The Brief

Malibu planning officials will vote on a development permit on Monday that could unlock or jeopardize nearly $55 million in state funding intended to improve Pacific Coast Highway.

The California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, is proposing a two-part repavement project along the historic highway in Malibu that it said will rehabilitate the roadway, minimize the need for future maintenance work and add a series of road features that will make cyclists and pedestrians safer and more mobile.

The first segment of that plan, involving work from Cross Creek Road to the Ventura County line, is what’s currently up for approval.

“If this is shot down for whatever reason, then we're a bunch of fools,” said Michel Shane, a film producer who became a road safety activist after a driver killed his daughter, Emily, on Pacific Coast Highway in 2010.

Not everyone is on board.

As much was clear at a Malibu City Planning Commission meeting on Oct. 20, when community members and some commissioners claimed in a four hour-long debate that the proposed additions of sidewalks, streetlights and unprotected bike lanes threaten the “rural” character of the city and don’t contribute to the road’s safety.

During two particularly heated moments, the assistant city attorney reminded the commissioners of the rules of public decorum.

Commissioners left that meeting without approving the permit. Instead, they asked state transportation officials for additional information and proposed modifications to its plans. The commissioners set to hear the state’s response and decide on the permit on Nov. 3.

The first segment of the project extends from Cross Creek Road to the Ventura County Line.

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What’s the urgency of the vote?

A spokesperson for Caltrans District 7, which encompasses the L.A. area, said that it needs approval for the first segment of the two-part road rehabilitation project in November so that the department can begin eliciting bids from contractors and get approval from the state’s transportation commission at its January meeting.

“If we can’t make that timeline, the funding will lapse,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Funding for the project is from the State Highway Operation and Protection Program.

The total cost of the project is around $73 million, according to the Caltrans spokesperson. Of that amount, Caltrans estimates $53 million will be used for construction. The spokesperson added that these numbers are not "final," which means the project could end up costing more.

Concerns over safety on Pacific Coast Highway are heightened

Caltrans officials, Malibu’s public works director and an L.A. County Sheriff's sergeant participated in a safety audit of a 21-mile-long stretch of Pacific Coast Highway at the beginning of 2024.

According to a draft version of the audit, the team recommended a host of improvements that were included in the pavement rehabilitation project Caltrans proposed to the Malibu Planning Commission.

Those include installing Class II bike lanes, which designate a section of the road for cyclists but don't include physical protection, as well as enhancing street lighting where there was observed foot traffic and more continuous sidewalks.

The audit came just a few months after four Pepperdine students were killed on the highway by a speeding driver.

In total, between 2018 and 2023, 15 people died in collisions on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, according to data from the draft audit.

“Each time, we hear condolences, messages of heavy hearts, thoughts and prayers,” Justin Orenstein, the transportation affairs deputy for L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, told Malibu planning commissioners on Oct. 20. “You have an opportunity this evening to help prevent this from happening again.”

Orenstein added that Horvath’s support for the project is “unwavering.”

Where’s the controversy?

While the commission was able to agree at its October meeting about the need for guardrails and curb ramps along the highway, contentions rose over a proposed sidewalk in front of Pepperdine University, the recommendation to install 42 new streetlights and Class II bike lanes.

The sidewalk in front of Pepperdine would extend from John Tyler Road to Malibu Canyon Road and was one of the improvements identified in the 2024 audit. Commissioners pushed back on the idea given Pepperdine’s concerns over emergency vehicle access to campus.

In a statement, the university said it supports overall safety improvements to Pacific Coast Highway and is requesting the proposed sidewalk be further evaluated “to ensure it is addressing a safety concern and does not unintentionally create new risks for pedestrians or emergency operations that serve our campus.”

A Caltrans official speaking at the October meeting said any curbs would be mountable by emergency vehicles.

The most controversial of the planned sidewalks is the one from Malibu Canyon Road to John Tyler Drive in front of Pepperdine University.

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The commissioners asked Caltrans to engage in further discussions with Pepperdine and surrounding residential communities about the sidewalk.

The debate about streetlights, which Caltrans has proposed adding in areas it says experienced nighttime collisions, became one about preserving the city’s character. Many residents at the meeting expressed concerns that the lights will cloud their view of the dark starry night even though state transportation officials said all lights will comply with the Dark Sky Ordinance.

Commissioners asked Caltrans to reduce the total number of new streetlights and to only recommend them at intersections as opposed to along the roadway.

Caltrans is also expected to come back to the commission with recommendations to make its proposed bike lanes more continuous and an evaluation on the effects on parking availability that would have.

One part of a whole

The road rehabilitation project is just one of several Pacific Coast Highway safety initiatives in the works.

The city is developing a pilot program to test how two roundabouts on Pacific Coast Highway reduce speed. Malibu is also one of a handful of California cities testing out speed safety cameras that, once up and running, will automatically ticket violating drivers. The road rehabilitation program is also separate from a longer-term plan Caltrans is developing involving the addition of protected bike lanes among other improvements.

Malibu Councilmember Haylynn Conrad, who ran a campaign focused on Pacific Coast Highway safety, supports the road rehabilitation plan.

“It's a tool amongst other tools that we need to make this stretch of roadway safer for generations to come,” she said.

If approved, the project would begin construction next spring and finish at the end of 2028.

The Los Angeles region’s homelessness agency will miss a Tuesday deadline for submitting its federally required annual audit of the agency’s financial records, which could jeopardize its federal funding.

LAHSA executives blamed the delay on a “perfect storm” of leadership changes and competing priorities within LAHSA’s finance department, including an L.A. County review of LAHSA’s delayed payments to contractors.

“Our staff made a good-faith effort to meet the deadline,” interim CEO Gita O’Neill said at a LAHSA Commission meeting Tuesday. “However, over the past year, we've experienced several transitions. As a result, we could not get all the required materials to the auditors as quickly as needed.”

Each year, LAHSA, like all non-federal agencies and organizations that get substantial federal dollars, is required to hire an outside auditor to determine whether it’s properly tracking and reporting the taxpayer funds it manages.

LAHSA’s single audit report for last fiscal year was due March 31, nine months after fiscal year 2024-2025 ended. Earlier this month, LAHSA officials said they were on track to meet the March 31 deadline.

Justin Measley, lead auditor for the firm CliftonLarsonAllen, had warned that LAHSA was months behind schedule turning over records.

At a meeting Tuesday, Measley explained that because of LAHSA’s earlier delays, the firm would need at least an additional week to complete a quality-control review process.

“We’re moving at the fastest pace we possibly can,” Measley said.

On Tuesday, LAHSA officials said the single audit will be filed “at the earliest possible opportunity,” within the next few weeks.

Federal funds at risk

LAHSA manages hundreds of millions of federal dollars each year, through grants from the U.S. Office of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

O’Neill said the agency has been communicating with HUD officials regularly about the missed audit deadline and is “hoping for understanding.”

Janine Lim, LAHSA’s deputy chief financial officer, said she’s also been talking with HUD.

“They seem amenable to our situation and to our stated timelines,” Lim said. “So, we are hopeful that this will be a good outcome, despite having missed the deadline.”

HUD did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment Tuesday.

What went wrong 

Measley said LAHSA’s financial statements should have been turned over around last December, but LAHSA only submitted them this month, after blowing through multiple extended deadlines.

Measley said he contacted LAHSA’s governing commission about the overdue documents March 3.

He said he also previewed his firm’s findings, noting one “significant deficiency” in its draft report, related to LAHSA’s timeliness in detecting accounting errors.

LAHSA could contest those findings, officials said. That would add additional back-and-forth between the homelessness agency and accounting firm before the audit report is ready to file.

Justin Szlasa, a LAHSA commissioner who chairs the audit subcommittee, told LAHSA’s CEO he’s concerned that there was no time provided for LAHSA’s governing body to review the audit report.

“Next year, we will absolutely do that,” O’Neill responded. “I think this year, we were under the gun, and so we felt it was the most important thing was to get it uploaded on time.”

O’Neill said the agency hired accounting firm KPMG to help modernize LAHSA’s financial systems, with a focus on its contractor payments.

“We have an outside, trusted voice to help us create a system that works going forward because the system we have is not working at all, in finance,” O’Neill said.

Updated March 31, 2026 at 20:44 PM ET

President Trump on Tuesday escalated his efforts to reshape American elections, signing an executive order that seeks to create lists of U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote in each state, and instructing the U.S. Postal Service to send mail ballots only to verified voters.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he believes the order is legally "foolproof." But election experts said the order was unconstitutional, and voting rights advocates and Democratic state officials quickly pledged to sue to block the order from going into effect.

A previous executive order on elections, signed about a year ago, has been blocked by federal judges who said the president lacked the constitutional authority to set voting policy.

The Constitution says the "Times, Places and Manner" of federal elections are determined by individual states, with Congress able to enact changes.

"This Executive Order is a disgusting overreach from the federal government and shows how little the Trump Administration understands about election administration," Adrian Fontes, the Democratic secretary of state of Arizona, said in a statement Tuesday. "We will not let this order stand without a fight and will meet the federal government in court," he added.

Arizona is among more than two dozen states Trump's Department of Justice has sued over access to sensitive voter data.

The Trump administration claims it needs the data to enforce states' voter list maintenance. Federal judges in three states have dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuits in those states.

In another case, a DOJ official admitted in court last week that the department plans to share that voter data with the Department of Homeland Security, to run it through the so-called SAVE system to search for noncitizens.

NPR has reported that some U.S. citizens have also been inaccurately flagged by SAVE.

How the executive order seeks to change voting

Trump has long railed — baselessly — about widespread illegal voting by noncitizens and fraud associated with mail ballots.

The new executive order — which was first reported by The Daily Caller — takes aim at both.

It instructs the Department of Homeland Security, working in conjunction with the Social Security Administration, to "compile and transmit to the chief election official of each State a list of individuals confirmed to be United States citizens who will be above the age of 18 at the time of an upcoming Federal election and who maintain a residence in the subject State."

The order then "requires the USPS to transmit ballots only to individuals enrolled on a State-specific Mail-in and Absentee Participation List, ensuring that only eligible absentee or mail-in voters receive absentee or mail-in ballots," according to a White House fact sheet.

Trump's executive order claims that "additional measures are necessary" to secure voting by mail, a form of voting he has used himself — including last week — but also falsely maligned for years. In the 2024 general election, nearly a third of all voters cast mail ballots.

The Postal Service should also review the design of mail ballot envelopes to protect "the integrity of Federal elections," the order says.

Collectively, the provisions would be a significant change to how mail ballot programs are currently administered in American elections, which are largely carried out by state and local officials.

"Our government's citizenship lists are incomplete and inaccurate. The United States Postal Service is overburdened and inadequate. This combines a car crash with a train wreck," the Brennan Center for Justice, which advocates for expanded voting access and sued to block Trump's 2025 election executive order, said in a statement.

Rick Hasen, an election law expert at UCLA, wrote on his blog that the order is likely unconstitutional. And regardless, he added, "the timing here makes this virtually impossible to implement in time for November's elections. … It seems highly unlikely any of this could be implemented for 2026, even if it were not blocked by courts."

The order comes as Trump pressures Republicans in Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election overhaul that would impose new voter identification and documentation requirements.

That bill is stalled in the Senate due to Democratic opposition and the legislative filibuster.

The Supreme Court is also expected to rule this year on whether Mississippi should be allowed to count mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day.

The legal challenge, which could have sweeping implications for mail voting nationwide, was filed by the Republican National Committee and Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Federal immigration officials arrested more than 14,000 people in the greater Los Angeles area in 2025 — the majority of whom had no criminal record, according to an LAist analysis of new data from the Deportation Data Project.

The data project, an initiative between UCLA and UC Berkeley, publishes federal data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

In 2025, federal officials arrested 14,394 people, up from 4,681 the year prior. Forty-six percent of people arrested had criminal convictions, 15% had pending charges, and 39% had no criminal charges or convictions.

In a December news release, the Department of Homeland Security said it had arrested more than 10,000 people in the L.A. area since immigration raids began in June of last year, including "murderers, kidnappers, sexual predators and armed carjackers,” but did not publish details of the number of people who had criminal records.

The data from the Deportation Data Project shows that arrests in L.A. spiked in June, and about two-thirds of people arrested that month had no criminal convictions.

More than 313,000 people were arrested by ICE nationwide in 2025, according to an LAist analysis.

In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said the agency has not “verified the accuracy, methodology or analysis of the project and its results” and said “this only reveals how data is manipulated to peddle the false narrative that DHS is not targeting the worst of the worst.” The spokesperson said 61% of people ICE arrested across the country either had criminal convictions or pending charges.

The agency has regularly published press releases identifying people they have arrested and who they have called “the worst of the worst,” including from the raids in L.A. in June. But an LAist investigation and reporting from other outlets has found that some of the people on those lists already has been in custody and were serving lengthy sentences.

Small businesses struggling financially have another program they could qualify for to help pay the bills.

The program is for businesses in Council District 1, which includes the neighborhoods of Koreatown, Pico Union, Westlake, MacArthur Park and Highland Park.

Individual brick-and-mortar businesses can qualify for grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000, while street vendors can receive about $3,000, according to city officials. A total of $400,000 is available through the program, and applications are now open. 

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez announced the program’s goal, describing it as a way to support locally owned businesses navigating rising operating costs, shifting customer patterns, and the impacts of recent wide-scale events, like the ongoing immigration raids, along with wildfires, and broader economic uncertainty.

Small businesses struggling financially have another program they could qualify for to help pay the bills.

Who is eligible?

The program is open to independently owned businesses and street vendors located within District 1.

To qualify, businesses must have a valid Los Angeles business license and have been operating in Council District 1 since December 2020, with some flexibility for street vendors. They also need to show they’ve been financially impacted by any largescale events, like the COVID pandemic, immigration enforcement, or the broader economy. Businesses that changed owners can also apply if they’re essentially running the same operation.

How can the money be used?

Grants can be used for daily operational expenses, including rent, payroll, utilities, overhead and other business costs. Roochnik said the funding could also help businesses cover missed rent payments.

Who is running the program?

The grants will be distributed in partnership with the PACE Business Development Center and New Economics for Women. The two organizations provide support to small and immigrant-owned businesses across Los Angeles.

How will recipients be selected?

Funding will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, with applications remaining open until funds run out, Roochnik said. 

What’s the goal?

Hernandez said the program is meant to help stabilize neighborhoods that have been affected by immigration enforcement and economic hardships.

“These small businesses are the backbone of our neighborhoods,” she said, adding the funding is meant to help them “stay open, keep workers employed, and continue serving our communities.”

Naomi Villagomez Roochnik, CD1 communications director, said the announcement was made during a press conference at Delicias Bakery and Some, a longtime Latina-owned business in Highland Park. The neighborhood has experienced significant rising rents due to gentrification and the location was meant to highlight the kinds of businesses the program is meant to support.

How to apply:

To apply, small businesses and vendors can complete the application at bit.ly/cd1smallbizsupport.

Is this a one-time program or part of a larger effort?

The grant is part of a pilot program, with the possibility of it expanding depending on demand and outcomes. The council office has launched similar aid efforts in the past, Roochnik said, such as food distribution and rental assistance. 

Businesses that may not qualify for this specific grant can be connected to other resources, according to Roochnik, including the city’s legacy business program, which is for businesses operating for at least 20 years. 

The post Small businesses, vendors struggling against ICE raids, economic uncertainty eligible for up to $10,000 in grants appeared first on LA Local.