The Brief

Baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani made his first public appearance as a Dodger on Thursday after signing a megadeal earlier in the week.

Keeping the No. 17 he wore with his last team, the Los Angeles Angels, Ohtani put on a white and blue jersey with his number at an introduction event at Dodger Stadium Thursday.

"I can't wait to join the Dodgers," Shohei said, speaking through his interpreter Ippei Mizuhara. "They share the same passion as me, have a vision and history all about winning, and I share the same values."

It was the first time the former Angels player has spoken publicly since signing a 10-year, $700-million contract after becoming a free agent in the offseason. The previous largest deal was inked in 2019 by Ohtani's now-former teammate Mike Trout on the Angels, which was for $426.5 million over 12 years.

What the move means for LA's Japanese diaspora

Ohtani's move to L.A. is seismic news across Dodgerland, but his arrival carries special excitement for the area's large Japanese diaspora.

The fact that a Japanese athlete is now the highest-paid player in major league baseball — well, in any U.S. sport — isn't lost on Greg Toya. He told LAist he’s bursting with pride as a third-generation Japanese American and life-long Dodgers fan. So is his 92-year-old father, who Toya now plans to take to a Dodgers game so he can see Ohtani.

Greg Toya (l.) poses with friends at Angel Stadium in Anaheim while wearing No. 17 on his cap — Shohei Ohtani's number.

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Courtesy of Greg Toya

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Greg Toya (l.) and his friend LAist Senior Editor George Kiriyama enjoy a Dodgers-Angels game at Dodger Stadium on July 8, 2023

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Courtesy of George Kiriyama

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"Shohei Ohtani being Japanese is an important and vital part of our Asian American diaspora that needs to be celebrated and I definitely celebrate," Toya said.

The Dodgers organization has had ties to Japan going back decades. Ohtani is the eleventh in a line of Japanese-born players to wear Dodger blue, starting with Hideo Nomo in 1995. The two-way talent will play for manager Dave Roberts who was born in Japan to an Okinawan mother and U.S. Marine father.

Ohtani’s importance to Japanese and Japanese Americans was evident at a media-only introduction ceremony on Thursday for Ohtani at Dodger Stadium. Japanese-language outlets from both Japan and the U.S. had a large presence in the centerfield plaza watching Ohtani take off his blazer to don his new jersey.

Aspiring to be Shohei

Toya, a dean at Santa Ana College, said growing up, Asian American role models in professional sports were few and far between. But now everyone aspires to be Shohei. In the first 48 hours after his No. 17 jersey dropped, sales surpassed those for soccer star Lionel Messi.

Fans of the Blue Crew are hoping more stars from Japan will join Ohtani on the mound. Ohtani's contract is for a blockbuster $700-million dollars over 10 years. However, he is deferring all but $2 million a year to free up the Dodgers to court top talent like Japanese free agent Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Yuma Asakura reported from the introduction ceremony for Ohtani. He covers the Japanese American community in Orange County and said there's sadness that Ohtani left the Angels. But he said fans want the two-time MVP award winner to secure a title.

"He wanted to win. Yeah, so I think that is the best," Asakura said.

Tatsuo Mori, president of LaLaLa, a Japanese-language publication holds up a recent front page.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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The throughline to Hideo Nomo

Tatsuo Mori, another Japanese-language journalist at the introduction event, said that the Dodgers hold a special place among Japanese baseball fans because Los Angeles is where Nomo debuted.

“We remember how the Dodgers took care of Nomo,” Mori said.

Toya, the college dean, said Nomo broke ground for all Japanese players in the U.S. — walking so Ohtani can run.

“Shohei is in his own class,” said Toya who thinks the player has already outpaced Babe Ruth. “In the future, people will be saying ‘Oh, he's like Shohei.'”

Topline:

The case: In September, the city settled a lawsuit brought forward by two brothers in their 70s who said they suffered serious injuries after an LAPD officer crashed into their car. Days before the $18 million settlement was reached, lawyers for the brothers said Feldstein Soto called an expert witness testifying for the plaintiffs and “attempted to ingratiate herself with him and asked him to make a contribution to her political campaign,” according to a sworn declaration to the court by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Robert Glassman.

The response: Feldstein Soto did not respond to an interview request. Her spokesperson said the settlement “had nothing to do” with the expert witness. Her campaign manager told LAist the city attorney had been making a routine fundraising call and did not know the person had a role in the case, nor that there were pending requests for her office to pay him fees.

What Jurado says: In a statement to LAist, Jurado said she wants to “make sure that the city’s legal leadership is guided by integrity and accountability, especially when their choices affect public trust, civic rights and the city’s limited resources."

What’s next: The motion needs to go through a few committees before reaching the full City Council. If it passes, the motion calls for the city attorney to “report to council in closed session within 45 days regarding the ethics breach violation and give updates to the City Council."

Every year in Santa Ana, Luis Cantabrana turns the front of his home into an elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe that draws hundreds of visitors.

Along the front of the house, the multi-colored altar is filled with lights, flowers and a stained-glass tapestry behind a sculpture of the Lady of Guadalupe. Cantabrana’s roof also is lit up with the green, white and red lights that spell out “Virgen de Guadalupe” and a cross.

Visitors are welcomed with music and the smell of roses as they celebrate the saint, but this year’s gathering comes after a dark year for immigrant communities.

Luis Cantabrana stands in front of the stunning altar he built in front of his home in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe. Every year, his display draws hundreds of visitors.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Why do they celebrate? 

In 1513, the Virgin Mary appeared before St. Juan Diego between Dec. 9 and Dec. 12, asking him to build a church in her honor. Her image — a brown-skinned woman wearing a green veil with her hands together in prayer and an angel at her feet — miraculously appeared on his cloak.

To celebrate in Santa Ana, worshippers gathered late-night Wednesday and in the very early hours Dec. 12 to pray the rosary, sing hymns and celebrate the saint.

Cantabrana has hosted worshippers at his home for 27 years — 17 in Santa Ana.

The altar started out small, he said, and over the years, he added a fabric background, more lights and flowers (lots and lots of flowers).

“It started with me making a promise to la Virgen de Guadalupe that while I had life and a home to build an altar, that I would do it,” Cantabrana said. “Everything you see in photos and videos is pretty, but when you come and see it live, it's more than pretty. It's beautiful.”

The Santa Ana home's elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe draws hundreds of visitors each year.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Gathering in a time of turmoil 

Many also look to the Lady of Guadalupe for protection, especially at a time when federal enforcement has rattled immigrant communities.

“People don’t want to go to work, they don’t want to take their kids to school, but the love we have for our Virgen de Guadalupe,” Cantabrana said. “We see that la Virgen de Guadalupe has a lot of power, and so we know immigration [enforcement] won’t come here.”

Margarita Lopez of Garden Grove has been visiting the altar for three years with her husband. She’s been celebrating the Virgencita since she was a young girl. Honoring the saint is as important now as ever, she said.

“We ask, and she performs miracles,” Lopez said.

Claudia Tapia, a lifelong Santa Ana resident, said the Virgin Mary represents strength.

“Right now, with everything going on, a lot of our families [have] turned and prayed to the Virgen for strength during these times,” Tapia said. “She's a very strong symbol of Mexican culture, of unity, of faith and of resilience.”

See it for yourself

The shrine will stay up into the new year on the corner of Broadway and Camile Street.

California’s unemployment agency kept paying cellphone bills for 4 1/2 years without checking whether its workers actually were using the devices.

That’s how it racked up $4.6 million in fees for mobile devices its workers were not using, according to a new state audit detailing wasteful spending at several government agencies.

The Employment Development Department’s excessive cellphone bills date to the COVID-19 pandemic, when it shifted call center employees to remote work and faced pressure to release benefits to millions of suddenly unemployed Californians.

It acquired 7,224 cellphones and wireless hotspots by December 2020. State auditors analyzed 54 months of invoices since then and found half the devices were unused for at least two years, 25% were unused for three years and 99 of them were never used at all.

The investigation, which auditors opened after receiving a tip, identified 6,285 devices that were unused for at least four consecutive months, and said the department spent $4.6 million on monthly service fees for them.

From the beginning, the department had about 2,000 more cellphones than call center employees, according to the audit. The gap widened over time after the pandemic ended and the department’s staffing returned to its normal headcount.

As of April, the audit said the department had 1,787 unemployment call center employees, but was paying monthly service fees for 5,097 mobile devices.

“Although obtaining the mobile devices during COVID-19 may have been a good idea to serve the public, continuing to pay the monthly service fees for so many unused devices, especially post-COVID-19, was wasteful,” the audit said.

Department officials told auditors they were unaware of the spending, but auditors pointed to regular invoices from Verizon that showed which phones were not being used.

“We would have expected EDD management to have reconsidered the need to pay the monthly service fees for so many devices that had no voice, message, or data usage,” the audit said.

The unemployment department began acting on the auditors’ findings in April, when it canceled service plans for 2,825 devices. It has since implemented a policy to terminate service plans for devices that go unused for 90 days.

The California state auditor highlighted the mobile devices in its regular report on “improper activities by state agencies and employees.” The audit also showed that the California Air Resources Board overpaid an employee who was on extended leave as he prepared to retire by $171,000.

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