report is too small to draw any definitive conclusions.
Roughly 272,000 criminal cases took place during that time period, according to Oftring.
Representatives from La Defensa said they know the report is only a snapshot of the system, and that human observation has its limits.
That’s why in November, they requested 10 years of de-identified data to analyze whether bail outcomes differ across judges, courthouses and demographic groups. Rasaki said they haven’t received it.
“ We would say release the data … by all means, we want to partner. We want to analyze,” she said.
Oftring told LAist they are working on several projects that “provide data-informed scrutiny of how the court operates.”
Lucas Brady Woods
covers the weather and disasters, among other climate and science topics.
Published July 24, 2026 3:44 PM
Experts continue to warn about dangerous rip currents and surf at Southern California beaches. Always swim near a staffed lifeguard tower, and never turn your back to the waves.
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Mario Tama
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Getty Images
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Topline:
The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for much of Southern California through Monday. Some places are also under more severe heat warnings.
The details: Highs in the San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and other inland areas of L.A. County are expected to range from the mid-90s to about 105 degrees. Downtown Los Angeles and much of Orange, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties will get up to the lower 90s. Parts of the Inland Empire could get up to 108 degrees and the Coachella Valley could hit 120.
Wildfire risk: Forecasters warn that fire danger will be elevated through at least Monday, driven by heat, dry vegetation and low humidity levels away from the coast. Despite some extra moisture in the air over the last several weeks, there hasn’t been enough to actually produce rain.
Read on … to learn more about why the heat is so persistent.
Southern Californians are in for yet another scorching weekend.
The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for much of the region through Monday, with temperatures expected to hit their peak on Sunday.
Highs in the San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and other inland areas of L.A. County are expected to range from the mid-90s to about 105 degrees. Downtown Los Angeles and much of Orange, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties will get up to the lower 90s. Beaches will also be hot — in the lower 80s.
Moving farther east, things get really toasty. Forecasters have issued a more severe extreme heat warning for parts of the Inland Empire, where temperatures could get up to 108 degrees, and for the Coachella Valley, where they could hit 120.
Humidity will likely also continue to add to the discomfort, but will be concentrated in areas closer to the coast, where it will keep nighttime temperatures relatively warm and make it more difficult to cool down. Inland areas will feel drier.
Those who are most at-risk from the heat are people who work or spend time outside, people without access to air conditioning and those who are either over 65 or young children.
Making sense of heat forecasts
Southern Californians are no strangers to hot weather in the summer, but heat waves are getting hotter, longer and more frequent as the climate changes.
So you should know the words forecasters use to describe these weather events — and the risks they pose.
Heat advisory: Advisories are issued when temperatures are expected to be hot enough to cause discomfort and potentially lead to heat-related illnesses, especially for more vulnerable populations like young children and the elderly.
Extreme heat watch: Watches are essentially forecasts for upcoming periods of extreme heat. Forecasters say heat watches often cover wide areas and will be revised into more focused warnings and advisories as conditions become clearer over time. Watches are a good time to prepare for extreme heat.
Extreme heat warning: Warnings are issued when heat levels are or will likely become extremely dangerous. Under extreme heat warnings, it's a good idea to avoid strenuous outdoor activity, stay hydrated and help loved ones and pets stay cool.
Forecasters are also warning of dangerous rip currents and swells along the coast this weekend.
If you’re headed to the beach to beat the heat, as many Southern Californians likely are, they recommend staying out of the water or, if you do go swimming, stay in front of lifeguards. It’s also a good idea to avoid jetties and tidal rocks.
We are looking at very warm temps across the Southland over the next few days, with inland areas expected to climb above 100°F. If you're planning to visit the beach, be aware that a series of southerly swells will impact south-facing beaches through the weekend. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/AI5uLmFeaO
This weekend will also come with a high risk of wildfires.
Forecasters warn that fire danger will be elevated through at least Monday, driven by heat, dry vegetation and low humidity levels away from the coast.
Despite some extra moisture in the air over the last several weeks, there hasn’t been enough to actually produce rain. Without precipitation, and under consistently high temperatures, plants will continue to dry out and become fuel.
“We have humidity, but it's not reaching the saturation point. Therefore, we won't have a cloud. We won't have precipitation,” said Rong Fu, an atmospheric scientist at UCLA who specializes in weather patterns and wildfires.
Fu said a system of high atmospheric pressure sitting over the Western U.S. is pushing warm, dry air across the Sierra Nevada from inland deserts and into Southern California.
That can generate what’s known as downslope wind. Those winds plus the already dry conditions align to create some especially dangerous fire weather.
One spark can easily turn into a large blaze, and humans are the most common cause of wildfires in Southern California, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
People can accidentally start wildfires in a range of ways, including throwing a lit cigarette into dry brush or dragging a chain behind a vehicle, creating sparks. One of the most common human causes is improperly extinguished camp fires.
Lightning can also start wildfires but is unlikely under current weather conditions. Southern California has seen minimal thunderstorms this summer.
The new normal?
Heatwaves in the summer and fall are obviously not new for Southern California, but they are getting worse.
Much of the heat currently blanketing the region is being driven by the high-pressure system, which traps warm air and compresses it against the ground, heating it even further. Forecasters say it’s likely to stay that way through the end of July.
But high-pressure systems like this one usually don’t stick around this long.
“For this pattern to linger almost two weeks — yeah, I would say, from a climatological point of view — that's pretty unusual,” Fu said.
One major driver of the change, Fu said, is climate change: As the climate warms, this kind of “anomalous” high pressure system will become stronger and more frequent.
And one consequence of hotter and longer heatwaves, is extended elevated periods of risky fire weather.
Keep up with LAist.
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Julia Barajas
covers what Angelenos need to know and the essential news of the day.
Published July 24, 2026 3:00 PM
A LAHSA Commission meeting held on Friday, on April 25, 2025.
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Samanta Helou Hernandez
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LAist
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Topline:
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Commission unanimously approved a $496 million budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year, moments before the agency released its annual homeless count.
Why it matters: The agency's new budget, approved today, is down 40% compared to $829 million approved last year. The drop accounts for L.A. County’s move away from the agency — along with fewer dollars from the state. The agency’s budget is now 73% funded by the city of L.A. At the same time, homelessness in L.A. is up. New numbers show the population of people living outdoors in the city grew by7.9% between early 2025 and 2026.
What does the money do: In addition to the annual tally,the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority uses federal, state, county, and city dollars to provide a range of services — everything from safe places to park for people who live in their cars to permanent housing placement.
Who’s on the commission? LAHSA is governed by a 10-member commission that is half appointed by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, and half appointed by each of the five county supervisors. Bass has served on the commission since appointing herself to it in fall 2023.
The backstory: The embattled agency, which has been at the forefront of the region’s response to homelessness for more than three decades, is currently fighting for survival. Following a series of harsh audits and a judge’s rebuke of LAHSA’s spending and management, L.A. County supervisors pulled funding from the agency. LAHSA is also in the middle of a court battle with the Trump administration, which is seeking to cut its access to hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds.
The Pio Pico - Koreatown Branch Library in Koreatown is one of several cooling centers recommended by the city.
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Gary Coronado
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The LA Local
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Topline:
While a late July heatwave baking Los Angeles is expected to break by Monday, a new heatwave could be following close behind next week.
More details: Temperatures will linger in the high 80s and low 90s in downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods, including Koreatown, Pico Union and Westlake. The National Weather Service projects temperatures will peak on Sunday afternoon. Meteorologist Bryan Lewis with the National Weather Service said residents can expect more humidity than usual.
Stay cool: During hot weather, the beach is an immediate go-to for folks that want to stay cool, but Lewis warns against this as the surf will be extra choppy. Here's some places to beat the heat.
Los Angeles will be under a heat wave advisory until Monday evening as temperatures show no signs of letting up over the weekend.
Temperatures will linger in the high 80s and low 90s in downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods, including Koreatown, Pico Union and Westlake.
The National Weather Service projects temperatures will peak on Sunday afternoon. Meteorologist Bryan Lewis with the National Weather Service said residents can expect more humidity than usual.
While dense, urban centers have more concrete and see more vehicle traffic, downtown and the surrounding areas will not be the hottest locations during this heatwave in the Southland, as the Antelope Valley will be under an extreme heat advisory over the weekend.
During hot weather, the beach is an immediate go-to for folks that want to stay cool, but Lewis warns against this as the surf will be extra choppy.
The Pacific Coast will see large swells “coming up from tropical systems off the coast of Mexico,” Lewis said. “We are issuing a beach hazard statement that’ll be in effect through at least the weekend [which] may be extended.”
While the weather is expected to cool down on Monday, forecasts show that another heatwave could develop by the end of next week.
Councilmember Heather Hutt’s office recommends residents to rest in shade or a building with air conditioning and to stay hydrated with plenty of water.
Residents should also:
Cool down at a public library, recreation facility, senior center or other public air-conditioned building
Check up on relatives and neighbors, especially if they have pre-existing health conditions
Young children and pets should never be left unattended in vehicles under any circumstances
When possible, reschedule strenuous activities to early morning or evening
Wear lightweight and loose-fitting clothing when possible
To reduce risk during outdoor work, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration recommends frequent rest breaks in shaded or air-conditioned environments and staying hydrated
