The Brief

Here’s the scenario: L.A. has to handle a really tricky issue. Maybe it’s homelessness, rebuilding after wildfires, or community relations with police — but you are responsible for helping come up with policy solutions to address it.

You’re not a City Council member or government official of any kind. You’re just an ordinary resident, working with a group of other randomly selected residents to hammer out workable ideas for the government to adopt.

This is the idea behind a civic assembly, a process designed to bring communities closer to the public decision-making that affects their lives. Over the past decade, cities across the world — primarily in Europe but also in Brazil, Colombia, Canada and a small number of places in the United States — have increasingly experimented with civic assemblies to address questions like how to improve air quality, what to do with a city-owned piece of land, how to tackle youth homelessness, and more.

They’re not used in L.A. — yet. But some groups have tried to build momentum to make civic assemblies a reality here.

Part of that effort means letting Angelenos try the experience out for themselves.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, a group of around 30 residents gathered in a room at the Veterans Memorial Building in Culver City.

Their job was to tackle one big local question the way a real civic assembly would. The session was co-hosted by Public Democracy L.A., an advocacy group championing more inclusivity and representation in L.A.’s democratic systems, and Braver Angels, a national organization dedicated to bridging political divides.

“I’ve been dying to do this with other people,” said Joan Jaeckel, a resident from Studio City. She said the idea of civic assemblies appealed to her because it was a way to start a discussion from a point of curiosity and learning, rather than fighting from opposing political sides.

“I’m tired of yelling at the TV and writing on Facebook. But to do this with other people is exhilarating,” she said.

How a civic assembly works

A civic assembly (also called a citizens’ assembly) is sort of a cross between a city council meeting and jury duty. The idea: Gather a group of residents — chosen randomly, but also selected for demographic factors like age, race or socioeconomic status to make sure the group is representative of the broader community — and give them a big question to address.

The group then holds a series of meetings to learn about it, deliberate, and come up with a set of policy solutions. In the end, it produces a list of recommended policies that the government can turn into real legislation.

A protestor drapes a banner from scaffolding in London.

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Civic assemblies are usually formed when there’s an especially complicated or divisive problem to solve. In some cities like Brussels and Paris, they’re a permanent staple of government decision-making and are formed every year.

The idea isn’t a far stretch from some of the ways local governments in Southern California already try to get residents involved. For example: K-12 schools have school site councils, made up of parents, students, staff and community members. And there are citizens’ advisory groups, which recruit residents to provide policy recommendations and feedback for city governments (like South Gate or Long Beach) or individual agencies (like L.A. Metro). However, elected officials appoint these members.

What makes civic assemblies different is their accessibility. They’re intended for as many people as possible to have a chance to participate and designed to reflect the diverse backgrounds and perspectives of the wider community — including those traditionally left out of government decision-making. Participants are paid stipends to cover the costs of transportation, child care, food and other needs so they can attend.

This inclusive selection process is one reason Culver City Councilmember Bubba Fish has been interested in the idea. The city, like many others, has struggled to get input on important local issues from residents who don’t regularly participate in city government or civic life, he said. A civic assembly was a way to hear from a wide range of residents who also had time to become fully educated about the topic at hand.

He attended the mock civic assembly to see if it could be a good fit for an upcoming task: redesigning the public input process for Culver City’s annual budget.

“I went through our budget process when I first got elected and I could not believe how few people we heard from,” Fish said. Culver City lawmakers recently agreed to set aside $250,000 to improve the budget process. They have yet to decide how to spend that money, but creating a civic assembly to help design a new budget process is one option on the table.

Alex Levy, an organizer with Public Democracy L.A., said she hoped the experience would inspire people to imagine other scenarios where a civic assembly could be useful in their communities.

“We think that these little model assemblies can provide a good avenue for smaller problems within communities that can be solved,” Levy said. “So like for a neighborhood council that’s just trying to just figure out where a streetlight goes, or bike lanes — there's all these questions that are facing these communities, and maybe an assembly could be useful for that.”

The mock civic assembly

The randomized, demographically representative selection process wasn’t part of the mock civic assembly. The group overall was older and whiter than one that would have been picked for a real assembly. But that day’s goal wasn’t to fully mimic the real thing. Instead, it was to help participants get a feel for the experience. Could people who had little to no background knowledge about the topic feel confident weighing in on policy? How would it feel to craft solutions with people of different backgrounds or opinions?

The L.A. participants received their big question to tackle for the day: “What should happen to land in areas damaged by fire to balance resiliency, safety and housing needs?”

It required a steep learning curve. Many participants said they knew little or nothing about the complicated issues involved — fire resilience, municipal finance, housing policy and more. But in a civic assembly, you don’t have to be an expert on any of the issues. The learning is built into the process.

Experts from local government, advocacy groups and other stakeholders are usually part of the civic assembly meetings, citing data, giving additional context and sharing their organizations’ stances. For this session, representatives came from Abundant Housing LA, a group that champions greater housing density; Altadena Green, which works to preserve Altadena’s tree canopy; and the office of State Sen. Ben Allen, whose district includes the Pacific Palisades. Each gave a 10-minute presentation at the start of the session to outline their organization’s perspective on post-wildfire rebuilding.

Participants split up into groups of four or five, each probing one policy idea. Among them: low-interest loans for those looking to rebuild in fire zones, forested buffer zones around residential neighborhoods, and ensuring that all new development and utilities in burn zones are gas-free.

One group's policy evaluation sheet and final votes.

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Facilitators helped each group organize their thoughts and make sure everyone had a chance to speak. What were the benefits or negatives of each proposal in terms of logistics, finances or social effects? What questions remained?

Participants scribbled on sticky notes, peppered the experts with questions and bounced thoughts off each other, at times tweaking the wording of a proposal or adding qualifiers. A proposal about giving low-interest loans to homeowners or multi-family projects in burn zones got an added caveat that those loans could be interest-free or forgivable if they provided low-income rents for the loan term. Another group changed their proposal’s language from “Plan for community-level greenbelt buffers” to “Activate the local workforce to build community-level and neighborhood scale greenbelts” instead.

There was little, if any, heated debate. Most were simply trying to better understand the full impact of the proposals before them: Are developers disproportionately benefiting from this idea? Would going gas-free for all new construction mean added strain on the power grid? Where does insurance fit into all of this? Who’s responsible for footing the bill?

At the end of the session, participants stuck colored dots on each proposal to indicate whether they loved it, would support it with some changes, still weren’t sure about it, or rejected it. In a real civic assembly, proposals with the strongest support would pass through to the official recommendation list.

How well does this work in real life?

A group's policy evaluation from the Culver City mock assembly, with a slight alteration to the original premise.

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Major legislation has come out of civic assemblies in other countries. Famously, Ireland’s citizens’ assemblies led to the repeal of a nationwide abortion ban and the legalization of same-sex marriage.

It’s hardly a slam dunk for getting new laws passed, though. For instance, when France convened a citizens’ assembly on climate in 2019, President Emmanuel Macron pledged to advance or sign their proposals “without filter.” In the end, only 10% of the group’s 149 proposals made it into the government’s climate bill unchanged, while 37% were modified or watered down. More than half were rejected outright.

But even if the actual power of civic assemblies hold to make change is a mixed bag, there’s another, more consistent effect: studies show civic assemblies are a really worthwhile experience for the people who participate in them.

For instance, an analysis of Petaluma’s 2022 civic assembly on what to do with a hotly contested fairgrounds land found that more than 90% of participants felt a growing sense of community with other members of the group and felt their input was meaningful in local decision-making. Nearly 40% reported that they were more politically active since their civic assembly experience.

In another pilot assembly to come up with solutions for child care access in Montrose, Colorado, more than 90% of participants said after the fact that their thoughts were heard, they were exposed to opinions and perspectives they hadn’t considered before, and that they supported using the same process to address community problems in the future.

Those who attended L.A.’s mock assembly seemed to share many of these feelings too.

“I was surprised at just how nuanced our discussion could get,” said Patrick Traynor, an Irvine resident. Traynor said he came because he had been fascinated by the idea of civic assemblies, but knew very little about fire safety or the finances of land ownership and renting, the issues his group was assigned to discuss. He wound up learning a lot about both topics, with help from the experts available.

A real civic assembly, he said, could help residents learn the ins and outs of complex issues in a way that they would never have time for just by filling out a ballot.

“I’m even more excited about this idea now that I’ve done this mock assembly,” he said.

Jamal Thomas from Bell Gardens said that hearing from others not only allowed him to think of solutions from a wider range of perspectives, but also made him feel like solutions were more attainable.

“Honestly, just listening to people’s experiences and what people want and need about different options and opportunities really helped me believe that there’s hope in getting some of this done,” he said.

Fish, the Culver City council member, said the experience was “incredibly eye-opening” for him.

"I was so floored by how it encourages collaboration and deep respect between people,” he said. “I went in thinking about the budget and I came out thinking, ‘How do I make this a part of our regular decision-making process as a city?'"

What would it take to bring more civic assemblies to L.A.?

Culver City’s subcommittee on governance is scheduled to hold its next meeting on Tuesday, July 8 at 3 p.m. It will hear a presentation on civic assemblies from Public Democracy L.A., and from there the subcommittee will consider whether to move forward with putting its first civic assembly together on the budget process.

If you want to give public comment on the issue, the meeting agenda has instructions on how to do so.

If you’re interested in exploring the idea of civic assemblies elsewhere — maybe in your local school, or another city government — you can get in touch with this event’s organizers, Public Democracy L.A. and Braver Angels, to see what upcoming events they may be putting together. Public Democracy L.A. also holds regular meetings where civic assembly advocates can strategize ways to bring them closer to reality.

NEW YORK — In Brian Sanchez's slice of Astoria, the FIFA World Cup doesn't begin with the first match. It starts weeks earlier, with the arrival of a sticker album — and a mission.

It's a deceptively simple one: Fill the book with all the stickers representing World Cup teams, players, venues and other tournament details. But these stickers are sold in blind packs, similar to baseball or Pokémon cards, which adds to the fun and the headaches.

Sanchez, 20, has tried to complete the task before but never succeeded. This year, he planned to skip it altogether, but it was hard to ignore the chatter and excitement among his friends and family — both at home and abroad — who were all participating.

"Honestly it comes down to a little bit of FOMO," he said.

The hunt for stickers, produced by the Italian company Panini, is a decades-old World Cup tradition that's especially popular in Latin America and Europe. In the U.S., interest has been building steadily over the years, but this summer, the buzz is bigger than ever.

Jason Howarth, senior vice president of marketing and athlete relations at Panini America, said retailers reported being sold out of sticker packets within a week of the release in late April — unseen in previous World Cup cycles.

"There's a different energy coming out of it," he said. "Right now, it's outpacing where we were in 2022 by three to five times."

The surging demand comes as collectors face their toughest challenge yet. This year, they need to track down 980 distinct stickers to put the album to bed — 310 more than at the 2022 World Cup and a record number for the company. It's a reflection of the upcoming tournament's historic scale, which is expanding from 32 teams to 48 across three countries.

This edition will also be the second to last men's World Cup sticker album produced by Panini — ending a partnership that stretches back over five decades. Last month, FIFA announced that starting in 2031, U.S.-based Fanatics will be the official supplier of FIFA soccer cards, trading cards and stickers.

On a recent afternoon in Central Park, Sanchez met up with other collectors. Hunched over stacks of stickers, some two dozen people inspected the offerings with laser focus.

With only four stickers missing, Sanchez was already looking forward to earning bragging rights as the first person in his family across the finish line this year.

" I'm feeling pretty accomplished," he said. "I've been trying to get a win, and this is gonna be a huge win for me."

An expensive, labor-intensive but rewarding hobby

A single pack of seven stickers — available online, at corner stores or drugstore chains like Walgreens and CVS — now cost $2, compared to four years ago when five stickers retailed for around $1. That means simply buying enough packs to accumulate 980 stickers would total $280.

Given the costs, finishing the book is rarely a solitary pursuit, and aficionados often meet up to spread the wealth, according to Crista Latvis, 26, who organized the recent sticker swap in Central Park.

"You can't just buy your way into it," she said. "Otherwise,  it's super expensive and you've got to be very lucky."

For many, these gatherings are part of the pastime's draw.

"It's great to meet other people who are also doing it and also excited for the World Cup, especially since it's here," Latvis said.

Sebastian Clavijo, who attended Latvis' swap, said he spent tens of thousands of dollars on his quest this year. Clavijo, 32, has been collecting Panini stickers since he was 4. This year, his goal is to complete the book only with pieces featuring red and purple borders — an even rarer get.

" I just like soccer and I love collecting," he said. "That's my hobby, you know?"

In 2022, Panini introduced stickers with different colored borders that vary in rarity. That element has been an especially big hit with the trading card community and contributed to the hobby's appeal in the U.S., according to Howarth from Panini America.

Panini popularity has grown along with soccer

Demand has always existed in New York, Texas, Florida, among other big states, but it's also emerging nationwide, in places like Phoenix and the Northwest, according to Howarth.

" As soccer has grown, so has Panini," he said.

Howarth believes part of this year's popularity stems from the expanded World Cup format. Teams that have never qualified for the tournament — and therefore never been sticker-fied by Panini — are finally getting their moment.

For some, completing the sticker album is driven by nostalgia for their childhood, family or home country.

Linda Lino never heard of the hobby until she was 18, and her grandmother gave her a Panini sticker book. That was in 2014. Lino has completed every World Cup edition since, in part in memory of her late grandmother.

"It started with my grandma and then it became like a whole family thing," Lino said. "I love the community that it brings together."

That's especially true with her father, who never had the chance to collect stickers when he was a kid in Peru, Lino said. Now, the two are making up for lost time.

"My dad is so excited," she said. "He's like 'I want to help you. I want to put the stickers together.'"

Clemente Lisi, a sports journalist who has written about the Panini sticker phenomenon, said the sticker album serves as a time capsule for the World Cup. With the tournament's return to the U.S. after 32 years, he expects it will produce more first-time collectors looking for a way to remember this summer.

"This may be the only tangible thing from a World Cup unless you go to a game," he said.

Lisi, who also runs Planet Soccer on Substack, anticipates that the U.S. company Fanatics will further cater to the market at home.

" It'll even become more American and more baked into our culture," he said.

Sanchez, the college student from Astoria, dabbles in collecting other items, like vinyls and trading cards. But what he appreciates most about the Panini sticker scene is its supportive and rarely competitive nature.

" The community around the World Cup stickers is something like I've never seen before," he said. "The community is just so nice."

After countless hours of trading and visiting multiple convenience stores, Sanchez found his 980th and final sticker at the swap in Central Park. It was of the Iraqi team. He let out a gasp, followed by a smile that spanned ear to ear. "Let's goooo!"

With a mountain of duplicates left, Sanchez wasn't ready to move on just yet. His next step was to help his mother finish her album.

" I'm going to take a break," he said. "I'm going to celebrate today and then get back to it."

Topline:

The backstory: Once a year, dozens of sound artists converge on the hill with views of the harbor below to perform their audio art, which can range from serene to “beautifully weird.”

What to expect: This year includes a performer bending a bar of tin with his bare hands to get it to emit what’s called a "tin cry" and synthesizer-based soundscapes that take inspiration from both the ocean and the industrial space below.

When to go: Soundpedro is free and lasts from 7-10 p.m. Saturday.

More info at the Soundpedro website.

You may know about Union Station as an L.A. landmark or as a transportation hub — but how much do you know about its rich architectural history?

To foster that interest and knowledge, Metro created a series of public tours of the station this spring.

“There's so much that you might just walk by without really having the opportunity to delve deeply into,” said Zipporah Lax Yamamoto, deputy executive officer of Metro’s art program. “[The tours are] a really wonderful opportunity to be able to spend time with the station, learn more about the historic landmark, which belongs to all of us.”

Union Station in Los Angeles

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Architectural style

It’s called Union Station because when it opened in 1939, it connected the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railway.

While it was designed by father-and-son team Donald and John Parkinson, the architects who gave us L.A. City Hall, its style is very different. Union Station’s interior and exterior mixes art deco, Spanish colonial and other styles into a hybrid dubbed Mission Moderne.

As you begin the tour, entering from Alameda Street, tour guides ask you to look up at the decorative elements in the high ceilings. The beams and geometric patterns may look like wood — but they’re actually just painted to look that way.

A community destroyed by development

Along the way, the tour gives background on pieces created more than 30 years ago. These include "City of Dreams/River of History" by artists May Sun and Richard Wyatt in 1995. Sun’s piece uses remnants of the Chinese American homes torn down to build the station, a reference to the high price that community paid for this building’s construction.

Detail from "City of Dreams/River of History," created by artists May Sun and Richard Wyatt at Union Station.

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“It was an enormous price. Chinatown ceased to exist in this area. … The families that lived here during that time are still around and maintain archives of that time period and the original Chinatown here, and we've worked with those families to have those objects on display,” Lax Yamamoto said.

Meanwhile, Wyatt’s large-scale mural includes the face of a Chinese man, along with nine other people of different races, ethnicities and ages; a nod to the diversity of the city since its founding in the late 1700s.

There are also stops to see new art installed for the World Cup.

A mural by Richard Wyatt at Union Station

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There are three tours left in the series but the RSVPs have reached their maximum; however, Lax Yamamoto said Metro will decide whether to continue them based on what people have thought about the tours.

Meanwhile, Union Station is set to swell with people in the next couple of months as L.A. hosts World Cup games. The station is the site of an official FIFA-sponsored Fan Zone from June 25-28.

When I first came to the states many years ago, if I’d mentioned Arsenal, people would have thought I was referring to the U.S. military or something. But all that has changed. You can now watch U.K. premier league games in sports bars, most kids play soccer, and Ted Lasso is must-watch TV.

To which I say — welcome. We English are proud of the fact that soccer began with us more than 150 years ago. And every World Cup, we think, surely this will be the year that the trophy returns home — the year that we’ll win!

Queen Elizabeth II awarding the Jules Rimet World Cup Trophy to Bobby Moore after England won the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley.

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I mean it did happen … once… back in 1966. It’s such a long time ago the game was televised in black and white and shillings were still being used. My mother was nine months pregnant with my brother, and got so excited jumping up and down she went into labor and had him the next day. World Cup Willie they called him. Actually his name is David, but never mind.

Since then, every four years everyone in the U.K. watches the games with bated breath. And then something stupid will happen, and we’ll lose, like that time in 1998 when David Beckham (who played for England before he came to L.A. Galaxy) lost his temper and was sent off, and we’ll sit there, gloomy and despondent. I know because I was there in my friend’s living room in London, gloomy and despondent, thinking just once, just once, maybe could we please have a win?

David Beckham's infamous 1998 red card in the England vs. Argentina game.

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The last World Cup, I went to Ye Olde Kings Head in Santa Monica to watch England play. At 7 a.m. it was full of people already on their third pint of beer. And when the team got through to the next round, the gentle men of England ran outside the pub, whipped off their shirts and started weaving through traffic, singing football chants and acting like hooligans. I really couldn’t decide if I was embarrassed or if it felt like home.

Anyway, this time, since I’m now an American citizen, it’s in my contract that I need to support Team USA. I’m a dual citizen, though, so I’ll also be cheering for England. If by any chance Team USA and England play each other, my two selves will be watching, with a cup of tea in one hand, and a cold brewski in the other, and the polarities will explode, or something. But what will probably happen is that both teams will be eclipsed by Brazil or France playing the beautiful game… beautifully. Cheers.