The Brief

Frustration came through loud and clear as legislators hurled question after question at the head of the state’s homelessness interagency council: Why, after years of planning and billions of dollars invested, is there so little to show for the effort?

“You come into a budget committee and there’s no numbers,” Assemblymember Phil Ting, a San Francisco Democrat, said at the May 6 Assembly committee hearing. “Why is it taking so long?”

Assemblymember Vince Fong, a Bakersfield Republican, took issue with the council saying it needed more money to compile the data. And Chris Ward, a Democrat from San Diego, said he’d been asking the same questions since 2022: “The fact that we’re still now, three years later here as a state is incredibly frustrating because that guides our decision making here as a budget.”

But even without a full picture of how well the homelessness spending is working, Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing cuts to cover the state’s budget deficit.

That’s just one example of how the state budget gets put together, often without fully knowing if a program is paying off. Revenue dictates decisions, and voter-passed initiatives direct some spending. After that, legislators use any data that’s available, but they also negotiate with other officials and listen to their constituents.

They’re also lobbied by advocates and interest groups. (More than 650 organizations spent money lobbying on the budget, as well as other issues.)

For the 2024-25 budget now before the Legislature, Newsom released a revised plan earlier this month that calls for dipping into reserves, canceling some new spending and cutting existing programs to cover a remaining shortfall of $27.6 billion. The independent Legislative Analyst’s Office, which assesses the budget picture through different calculations, cites the deficit as $55 billion, though it generally agrees with Newsom’s overall view of the state’s finances.

Today and through this week, the Assembly and Senate will conduct hearings on Newsom’s proposals. The Legislature faces a June 15 deadline to approve its version.

Jesse Gabriel, who leads the Assembly budget committee, noted that only a handful of legislators have dealt with a deep deficit before. The state had a record budget surplus as recently as two years ago, thanks to federal pandemic aid and a roaring stock market; the last lengthy recession ended in 2009.

“This is a new experience for a lot of people,” the Democrat from Encino told CalMatters. “I think we’re going to have to work really hard together to get on the same page and do the best we can in a really difficult situation.”

State bases money needs on prior year 

Addressing California’s deficit is a two-part equation, where increasing revenue could help. But Newsom has ruled out increasing taxes and instead emphasized “right-sizing expenditures,” telling legislators they shouldn’t expect bills with high price tags to pass.

For Gabriel, the May 6 hearing by the revamped accountability and oversight committee hints at an appetite for culture change in the Legislature — though one that could take time.

“We want to be doing a lot more data-driven decision making about which programs and services are really delivering results for Californians,” he told CalMatters. “For us, that metric is not did the money go out the door? But was it impactful? Did it make a difference in results for the people it was intended to serve?”

California currently uses “incremental budgeting:” Each department’s or program’s funding request starts with what they spent last year, updated with best estimates of what they need in the coming year. Also known as “baseline budgeting,” it’s the most common approach states take, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Some public analysis of how programs are working comes from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office and state agencies, sometimes at the request of lawmakers.

But a CalMatters analysis published in February found that 70% of the 1,118 state agency reports on how laws were working due in the past year had not been submitted to the Office of Legislative Counsel, which keeps reports. And about half of those that were filed were late.

California’s budgeting approach is in contrast to two other systems: performance-based budgeting and zero-based budgeting.

Performance-based budgeting ties funding to how well programs meet their goals, and allows departments more flexibility to use any savings. The data-driven approach can create more transparency, according to research commissioned by the Assembly’s Budget Committee in 2012. But it’s difficult to implement and can be inequitable, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures — for example by linking school funding to test scores. 

Under zero-based budgeting, agency budgets start each year from $0. But no state uses the system in its true form, the conference notes.

While more states are moving towards performance-based budgeting — including Minnesota, New Mexico and Utah — more comprehensive efforts to change California’s system have fizzled.

This year, Fong, who is vice chairperson of the Assembly budget committee, introduced a bill to require state agencies to use zero-based budgeting, but the measure has not been heard in committee.

In 2011, then-Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill requiring state agencies to use performance-based budgeting, saying it would impose a ‘’one size fits all” budget planning process on every state agency and function.

“The politically expedient course would be to sign this bill and bask in the pretense that it is some panacea for our budget woes,” he wrote in his veto message. “But the hard truth is that this bill will mandate thousands of hours of work — at the cost of tens of millions of dollars — with little chance of actual improvement.”

Instead, Brown advocated what he described as a common sense approach to budgeting that would examine whether some programs or departments should exist at all.

Performance-based budgeting also has downsides: A program that’s underperforming may still deserve funding, said lobbyist Kristina Bas Hamilton. “That should be what the policy and budget-making process is about, is having that dialogue,” she said.

And just looking at departments or programs doesn’t show the full picture of state spending, argues Scott Graves, budget director of the California Budget & Policy Center, an advocacy and policy group. That’s because of business and other tax breaks, which are typically renewed year after year.

“Rarely do policymakers come back around and ask, ‘Do they still make sense? Are they effective? Are they achieving the goal for which they were created?’ And as a result, we end up with a lot of waste on the tax expenditure side of the budget,” he said.

“If we’re going to argue for greater scrutiny of state spending and asking what we’re getting for our money, we need to do that not just on the budget side, but we also need to do it on the tax expenditure side.”

Giving taxpayers a voice

Where data doesn’t tell the whole story of which programs are worth funding, public input can fill in some gaps.

Both Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire and Gabriel told CalMatters that the budget hearings from January through June are key to the decision-making.

McGuire said his office also receives thousands of comments from the public — emails, postcards, requests for meetings and more.

“It’s not just one source of feedback, but multiple sources of feedback. And by the way, that’s the way it should be,” he said in an interview with CalMatters. “It’s coming from the public, from members themselves, shaped by their lived experiences and opinions, through advocates for nonprofits.”

Various interest groups have mobilized to push back on Newsom’s proposed cuts, including rallies at the Capitol or through virtual campaigns.

Julie Baker, CEO of CA Arts Advocates, said building coalitions has helped the arts community secure funding from legislators in the past.

“They need to know what their constituents care about, and showing up and telling them that we oppose, in this case, the arts cuts — letting them know how that will impact their own communities — is critical for them to understand the decisions that they’re making.”
Greater transparency can help the public form an opinion about state spending, but getting that information isn’t easy. State Sen. Roger Niello, a Roseville Republican, introduced a bill that would have required state agencies to post their expenditures in a clear and accessible way for the public, but the Senate’s appropriations committee killed the bill in last week’s “suspense file” hearings.

On May 1, advocacy groups California Budget & Policy Center, Catalyst California and the Million Voters Project launched the Budget Power Project, which plans to hold workshops to understand the budget, as well as lessons on how to advocate — at cities and counties as well as the state Capitol.

The idea was conceived during the windfall of federal pandemic aid to ensure that money reached communities most in need — and out of a concern that budgets are often crafted in the shadows.

Bas Hamilton — who wrote a book on how to advocate in the Legislature — says the power of public input shouldn’t be underestimated and challenged the notion that the same people, or the loudest people, advocating is a negative.

“They might be representing voices that are marginalized, and that might be the only venue they have to get these messages across,” she said. “I would say there’s a lot of lobbyists in the Capitol, but … some of them are fighting the good fight and having them be the loudest in the room, I would say, isn’t a bad thing at all.”

Changing the budget process

Although the effort to move the state to performance-based budgeting failed, California has seen some big changes to the process — though whether they’ve helped or hurt the state’s finances depends on who you ask.

In 2010, voters passed Proposition 25, which required the Legislature to pass a budget by June 15 or lose pay and also lowered the number of votes needed for passage. While that cut down on political gridlock, Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, said it has led to a shoddy budget that is constantly amended the rest of the year.

Because Democrats hold a two-thirds “supermajority” and don’t need Republican votes to pass the budget, there’s no longer a “Big 5” committee, where leaders of both parties negotiate with the governor. It’s now just the Democratic leaders and Newsom. There’s also no Assembly-Senate conference committee, which held public hearings.

Other efforts to change the process have failed.

In 2020, Sen. Scott Wilk introduced a bill to create a two-year budgeting process — the first year for writing the budget, and the second to focus on oversight.

“The reason for that, frankly, is our government — we look at input,” the Republican from Lancaster told CalMatters. “We never look at output. I think there’s programs we start that are no longer effective, are no longer needed, yet, we’re still spending money because everybody’s building their fiefdom.”

A multi-year budget process could have benefits, said Chris Hoene, executive director of the California Budget & Policy Center. “One way to manage the fluctuations that are there would be to sort of admit that economic cycles don’t always adhere to an annual fiscal year.”

That could allow the state to put more money into its reserves, he said. That’s currently limited by the state constitution — another topic that comes up during every budget downturn.

The Legislature has also made some attempts at more oversight, such as splitting up the health and human services budget subcommittees to hone in on each topic, and revamping the accountability committee.

Legislators could also be more mindful of bills that add new costs — though they and the governor’s office won’t have a clear picture of added costs until measures are signed in the fall. Gabriel said he tried to send that message at a Democratic Assembly caucus retreat in January.

“We tried to be really mindful of the costs, because there may be a lot of great policy ideas that folks out there want to pursue,” he said.

Another option to rein in costs each year could be to limit the number of bills legislators introduce. But while members say the volume makes it difficult to really weigh what the financial and other impacts of each bill might be, they also say it could hamper their ability to represent constituents.

And sometimes, a pricey bill or program is worth the fight, according to some legislators.

“These draconian cuts have real life and death consequences and will push our most vulnerable children, families, and aging Californians into homelessness and starvation,” Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat from Van Nuys, said in a statement in response to Newsom’s proposal. “As legislators, we hold the power to save the most vulnerable among us … I plan to fight back with everything I have.”

If Proposition 3 looks familiar, it’s because this is the third time the income tax measure has appeared on California ballots. But this time might be the last.

Prop. 3 would permanently extend an income tax on the wealthy to fund schools, healthcare and other state services. It first appeared on the ballot as a temporary tax in 2012 to help schools through the Great Recession, and voters renewed it in 2016. Now, its supporters are asking voters to make it permanent before it expires in 2031.

“I can’t overstate how important this is,” said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union and a primary supporter of the measure. “It’s only a tax on the wealthiest Californians, but it’s vital for our schools.”

Prop. 3 would extend a tax on individuals who earn more than $371,000 or couples who earn more than $743,000 annually. It generated between $5 billion and $15 billion a year, fluctuating with the stock market, interest rates and other factors that affect the income of the state’s top earners.

Top earners would continue paying an income tax rate of 12.3% if the measure passes. Tack on the state’s additional 1% tax on income over $1 million for mental health services and California’s highest-earners wind up with an income tax rate of 13.3%, the highest in the nation.

The bulk of the money would be funnelled through the state’s Proposition 98 funding mechanism, which guarantees 40% of the state budget be set aside for K-12 schools and community colleges. If the money surpasses a certain level, the extra would go toward a budget rainy day fund.

Prop. 3 would also pay for healthcare and other services because it frees up money the state would ordinarily spend on schools for other services, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office. Of the Prop. 98 money, 89% goes to K-12 schools and 11% goes to community colleges.

In flush years, the income tax makes up about 15% of the state’s overall K-12 education budget. If it doesn’t pass, school districts will be forced to lay off up to 50,000 teachers and make other cuts, Goldberg said.

Union’s big push

The teachers union is aggressively supporting the measure. It collected thousands of signatures to win a spot on the ballot and sent members to knock on more than 200,000 doors throughout the state. Goldberg described the campaign as “one of our biggest, most ambitious efforts yet.”

The powerful union as well as other groups have raised more than $40 million to pass Prop. 3. Opponents, which include taxpayer associations, have raised $5,500.

The measure appears to have an edge with voters. According to a Public Policy Institute of California poll conducted in September, 58% of likely voters said they planned to vote yes on the measure. Among Democrats, 82% said they favored it, while 18% of Republicans said they did.

Prop. 3 is not the only tax-the-rich measure on the Nov. 3 ballot. Proposition 40 would levy a 5% tax on Californians with assets of more than $1 billion, with 90% of the money going toward healthcare and the rest divided between schools, food assistance programs and other services. The teachers union opposes Prop. 40 because it argues schools wouldn’t receive enough of the money, Goldberg said.

“We’re not campaigning against Prop. 40. We’re just prioritizing Prop. 3,” Goldberg said.

The union decided to put the measure on the ballot now, more than four years before the current tax expires, because schools typically plan their budgets many years in advance and need plenty of advance warning of significant changes in revenues, Goldberg said.

‘Not sustainable’

Susan Shelley, vice president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association, questioned whether schools need more money, considering the state’s recent investments and declining enrollment.

“We have fewer and fewer students. Does this mean we need fewer teachers? Maybe it does,” Shelley said. “It’s time to revisit some of these costs. Some districts have unaffordable labor contracts, fewer students … It’s not sustainable.”

In addition, she said, California already has the highest personal income tax rate – 13.3% – in the country. Adding more will only drive the wealthiest residents – and their money – from the state, which will have a disproportionate impact on state revenues, she said. According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the state’s top 2% of earners pay about half the state’s income taxes.

California’s K-12 enrollment has declined steadily for at least a decade, with schools losing more than 500,000 students since the mid-2010s. Families are having fewer children, immigration is down and many families have left California because of the high cost of living.

Still, California has among the country’s highest student-to-teacher ratios. In 2022-23, California had one teacher for every 22 students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The national average was 1:15. In New York, it was just over 1:11.

That’s why California schools need more money, said Rob Manwaring, senior policy and fiscal adviser at the advocacy group Children Now.

“Those ratios mean that students who need extra help aren’t getting it, which is why we have such a large achievement gap in California,” Manwaring said. “It’s dire.”

He also noted that federal budget cuts will continue affecting California, including its schools, and the state will need revenue to backfill those costs. The chance of an economic downturn in the next few years will also imperil school funding.

“No one wants to project out too far, but schools might see some very tight budgets,” Manwaring said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

The state workers who are planning the first-ever statewide walkout in 44 years this week once were on much better terms with their boss, Gov. Gavin Newsom.

SEIU Local 1000, state government’s largest union, kicked in one of the single biggest checks to Newsom’s 2018 campaign, a $500,000 contribution. It followed up with $1 million more to help Newsom fend off a recall in 2021.

That alliance made sense for the union, especially considering that Newsom’s Republican opponents were much less friendly to labor.

But today the two sides are far apart with Local 1000 preparing its first statewide strike since signing its first collective bargaining agreement in 1982 as it accuses Newsom of bad-faith bargaining. Its members are trolling Newsom online with memes likening him to infamous Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, caricaturing him as a sci-fi villain and mocking his presidential ambitions.

What happened to the labor love fest?

At the bottom line, Newsom was stingier with public employees than voters who think of him as a labor-aligned Democrat might assume. He demanded wage reductions from state workers over three years of his tenure and limited raises to 3% in financially flush times. He also took a hard line in calling employees back to the office four days a week after many grew accustomed to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The fact the state has refused to bargain in good faith is what got so many members active,” said Anica Walls, president of Local 1000. The union represents about 100,000 workers. “They’re just kind of tired of always feeling the budget is balanced on state employees’ backs.”

That feeling goes back more than 20 years for some California public employees. Like many workers, they accepted furloughs and wage reductions during the Great Recession. That period lasted from 2008 to 2013 under former governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown. But Brown then pressed for more concessions, including an additional paycheck deduction to fund retiree healthcare and higher worker contributions toward pensions.

Union leaders had high hopes Newsom would end the trend of temporary pay cuts and givebacks, as shown by the campaign contributions he gained in 2018.

It didn’t work out that way.

Here’s a look at some of the issues that led the state’s largest public employee union to break with Newsom and put him on the spot with its first statewide strike.

Money, money, money

California state government spending surged during the Newsom administration, climbing from $201.4 billion in the 2018-19 financial year to $321 billion in Newsom’s 2025-26 budget. That’s a 59% increase.

Payroll is up, too, but at a slower rate. Compensation for state workers hit $25.2 billion in 2025, about 32% more than 2019.

To be sure, Newsom gave bonuses to many public employees — especially prison staff — when the state was flush with money just after the pandemic. But he’s been thriftier with wage increases. They topped out 3% in most contracts.

Meanwhile, Newsom at two key moments pressed public employees to accept pay cuts. The first happened in the panic of the early pandemic when the governor braced for a severe recession. Unions agreed to wage cuts of roughly 9% and in exchange workers received days off that they could save and bank for later.

The second wage cut happened in 2025 when the governor sought to close a severe budget deficit. Most unions, including Local 1000, again accepted deals for two years of wage reductions in exchange for days off. They also agreed to defer raises until next year.

One union did not accept those terms, the California Association of Professional Scientists. The scientist union was the first to strike against Newsom, holding a three-day walkout in 2023. It viewed the contract it negotiated in 2024 as critical, and it didn’t want to give up its raises when Newsom asked.

But, just before an agreed-upon raise was supposed to take effect last summer, it learned that the state budget didn’t include money for the wage increase.

The conflict again angered public employees who expected a pay boost. The union appealed to state lawmakers, who funded the raises in a follow-on spending bill.

“We negotiated that collective bargaining agreement in good faith and believe a deal is a deal,” said the union’s vice president, Justin Garcia.

Working from home

California government changed overnight during the pandemic, when Newsom ordered employees to work from home unless the nature of their job required them to report to a prison or state hospital. That was a major cultural adjustment for a bureaucracy known for time cards, rigid schedules and a refusal to pay for workers’ office parking.

The Newsom administration commended workers for making the change and it publicized a dashboard that showed state employees were just as efficient at home as they were in the office.

But as time passed Newsom said he grew concerned that remote work stifled the in-person collaboration that he argued was important for a successful organization. He called employees back to the office two days a week in 2024, and four days a week beginning last summer.

Many state workers want more flexibility. They point to a 2025 state audit that found the state could save $225 million a year by allowing more remote work.

Retirement plans diverge

State workers hired before 2013 have a better retirement deal than public employees who joined since then. That issue is not front-and-center in the Local 1000 strike, but it’s bubbling up as newer workers learn about their colleagues’ benefits.

Former Gov. Brown championed the law that trimmed pension benefits. It came out of the Great Recession, which caused California’s major pension funds to hemorrhage billions of dollars and highlighted a generous pension enhancement that former Gov. Gray Davis had signed into law a dozen years earlier.

Now, public employees work longer and pay more of their own income toward their pensions. Newsom last month vetoed a bill that would have sweetened retirement formulas for police and firefighters, a proposal that likely will return to Newsom’s successor in the near future.

“What people thought before was a cush state job because we had good retirement, the ability to retire with a pension, that does not look the same to people who came after 2013,” said Walls, the Local 1000 president.

Where else can they go?

Local 1000 and other state government unions might be frustrated with Newsom, but they tend to get a better hearing from Democrats than Republicans. Schwarzenegger, after all, championed four failed ballot measures that would have stripped them of their power and influence.

“They (unions) have to make converts in the church in which they worship,” said Don Perata, a union-aligned Democrat and former Senate president pro tem who battled with Schwarzenegger.

He praised Local 1000 members for carrying state government through the pandemic and for taking on difficult jobs to serve Californians. He recognized governors and lawmakers have to pass balanced budgets, and said that means they should be more careful in running up the cost of programs that might eat away at funding that could be used to pay public employees better.

“It’s past time to show there’s recognition and not just by blowing smoke at them,” Perata said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

Two upcoming events at Long Beach City College will give Long Beach residents the chance to stockpile sandbags in advance of what is expected to be a particularly strong El Niño season.

On Saturday, Oct. 24, residents can pick up sandbags for free at the LBCC Trades, Technology and Community Learning Campus (1305 E Pacific Coast Highway). A second distribution will be held on Saturday, Nov. 7, in Lot M of the Liberal Arts College (4901 E. Carson St.). Each event runs from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and community members will be able to drive up to the distribution sites, where staff will help them fill their cars with up to 10 sandbags. IDs will not be required to receive sand and sandbags.

At a recent press conference amid the waves fueled by Tropical Storm Rachel, Mayor Rex Richardson emphasized that residents all across Long Beach will likely feel the effects of storms and flooding this El Niño season.

“Do not be caught off guard,” he said. “Prepare right now.”

The Peninsula has already endured catastrophic damage — a dozen families lost their homes in the punishing waves of the most recent storm. Yet even if residents can’t see the ocean from their windows, experts predict the greater Long Beach area will see bursts of drenching rain carried by atmospheric rivers, large bands of water vapor. In turn, those rainstorms raise the risk of flash flooding, landslides and high tides.

Some of these effects will not be limited to the coast. Low-lying areas throughout Long Beach are especially susceptible to flooding, according to a city press release.

Richardson urged city residents to pick up sandbags before they need them — and to keep them throughout the rainy season, which typically lasts from December through March.

In addition to the upcoming distribution events, residents can also pick up empty sandbags at all neighborhood fire stations. (Station locations are available here.) Sand is available at stations 7, 12, 13 and 14, and residents are encouraged to bring shovels to fill sandbags themselves.

City officials encouraged community members to stay informed during the rainy season by signing up for Alert Long Beach and checking the city’s landing page for emergency updates. City Manager Tom Modica urged residents to take steps to fortify their properties, gather emergency supplies and develop plans for emergency weather.

Find additional resources on how to prepare for and navigate El Niño here.

While those of us closer to LAX wait around for the People Mover to finally make its much-delayed debut (oh, how I remember fondly taking a video of its virgin run around the terminals when I got off a plane a few months ago … ), those in the Valley and parts north have had the last laugh as the new Burbank terminal makes the area’s best airport even better. Sigh.

But who needs to go anywhere? We’ve got plenty going on right here. And remember to get your ballot in and use our voter guides as your one-stop-ballot-info stop. Election Day is Nov. 3!

Music

In music around the region this week, highlights from Licorice Pizza's recommendations include:

Chief Keef will be at the Wiltern on Oct. 27

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Erika Goldring

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Getty Images

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Wednesday

• G-Eazy with Logic and Juicy J at the YouTube Theater
• Chappell Roan’s two-night charity event “Super Graphic Spectacular” at the Shrine Auditorium, benefiting her Midwest Princess Project

Thursday

• Doja Cat and Latto paint the town red at the Forum
• Talib Kweli and Friends are at the Blue Note

Friday

• Andrew Bird with the LA Philharmonic at Disney Hall
• Foster The People with Goth Babe at the Greek
• Channel Tres at the Shrine

Saturday 

• Animal Collective at the Fonda
• Pershing Square’s free I Love Funk Festival with Kool & the Gang, Zapp, Evelyn, Rose Royce and the Dazz Band
• Jim Henson’s Labyrinth: In Concert at the United Theater, featuring a live band performing the full Bowie soundtrack

Sunday

• Xavier Wulf at the Hollywood Palladium
• Jodeci play the YouTube Theater

Monday 

• The Well and Pink Fuzz at Zebulon
• Great Lake Swimmers at Lodge Room

Tuesday

• Chief Keef at the Wiltern
• Josh Johnson ANIMATIVE with Anna Butterss and Ben Lumsdaine at Zebulon

Events

Movies Under the Microscope: Real Genius

Thursday, Oct. 22, 6 p.m.
Natural History Museum 
900 Exposition Blvd., Expo Park 
COST: $25; MORE INFO  

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Courtesy TriStar Pictures

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The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s Movies Under the Microscope series is back with an ‘80s sci-fi flair, followed by a discussion about how movie science and real science overlap. This week, Val Kilmer (RIP) leads a pack of teen scientists building a laser for the government in the 1985 classic Real Genius. The screening is followed by a panel featuring Dr. David Saltzberg, professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA and science consultant on The Big Bang Theory and Oppenheimer; Cody Ziglar, comic and writer for Futurama and Rick and Morty; Jason Patrick Galit, lead consultant for InterMyth and pop culture educator; and Beth Werling, the senior collections manager of history (Material Culture) at NHM. NHM’s Joel Quizon will moderate the panel.

Treasures and Trivia Thrifting Event

Friday to Sunday, Oct. 23-25
465 N. Halstead St., Pasadena
COST: $40; MORE INFO

Benefiting the Children’s Hospital of LA, Treasures and Trivia is an upscale thrifting event where you can find high-end clothing, furniture, art, housewares, holiday décor and more. Find your next prized possession among rows and rows of unique vintage items.

Side B: the sounds

Through Saturday, Oct. 24
David Zwirner Gallery
606 N. Western Ave., Melrose Hill
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy David Zwirner Gallery

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Did you know there’s a jazz listening room at David Zwirner through this weekend? "Side B: the sounds" is part of the current exhibition at the airy gallery space in Melrose Hill, Roy DeCarava: the sound i saw. There are a few events this weekend at the space, including a screening of the 1984 documentary Conversations with Roy DeCarava (Oct. 22), a reading by Harmony Holiday (Oct. 23) and a live jazz performance organized with the Sam First jazz club (Oct. 24). You can follow the full schedule of events here.

Grand Ave. Arts: All Access

Saturday, Oct. 24, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Downtown L.A. 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Courtesy Grand Ave. Arts

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Grand Ave. is the place to be on Saturday, when 14 leading arts and cultural institutions open their doors for the tenth anniversary of Grand Ave Arts: All Access. From the Ahmanson to Colburn, REDCAT to MOCA, DATALAND and more, all of the institutions along Grand Ave. are planning performances and exhibitions, including a special performance of ¡SÍ SE PUEDE! from Center Theatre Group, an instrument petting zoo at Colburn and Gloria Molina Grand Park’s Downtown Día de los Muertos celebration. Plus, it’s all free!

Public Spirits: Festival of Performance Art

Friday, Oct. 23, 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Various locations 
Chinatown
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

The Performance Art Museum is hosting an all-day festival of interpretive art, with performances by Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo (Puppies Puppies), Pau S. Pescador, Da Ron Vinson and Ryat Yezbick. Each artist approaches performance “as a form of public speech and a means of intervening in civic life in a spirit of resistance and critical response to the political climate.”

City of San Fernando Día de los Muertos Festival

Saturday, Oct. 24, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 
San Fernando Recreation Park
208 Park Ave., San Fernando
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Courtesy the City of San Fernando

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Bring the whole family to experience the rich tradition of Día de los Muertos! This lively event honors the memories of loved ones, and the city of San Fernando asks you to join in the sacred tradition by building your own altar.

L.A. Times Food Bowl 

Friday and Saturday, Oct. 23-24
Barkar Hangar
3021 Airport Ave., Santa Monica
COST: FROM $170; MORE INFO

Try bites from the hottest restaurants in L.A. at the annual L.A. Times Food Bowl, this year taking place at the massive Barkar Hangar in Santa Monica. Roy Choi, Chainsaw, Baroo, Rustic Canyon and many, many more will have tastes and treats — all included in your ticket.

It's Funny NOW: Five Moth Champions Live

Saturday, October 24, 8 p.m.
Hermosa Beach Playhouse
710 Pier Ave., Hermosa Beach
COST: FROM $21.24; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy RimoVision

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Five Moth StorySlam and Grand Slam champs join forces at the Hermosa Beach Playhouse for It’s Funny NOW. True stories, live on stage and only the best — you really can’t go wrong, just don’t forget to bring the tissues.

Venice Yoga Festival and block party

Saturday, Oct. 24, 12 p.m. to sunset
Venice Basketball Courts
1708-1978 Ocean Front Walk, Venice 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

Get your vinyasa on, or just meditate by the ocean waves with fellow yogis and community members at the free Venice Yoga Festival at Muscle Beach. In addition to free classes with local practitioners, the day also features live music and kirtan, kids’ activities, workshops and talks.

Blind Runner

Through Sunday, Nov. 8 
South Coast Repertory
655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
COST: FROM $41; MORE INFO

”Blind Runner” will be at South Coast Rep for a few weeks.

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Matt Stasi

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South Coast Repertory

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Mehr Theatre Group’s Blind Runner tells the story of three Iranians in a race against themselves — and time — using projection, immersive imagery and a story performed entirely in Persian with English supertitles. The unique show premiered at New York’s St. Ann's Warehouse in January 2025 as part of the Under the Radar Festival. With text and direction by award-winning Iranian theatre artist Amir Reza Koohestani, Blind Runner runs through Nov. 8 at South Coast Rep. Shows on Oct. 25 and 28 feature artist talkbacks.