The Brief

Los Angeles police arrested and cited a street safety activist on Sunday as he painted DIY crosswalks in Westwood with community members.

“I was like, ‘Hey, look, we don't have a permit. We're protesting for safer streets and a more effective government,’” Jonathan Hale said about his interaction with officers. “They were not down with that.”

Hale made headlines earlier this year when he led efforts to paint crosswalks around Stoner Park and at a Koreatown intersection where an RV driver hit and killed 9-year-old Nadir Gavarrete in July.

Hale and volunteers with a group he founded called People’s Vision Zero initially planned to work at the intersection of Wilkins and Midvale avenues. State data show a car hit and injured a 35-year-old man at that intersection in November 2020. There were too many potholes, Hale said, making painting there “unfeasible.” Instead, the group focused on the corner immediately adjacent at Wilkins and Kelton avenues.

According to a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson, “a vandalism radio call was generated” around 11 a.m. that described “approximately 7 suspects were painting what appeared to be a fake crosswalk pretending to be city workers.”

Hale said the group had painted two of four total crosswalks and were working on the third when officers approached, asked him for a permit and eventually cited him for misdemeanor vandalism.

Hale said he made it clear to the officer questioning him, as well as in flyers and posters he distributed locally earlier in the week, that People’s Vision Zero is an “unofficial group painting an unpermitted crosswalk.”

“ I make it very clear I’m not a city employee,” Hale said.

People's Vision Zero painted two of four crosswalks at the corner before police showed up.

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Jonathan Hale

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A video from People’s Vision Zero shows an officer speaking to Hale and people watching him get arrested.

“You’re vandalizing city property without a permit,” the officer says in the video. “So I’m gonna ask y’all nicely — y’all can record all you want — but back up or I will take everyone to jail.”

Hale said he is due in court on Jan. 5.

In addition to the local outreach before painting the crosswalk, Hale submitted a 311 ticket on Oct. 7 requesting the city install a marked crosswalk at the Midvale intersection and emailed the mayor’s office about People’s Vision Zero’s planned action on Dec. 1.

Local councilmember responds

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky represents the Westwood area.

In a statement, her spokesperson, Leo Daube, pointed to how DIY crosswalks present liability concerns for the city and need to be reviewed for "ADA access, visibility, and safety."

Daube added that Yaroslavsky recognizes the need for expedited delivery of safety improvements to L.A. streets and could see "volunteers supporting this work in a safe and legal way in the future."

While not involved with the incident, Daube said the office would "prefer enforcement focused on dangerous driving and speeding, which put residents at risk every day.”

Hale has been transparent with the mayor’s office

Hale met with the mayor’s office in September and said they discussed policy proposals that would address the city’s slow pace toward making streets in L.A. safer, the central frustration behind community-led campaigns like People’s Vision Zero.

According to correspondence shared with LAist, the mayor’s office has only responded once to Hale’s emails since the September meeting.

“While we share your goals, all roadway markings, including crosswalks, must comply with local, state, and federal standards to ensure consistency and minimize risk,” an Oct. 10 email from the mayor’s office states. “Though we can’t approve of or endorse unsanctioned roadway alterations, we welcome collaboration to advance safety initiatives.”

Nothing has materialized so far, Hale said, so his group has continued to paint crosswalks at certain intersections where pedestrians have been hit by vehicles. Hale emails the mayor’s office before each “paint party,” the term People’s Vision Zero uses to describe DIY crosswalk painting events, according to messages reviewed by LAist.

In the Dec. 1 email he sent about the Westwood crosswalk, Hale said People’s Vision Zero would stop painting crosswalks if the mayor’s office either “publicly and unequivocally condemns our actions” or “demonstrates urgency in ending traffic violence by taking tangible steps to make our streets safer.”

In a statement to LAist about Hale’s arrest, the mayor’s office said that “despite communication about City, State, and Federal laws and parameters, Jonathan has chosen to continue to pursue his own course of action.”

Where is the city’s Vision Zero program?

In the spring, an audit covering the first seven years of L.A.’s Vision Zero program found that a lack of political will and poor coordination hampered the city’s failed goal of reaching zero traffic deaths by 2025.

Since then, local leaders have been considering a suite of recommendations to revamp the program.

Last week, members of L.A. City Council’s budget committee largely approved the recommendations, but also criticized the city’s slow pace of implementing programs, such as speed safety cameras, that have proven to be effective in addressing traffic violence.

“I'm just sort of speaking for myself, but like almost every week someone's hit by a car and killed, it feels like, in our district,” Yaroslavsky said at the Dec. 2 meeting.

In a presentation to the committee, staff from the City Administrative Office and L.A.’s Department of Transportation said pedestrian fatalities in the city have increased nearly 36% since 2021, but that there’s been a decrease in vehicle-and-vehicle crashes.

“It is essentially getting safer to drive in L.A., and similar story across the country, but it is getting less safe to be a pedestrian,” Chris Rider, a city transportation engineer, said during the meeting.

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

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