Two nonprofit groups have teamed up to help a solar cooperative get off the ground in west-central Minnesota.
The West Central Initiative and Solar United Neighbors are leading the Lakes & Prairies Solar Co-op as it takes sign-ups through the end of March with plans to begin rooftop projects in the spring and summer.
Solar isn’t very popular in Fergus Falls, home of the West Central Initiative, said Cedar Walters, the initiative’s climate officer. Walters, a Fergus Falls resident, said she only knows a couple of people in the area who have solar panels on their homes.
“There’s really not a lot of solar out here yet,” Walters said. “The cool thing is once you have a few people that have done it, if you see that your neighbor has solar, you’re going to ask them how it went and what was easy, what was hard, or what they learned. They’re going to ask, ‘Oh, if I’m interested, how can I do it, too?’ And they’re going to be able to learn from the person next to them that already did it.”
The co-op is largely focused on rooftop arrays as opposed to the larger “solar gardens” that have popped up in recent decades across rural Minnesota.
Walters said the co-op option makes it easier for people to consider solar, especially when paired with informational sessions from Solar United Neighbor.
In 2023, renewable sources provided 33% of Minnesota’s electricity — including wind, solar, hydro and biomass — according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Solar power provided about 4% of Minnesota’s total electricity generation. More than four-fifths of the state’s solar power came from utility-scale installations, but smaller scale installations played their part, too.
Individuals, businesses and nonprofits can sign up with Lakes & Prairies Solar Co-op for free and get an evaluation to see if it would be a good fit for them.
Meetings across region
West Central Initiative and Solar United Neighbors have held “Solar 101” events in some cities of the eligible counties of Becker, Clay, Otter Tail, Traverse, Wilkin, Stevens, Grant, Pope and Douglas.
John Anderson, the Minnesota program associate for Solar United Neighbors, said a co-op model helps make solar more affordable for individuals. The organization started co-ops in Duluth, Morris, Winona and on the Iron Range, in addition to installations they’ve helped organize in the Twin Cities.
A “Solar 101” event in Morris in November. Credit: Cedar Walters/West Central Initiative
So far, Anderson said that’s meant 270 household installations that have added up to 2.3 megawatts of installed capacity. About 40% of those installations were in Greater Minnesota, he estimated.
The last “Solar 101” event drew 29 people, Anderson said. Earlier in the month, there was one in Morris and there will be another in Moorhead in January. Walters said the questions people had ranged from impacts on their roofs to available tax credits to how their energy is tracked.
Once people sign up for the co-op, the organization puts out a request for proposal to solar companies to find out how much it will cost. From there, a selection of co-op members help poll what the rest of the co-op wants.
“Some people just want the lowest price. Other people — they want made-in-the-USA panels,” Anderson said. “The selection committee decides sort of which company they want to go forward with.”
The state agency that oversees workplace safety has fined the city of Los Angeles $563,250 after finding that the severe mauling of a animal shelter worker resulted from “significant safety and training lapses” that put employees “in harm’s way.”
The city failed to protect and train staffers at its San Pedro animal shelter and also failed “to evaluate and correct overcrowding at their animal shelter, which resulted in animal attacks and bites on employees,” the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA, said in a statement Tuesday.
In the May 31 attack, the employee’s leg “was badly mauled, requiring hospitalization,” Cal/OSHA said.
Leslie Corea, a kennel supervisor at the Harbor animal shelter in San Pedro, told The Times earlier this year that she was getting a dog out of its kennel to show it to a rescue group when it “flipped out” and attacked her leg. She underwent several surgeries and told NBC that she lost half her thigh.
At the time of the attack, Los Angeles Animal Services said in a statement that it was housing 1,500 dogs in the city’s six shelters but that it only had the capacity to “safely and humanely care” for approximately 800 dogs at a time.
Overcrowding and understaffing have been a problem for years in the city animal shelters, which are chronically underfunded. Dogs are routinely doubled or tripled up in kennels or stored in hallway crates because of a lack of space.
Euthanasias spiked in the shelters this year. From January to September, 1,224 dogs were killed — 72% more than in the same period a year earlier, a Times analysis found. Some dogs are being sentenced to death not because they are seriously ill or arrive with severe behavioral issues but because the shelters cannot meet their basic needs.
The six violations of the California Labor Code that Cal/OSHA cited in levying the fine were related to the Harbor shelter’s management of animals, violence prevention, training and personal protection and emergency response.
“Employees and their supervisors were not trained on effective animal handling and safety procedures,” Cal/OSHA wrote in its citation letter.
City employees and supervisors did not receive adequate personal protective gear or training, and there was a “lack of an effective communication system” that delayed an emergency response, the Cal/OSHA citation said.
Cal/OSHA Chief Debra Lee said in a statement that the brutal May attack on the staffer “underscores the severe consequences that arise when employers fail to take proper measures to protect their staff from preventable risks.”
“While we cannot undo the harm caused, we can hold employers accountable,” said Lee. “Every employee deserves a workplace that prioritizes their health and safety.”
Representatives for Mayor Karen Bass and Animal Services didn’t immediately comment on the fine.
Dog bites related to the animal shelters have been a serious liability for the city.
In June, the City Council agreed to pay $7.5 million to a Van Nuys woman whose arm was amputated after she was attacked by a dog adopted from a city shelter.
Shelter staffers failed to provide written notice of the dog’s bite history before it was adopted, as required by state law, according to the woman’s lawsuit.
Last year, a jury awarded $6.8 million to a volunteer at the city’s Lincoln Heights shelter after her arm was nearly ripped off in a dog attack. The jury found the city liable for gross negligence.
For more than two decades, the slaying of two UC Davis students stumped law enforcement, until DNA evidence finally led investigators to the kidnapper and rapist behind the notorious “sweetheart murders.”
Now, after 11 years on San Quentin’s death row, Richard J. Hirschfield has died of natural causes, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced.
His death puts a period on a long and grisly tale that haunted the families of Hirschfield’s victims for half a century.
The sweethearts, John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves, were 18-year-old freshmen at the Northern California college. On Dec. 20, 1980, they were volunteering at a production of “The Nutcracker” ballet at the Davis Community Center.
“These kids were exceptional, and I don’t take that word usage lightly,” said investigator Ron Garverick in a Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office podcast. “They really, truly were. Each of them was very involved in community, in family, in the school, in giving back.”
The couple was abducted by Hirschfield after leaving the community center that evening.
Gonsalves’ sister Andrea reported Gonsalves missing the following day. She would wait 33 years to see the killer convicted.
Hirschfield raped Gonsalves and dumped both of the teenagers’ bodies in a ravine about 30 miles east of Davis in Sacramento County, where they were found by police three days later. Their throats had been slashed and their heads wrapped in duct tape.
“The Gonsalves family was headed by George, who was an Air Force colonel, very stoic man, strong family man,” said lead prosecutor Dawn Bladet in the podcast. “Andrea described how she had never seen her father cry until they had gotten the news of Sabrina’s death, and he dropped to his knees and was wailing about his baby.”
Investigators struggled for almost a decade to identify a culprit. Then in 1989, David Hunt and Doug Lainer were arrested as suspects in Yolo County.
Hunt was the half-brother of Gerald Gallego, a Sacramento-area serial killer who raped and killed at least 11 women. Investigators theorized that Hunt had developed the same sadistic taste.
The suspects sat in prison for three years waiting for their trial in Yolo County Superior Court. Before that could happen, investigators made a breakthrough in the case when they discovered a previously overlooked stain on a blanket that turned out to be semen.
Neither suspect was a match for the DNA, and they were both released. The case went cold for another decade.
That was, until police uploaded the semen sample to a national DNA database in 2001. There was an immediate match to a sex offender listed in Washington state. There, Hirschfield was in jail for fondling two young girls.
Investigators quickly discovered he had been convicted of another violent sexual crime in California five years before slaying the sweethearts.
In 1975, Hirschfield broke into the Mountain View apartment of 16-year-old and 22-year-old sisters Marge and Michelle.
“He threatened them, tied them up, had a box cutter, garrote. He had a gun in his hand. He asked who wanted to be raped,” Bladet said. “Margaret didn’t want her little sister to be raped, so she said, ‘Please don’t hurt her, take me,’ and he did.”
Investigators now had a clear link to their suspect, but securing an arrest and verdict was no simple feat.
“All the 1980 original investigative materials had to be looked at and documented and then of course all the new investigations,” Bladet said. “In the end, there was over 200,000 pages, 80 banker boxes of materials in this case.”
Not all of the original evidence had been well preserved, and much of it had to be shipped down to Sacramento from Yolo County, where the initial investigation against Hunt and Lainer had taken place. Multiple witnesses had died since the crime took place, and many struggled to recount the long-ago events, the prosecutor said.
Then there was the matter of the suicide note left by Hirschfield’s brother Joseph, who killed himself shortly after police announced that a DNA match had been found in the sweetheart murders.
In the note, Joseph wrote, “Richard did commit those murders, but I was there. I didn’t kill anyone but my DNA is still there.”
The note was both a blessing and a curse, Bladet said, as it sparked a fierce debate between prosecutors and defense over whether any parts of the note could be used as evidence.
“There’s a difference between what we know happened and what we can prove in court, what is admissible evidence,” Bladet said. “There was no way that Joseph’s dying declaration about Richard being guilty was going to come into evidence. The law doesn’t allow it, so we had to take those parts of the note out.”
The note also created the opportunity for the defense team to try to pin the murders on Joseph, she said.
Finally, in 2013, more than 10 years after crime-scene DNA was matched to Hirschfield, the jury reached a verdict. Hirschfield was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder and use of a firearm with an enhancement of use of a deadly weapon. He was committed to San Quentin’s death row.
“I felt so relieved for these families, and they were just full of emotion, extremely relieved,” Bladet said. “It had been such a long time coming for them. They had lived with this for 30 years.”
Hirschfield died Monday at California Medical Facility, a prison hospital in Vacaville, at 75 years old.
The sweethearts he murdered, Riggins and Gonsalves, have a tree and plaque dedicated to them on UC Davis’ campus.
CALIPATRIA, Calif. — The little desert town of Calipatria, known for its state prison, is a humble place.
It struggles with poverty. It’s in the middle of Imperial County, where the 20% unemployment rate is California’s highest. And some days, its dusty air carries the stench of the polluted Salton Sea eight miles west.
But if you call townsfolk low-down, they won’t take it as an insult.
Sitting 184 feet below sea level, Calipatria is the lowest incorporated town in the Western Hemisphere. (Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park is lower, at 282 feet below, but no one lives there.)
Like many rural towns that don’t have a lot, Calipatria takes pride in what it does have. A flagpole that was once world’s tallest: a 184-foot staff from which Old Glory flies at sea level.
Edgar Self, the city’s public works director, called it “the shining star” of the Imperial Valley this month. He was setting out barrels of concrete to anchor 11 strings of white lights that would be hoisted to the top of the pole to create a very tall Christmas “tree” visible for miles around.
“It’s a sleepy little community, but we’re trying to get it going again,” Self said.
“This community is very low income,” added Self, 48, whose family has lived in this town 30 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border for several generations. “There’s not a lot of money going around. This is one of the things we get to do for the community.”
In this little town surrounded by agriculture fields and solar farms, summer temperatures exceed 110 degrees, and many homes have lawns of dirt instead of grass. The biggest employer is Calipatria State Prison. Besides a few restaurants, including a mouthwatering birria joint, there are not many businesses to draw in tourists.
The flagpole — marked on Google Maps as the Highest Flagpole — is the kind of road-trip oddity that has beckoned Canadian snowbirds, Bombay Beach bohemians and leather-clad Harley-Davidson riders passing through this town where pastors used to joke that their low-elevation parishioners had to pray harder because they are closer to hell.
Employees at City Hall across the street often step outside to take flagpole photos for tourists, sometimes lying on the ground to get the best angle.
Even better than the pole, Self said, is its backstory — an only-in-California tale for which city workers, led by an intern with an encyclopedic knowledge of its twists and turns, are trying to get official state recognition.
The flagpole, per the plaque at its base, is “Dedicated to Good Neighborliness.”
But locals know it really stands in honor of the late Takeo Harry Momita and his wife, Shizuko Helen Momita. The Japanese American couple lived in Calipatria after being incarcerated with their three children at the Poston War Relocation Center in western Arizona during World War II.
Momita was a pharmacist who was born in Hiroshima, Japan, moved to California with his parents at age 8 and graduated from USC. In the 1930s and ‘40s, he ran drugstores throughout the Imperial Valley, including in Brawley and El Centro.
“You see, in those days, it was difficult for a Japanese to operate a drugstore successfully,” his daughter, Louise Momita, said in a 1958 episode of the TV series “This Is Your Life.” “As social pressures increased, and business fell off, Daddy would have to find a new location and start over again.”
After Japan’s 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, paving the way for the imprisonment of 120,000 people of Japanese descent — two-thirds of whom were American citizens — in desolate detention camps.
The Momitas’ son, Milton, told The Times that his family was living in El Centro in the spring of 1942 when they were forced to board a bus bound for the Poston camp. He was nearly 5 years old. He remembers driving through the gates, past the barbed-wire fences.
At the camp, his elementary school classrooms were in converted barracks, where the children stood every day to say the Pledge of Allegiance.
“I think now, why did I do that?” said Milton Momita, 87. “I pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and here we were, devoid of all our civil rights, put into camps and without having committed crimes — just the fact that we were Japanese.”
The Momitas were incarcerated for three years.
Milton Momita, a retired pharmacist who lives in Contra Costa County, said that even after the imprisonment, his father “believed in this country.”
“He taught us that this is a good country, a great country — to work hard, keep your nose clean, get an education, be good citizens,” he said. “I’m happy to say that my two sisters and myself, we ended up being really good citizens.”
By the early 1950s, the Momitas were living in Calipatria. That’s where Momita became president of the Chamber of Commerce and opened another drugstore. It was a beloved hangout where wife Helen served coffee and locals served up chitchat.
“Besides being a very friendly town … ever since we moved down there, no one hardly calls us Mr. Momita or Mrs. Momita. We’re known affectionately as Helen and Harry,” Momita said on “This Is Your Life.”
In October 1957, the couple were driving to Los Angeles to visit their then-grown children when a car slammed headfirst into them in Colton. The 18-year-old driver of the other vehicle, The Times reported at the time, was trying to pass another car.
Helen Momita died instantly. She was 50.
The mayor of Calipatria, a city councilman, and the chief of the police hustled to the hospital. They persuaded Momita to hand over the keys to his pharmacy.
For weeks, while Momita recovered and mourned, his neighbors ran his shop. They even recruited a pharmacist from nearby Brawley to fill prescriptions for three hours a day.
Helen Momita’s female friends “kept the coffee hot and waited on the customers and dusted and cleaned,” said one of those women on “This Is Your Life.” Host Ralph Edwards noted that her husband had been “killed in the Pacific” during World War II and her son was then serving with the U.S. Air Force in Japan.
The townspeople collected $500 for flowers for Helen Momita‘s funeral. But Momita said his humble wife would not have wanted a big memorial.
He suggested putting the money toward something that local officials had pitched years earlier but that the town could not afford: a flagpole reaching up to sea level. He was so touched by his neighbors keeping his store afloat that he gave an additional $500 from his own savings.
The story made national news and was featured in Time magazine, which noted that the Imperial Valley had come a long way “since the old days — and Pearl Harbor days — when inflamed feelings against Japanese settlers brought persecution and bloodshed.”
Set in 18 feet of concrete, the Calipatria flagpole was erected in October 1958. Per the plaque at its base, it is “Dedicated to Good Neighborliness.”
(Hailey Branson-Potts / Los Angeles Times)
Donations poured in. Then-Vice President Richard Nixon sent a flag that had flown over the U.S. Capitol. Pacific Southwest Pipe Co. in Los Angeles offered to erect the pole at cost, which, The Times reported, was about $10,000.
The next year, Mayor Ed Rademacher and a city councilman brought an unsuspecting Momita to the Burbank set of “This Is Your Life,” where, to his surprise, family and friends joined him onstage to tell his story.
And the story of the flagpole.
Rademacher, a World War II veteran, mentioned another landmark flag when describing his friend: “I can remember when I was on Iwo Jima, and that flag was on top of Mt. Suribachi. But I think Harry has raised that flag a little bit higher.”
The Calipatria flagpole, set in 18 feet of concrete, was erected in October 1958.
A bright yellow sign at its base still declares it is the “World’s Tallest Flagpole.”
Today, it’s not even close. The title currently belongs to a 662.57-foot flagpole in Cairo built in 2021.
The Calipatria pole isn’t even the tallest in California. It was overtaken in 1996 by a 200-foot flagpole dedicated by the Lions Club in Dorris, a town of 860 people near the Oregon border.
But none of that matters to Calipatria city employees and elected officials, who want to see their flagpole formally designated as an official California historical landmark or point of historical interest.
The backstory, they say, is especially noteworthy. The Momitas were some of the few, if not the only, Japanese Americans living in Calipatria, where today less than 1% of the town’s population is Asian, according to the U.S. Census. The mostly Latino town now has about 6,200 residents — a figure that includes more than 2,400 inmates at Calipatria State Prison.
The Christmas “tree” pole lighting ceremony on Dec. 6, 2024, in Calipatria, Calif.
(Edgar Self)
Milton Momita said that, in 2019, he brought his daughter and two grandsons, one in high school and one in college, to the Imperial Valley to show them where he grew up.
“Being raised up in the Bay Area, they didn’t think there was much to do there,” he said, chuckling. But they were impressed by the flagpole — which, after all these years, is still a source of pride for him.
At Calipatria City Hall, Rudy Rosales, a 23-year-old intern from nearby Niland, has spent months researching the story of the flagpole, combing through municipal and news media archives, calling research libraries for obscure articles, putting together a comprehensive record that the city will be able to reference for years to come.
Rosales is a little shy — until he starts talking about the pole. He has memorized its significant dates, minutiae about the company that built it and details about what became an international fundraising campaign for the landmark.
“It’s a bit hard to believe that this happened, which is why we’re doing a lot — and I mean a lot — of research to make sure that we have all of our facts correct,” Rosales said.
City officials said they hope to use Rosales’ research as part of a nomination package for the state Office of Historic Preservation to get the ball rolling on a much-hoped-for official designation.
“It’s iconic to this community,” City Manager Laura Gutierrez said on a recent December day. She keeps a stash of stickers and pins in her office. They are emblazoned with the new city seal, which features — you guessed it — the flagpole.
A state designation, she added, would hopefully help the town preserve the pole and keep it well-maintained in the future.
If the city gets a historic landmark designation for its flagpole, it also could get a directional highway sign from the California Department of Transportation, pointing the way for tourists.
Inside a subzero freezer at a Northern California pet hospital sit rows of carefully labeled bags of fresh frozen plasma. Each pouch could save a pet’s life: a retriever that ingested poison, a corgi with a bleeding disorder, a puppy with parvovirus.
While the pouches each look the same, their straw-colored contents come from starkly different places. Some of the blood products are from dogs like Augustus, a 55-pound Belgian Malinois whose owner signed him up to donate blood at a canine community blood bank, which is modeled after the human volunteer system.
Other bags hold a more controversial history. Their contents come from donor kennels in California, where hundreds of dogs and cats live in “closed colonies” as full-time blood suppliers. These captive animals have long provided a steady stream of blood to meet the state’s surging demand for advanced veterinary care.
For decades, California veterinarians were required to buy blood exclusively from closed colonies in the state, a system regulators decided would ensure the products were safe and the donors free of diseases. Veterinary hospitals that collected blood in-house for their patients weren’t allowed to sell it.
But in 2021, state lawmakers declared closed colonies inhumane because the animals are held captive. They vowed to replace them with community blood banks and ordered that the state’s inspection reports — long sealed — be open to public scrutiny.
Feather Ranch Kennels in Los Banos is a contractor to Animal Blood Resources International, the only remaining company with closed colonies in California.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
The law, however, included critical caveats: Only closed colonies for dogs would be shut down, and that phaseout would begin after community blood banks — where owners volunteer their pets to give blood — consistently matched their output.
After three years, they’re not even close. California’s closed colonies continue to supply the bulk of canine blood sold in the state.
Without the blood supplied by captive donors, veterinarians say, many other dogs in critical need would die from injuries and disease. But this poses a dilemma for those who want to see the closed colonies shut down.
The Times found that the closed colonies produced more than 97% of canine blood products — including whole blood, red blood cells and fresh frozen plasma — sold in the state through September of this year. That divide will leave California tethered for many more years to a system it vowed to leave behind.
“I don’t want to see captive dogs,” said Ken Pawlowski, clinical director of one of three community blood banks in the state licensed to sell blood products. “However, it’s a necessary evil at this point.”
Inspection reports, along with emails, court depositions and other records reviewed by The Times, exposed new details about how colonies operate, including the fact that there is no regulatory limit on the number of years a healthy animal can be kept as a donor. Nor are the colonies required to disclose how many animals are euthanized annually.
“I don’t want to see captive dogs,” said Ken Pawlowski, clinical director of one of three community blood banks in the state licensed to sell blood products. “However, it’s a necessary evil at this point.”
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Records for the only remaining company with closed colonies in California, Animal Blood Resources International, show its facilities draw roughly a pint of blood every three weeks from dogs that weigh at least 50 pounds. The blood is then packed in ice and taken to a small town outside Sacramento for processing and, in some cases, separation into fresh frozen plasma and other components. The company’s pricing sheet for veterinarians, both in California and elsewhere, lists blood products for roughly $100 to more than $700.
State inspections don’t include the breed of the dogs used, but one facility’s local kennel license listed Labrador retrievers, greyhounds, Great Danes, Pyrenees and other breeds. The dogs are kept in pens large enough that federal law does not require them to be let out for exercise, though each colony reported they do “as needed.”
“This is our first opportunity to peek behind the curtain,” said Jennifer Fearing, a longtime animal welfare lobbyist in California, who helped pass the law.
Fearing said because closed colonies operated in secret prior to the law, little was known about their operations, including that dogs can be kept as full-time donors indefinitely.
“This is what we feared, but could never verify,” she said.
Pat Kaufman was living in Lompoc in the mid-1970s when her 12-year-old Beagle mix, Jake, was diagnosed with splenic cancer and needed surgery. The vet’s office called with good news after removing Jake’s spleen: He was done and ready to be picked up.
In the half-hour it took Kaufman to get there, Jake hemorrhaged and died. He needed a transfusion to survive, and there was no blood to give him.
“They were like, ‘Well, there’s no such thing as blood banks for dogs,’” Kaufman told The Times. “I said, ‘Maybe there should be.’”
A decade or so later, Kaufman met a veterinarian who wanted to start an animal blood bank, and they went into business.
Kaufman said she originally envisioned a model similar to how people give blood — pet owners could volunteer their dogs and cats to donate — but that state regulators pumped the brakes on the idea.
Frankie receives a treat after his owner brought him in to donate blood at Insight Veterinary Wellness Center, a 24-hour pet hospital that opened a canine community blood bank. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
The donor animals would need to live in closed colonies, kennels that restricted where they could go to prevent exposure to disease. She proposed taking unwanted dogs out of shelters to become donors, and later placing them in homes. “Protests ended that,” she recalled.
California long required veterinarians to buy blood products from these closed colonies. Two companies served as the only source of the state’s animal blood sales: the one Kaufman founded, which is now called Animal Blood Resources International, with offices in Dixon, Calif. and Michigan and Hemopet, which closed its nonprofit Garden Grove blood bank this year.
Kaufman, who retired a few years ago and sold the company to Chief Executive Scott Horner, said she approved of the shift toward volunteer blood banks, but said that kind of setup would not collect enough blood to meet demand.
“It’s a wonderful idea, except it’s probably impossible,” Kaufman said.
The company Kaufman founded became one of the largest commercial blood banks in the country, now contracting with three closed colonies in Northern and Central California that are inspected annually by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The colonies housed about 650 donor dogs and 530 donor cats, according to 2022 inspection reports. Inspection records show one contract colony reported in 2019 that nearly all of its donor dogs were bred into the program.
State inspectors noted last year that Animal Blood Resources International sold blood collected from an animal with heartworm. Earlier inspection reports obtained by The Times found water pooling in the bottom of the barrels dogs slept in at one colony, and “many flies” in a blood collection area at another.
The company’s spokesperson, Dan Kramer, said it self reported the heartworm diagnosis and the dog was removed from the donor pool. Since heartworm can’t be transmitted via transfusion, he said, no recipient dogs were affected. He said the inspector likely noticed water pooling after shelters had been cleaned and that the company implemented the state’s suggestion for additional fly strips in the area that had flies. He said no citations were issued for any of those incidents, and that the company has never had an animal welfare violation.
One contractor, Feather Ranch Kennels, is a 200-dog closed colony in Los Banos surrounded by empty, barren farmland. Several rows of covered chain-link pens house dogs on the property. From the road one recent morning, black and white Labradors could be seen romping about inside pens, excitedly barking and wagging tails.
Feather Ranch Kennels, a closed colony blood bank in Los Banos, also advertises puppies and training for hunting dogs.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
On its website, Feather Ranch advertises puppies, training programs for hunting dogs and adoption programs. There’s no mention of a blood bank. Owner Phil Mueller declined to talk with reporters.
In 2009, he began raising a colony of donor dogs to provide blood throughout the country and internationally, Merced County records show. State inspection reports reviewed by The Times show that Feather Ranch draws blood from each donor dog every three weeks.
State inspectors last year identified a blood donor with “undocumented lameness” that was subsequently removed from the donor pool and scheduled to see a vet.
In the Tehama County town of Corning, Skyline Sporting Dog operated a 281-dog and 336-cat donor kennel that also provides blood products to Animal Blood Resources International, according to a 2022 inspection report. Owner Tom Wright told The Times in a brief interview that he was preparing to go out of business.
“I’m tired of it,” he said. “Tired of animal rights trying to make us all into criminals anytime we work with animals. So I’m done.”
He said the push to shut down closed colonies has had a major impact on California’s blood supply.
“They’re going to get what they want, and there is not going to be any blood available in California anymore,” he said. “We have huge back orders.”
A blood bag is sealed after a dog donated at Insight Veterinary Wellness Center, a 24-hour pet hospital with a canine community blood bank in El Dorado Hills.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Wright did not elaborate on pressure from animal rights groups or respond to follow-up queries. However, Kramer said the state conducted two investigations — of Animal Blood Resources International and Hemopet — based on allegations by animal rights groups that the state determined to be unfounded.
Another inspection last year noted that Skyline was told to avoid collecting blood from pregnant animals to conform with best practices. CDFA spokesperson Steve Lyle said several pregnant animals were identified at the facility, which also breeds dogs, prompting concerns about their potential use as donors. Drawing blood can affect the health of the dog and its unborn puppies.
Kramer said there was a “very rare” situation where the donor animal had intentionally been bred but not yet tested positive for being pregnant when blood was drawn.
“Once it was discovered the donor was pregnant, she was removed from the donor pool, as is common practice. Since this event we have modified our practice, and female donors are removed from the donor pool prior to breeding,” he said.
Kramer said donor dogs receive care “as good or better than any pet at home.” He said the company’s mission is to help save the lives of pets in California, which has the most rigorous rules in the country for animal blood banks, and that each facility also has an oversight veterinarian.
“We’re very proud of our 30-year record of doing so by supplying a safe, ethical and reliable source of veterinary blood products for which there is no viable alternative,” he said.
Since the new law, he said, there’s been a 32% reduction in the volume of dog blood products supplied to California vets.
“Anyone who understands the kinship and bond many owners have with their pets knows the last thing any pet lover should ever hear is their beloved animal died simply because there wasn’t an adequate supply of blood available in an emergency,” he said. “But that’s exactly the danger of what these activists are promoting.”
Grant Miller, of the California Veterinary Medical Assn., said the veterinary community is divided on whether one model of blood donors is better, but that there is an overwhelming consensus that there is simply not enough blood.
Frankie donates blood at Insight Veterinary Wellness Center.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Meghan Respess, national director of blood banking at BluePearl Veterinary Partners, said it can take up to six months to get some products, especially for cats. She said BluePearl’s 110 pet hospitals perform approximately 8,000 transfusions annually. Its network of community blood banks across the country, including two in California, have roughly 700 dogs and 300 cats whose owners volunteer them to donate. But its hospitals would need three times the number of donors to reach its goal of supplying all of its own blood products in five years.
“It’s definitely a significant issue that can impact the ability to treat some pets,” she said. “Maybe they have to go elsewhere. Maybe they have to wait a longer period of time to get their product, assuming it can be shipped and it can be found.”
Miller said it’s clear that shutting down the closed colonies now would be disastrous for the health of pets in California.
“It would not only be a devastating effect; it would be a long-lasting, a perpetual issue for animals in California,” Miller said. “That would be very scary for us.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom didn’t mince words. When lawmakers sent him a bill in 2019 to allow volunteer blood banks to operate alongside donor colonies, the governor delivered a decisive veto. He said it didn’t go far enough.
Newsom wanted to shut down closed colonies completely, saying in his veto message dogs are “kept in cages for months and years to harvest their blood for sale.”
It took two more years before the bill phasing out closed colonies would arrive on his desk. With his signature, the state also rolled back sweeping privacy rules that had barred the disclosure of inspection reports and other records.
When The Times sought those inspection reports last year, a state attorney said in a court declaration that California regulators and Animal Blood Resources International disagreed about what should be redacted. CDFA spokesperson Steve Lyle said “when negotiations broke down,” the company sued the state to keep key details private, which according to records included where dogs are kept and how many are in each colony.
The Times intervened in court, and a judge ultimately ordered the state to release many of the details.
The records indicate that the state does not set a limit on how many years a dog can be kept as a blood donor and deems adoption programs optional. Lyle said officials review protocols from all licensees annually, and “corrective actions are taken where necessary.”
Feather Ranch draws blood from each donor dog every three weeks, according to state inspection reports.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
While the new law surrounding closed colonies was also intended to increase transparency, state officials last year began omitting most of the information that previously had been included in inspection reports, such as the number of animals housed at each facility and the number of annual animal deaths.
Lyle said the state updated its format for inspection reports to “emphasize key topics and streamline later review” in anticipation of the establishment of new blood banks. The new format was modeled after federal inspection reports, he said. Federal inspection reports, however, include the number of dogs at each facility.
Lyle said that the state agriculture department has proposed stricter oversight that would require closed colony blood banks to report quarterly on the status of all animals, including those euthanized or adopted “once their role in the program concludes.” But the regulations would not limit how long a healthy dog or cat can be kept as a donor.
When lawmakers were considering allowing volunteer blood banks in California, Jean Dodds, president of Hemopet, whose blood bank shuttered this year, bristled at the idea that closed colonies such as hers — which had 86 donor dogs in 2022 — were inhumane. Dodds, who was unavailable for comment, warned lawmakers of the need for strict donor guidelines if California moved to a volunteer model.
“We need to make sure that the blood is checked, that the donor is checked either a few days before a donation, or that the blood that they donate is checked for these infectious diseases every time they donate to make sure that we don’t cause pain and suffering and even, God forbid, death of an ill recipient animal,” Dodds said during a legislative hearing in 2021.
The corgi panted rapidly, her wide eyes fixed on the bustling surgical room at Insight Veterinary Wellness Center in the Sacramento suburb of El Dorado Hills.
An empty bag of fresh frozen plasma hung from her metal crate door — a lifeline she would need during a routine spay procedure due to a blood clotting disorder. The plasma came from the hospital’s new community blood bank.
For Pawlowski, clinical director of the blood bank and pet hospital, the corgi’s successful transfusion was the culmination of years of work that included guiding the blood bank law through the Legislature. He knew it would take time for a community donation model to outpace the colonies, but he was stunned to see the divide when provided the figures by The Times.
“Holy criminy,” he said. Through September of this year, the state’s three community blood banks sold 25,868 milliliters of whole blood, red blood cells and fresh frozen plasma, while closed colonies sold 981,350.
Kimberly Carlson, owner of another of the community blood banks, Brave Unity Blood Bank for Animals in the Bay Area, said it will be years before community blood banks catch up.
“It’s hard to get them up and running, and it’s hard to get people to volunteer their pets [to be donors],” said Carlson, whose blood bank opened last year.
Since Insight veterinary center opened in May, its staff has evaluated 84 potential donor dogs. Disease screenings, temperament tests and blood type preferences left them with 16 regular donors so far that they hope will come in four times a year.
One of those donors was a lifeline for Alicia Collins.
In May, her 3-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier was dying after a complication during a C-section. Reign had hemorrhaged and been resuscitated during the delivery, but the clinic did not stock blood.
Staff placed the limp dog in her backseat and told her to hurry.
She drove 30 minutes to Insight, where Reign received three bags of blood products. Two came from a Doberman named Zeus, a regular donor at the hospital.
The third was pulled from a freezer with older inventory: fresh frozen plasma from a full-time donor dog in one of California’s closed colonies.
Los Angeles County is suing the owner of Chiquita Canyon Landfill for failing to control a high-temperature chemical reaction that is cooking garbage and sickening nearby residents.
For nearly two years, trash has been smoldering in a long-dormant portion of Chiquita Canyon due to the rare chemical reaction. The broiling temperatures have affected a roughly 30-acre area, where putrid gases and hazardous liquids have burst through the surface of the landfill.
Although regulators have ordered Chiquita Canyon staff to take steps to contain the reaction, many of their efforts have been delayed or have failed to stop the stench from drifting into the nearby communities of Castaic and Val Verde.
On Monday, Los Angeles County filed a lawsuit against Chiquita Canyon’s owner, Waste Connections, claiming that its efforts have not been sufficient to extinguish the smoldering reaction and end the ongoing public nuisance, which the landfill’s staff acknowledges could persist for years.
“This lawsuit is a necessary step to ensure accountability and compliance with the rules that protect our residents and the environment,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said in a statement. “We must hold the responsible party accountable and continue doing everything possible to restore safe and healthy living conditions for our communities.
“While Federal, State, and County agencies are working around the clock with the landfill operator to mitigate this incident, it’s clear that the … mitigation measures have not brought a permanent stop to the awful stench that afflicts the surrounding communities. This lawsuit is a powerful tool that demands the landfill owners bring immediate relief to impacted residents. They must step up efforts to take care of those that have been harmed by their facility.”
The county is seeking a court order to halt the noxious emissions as well as civil penalties for environmental and public health violations. If Chiquita Canyon fails to do so, the county is asking for the court to appoint a receiver “to take possession” and bring it into compliance, according to court documents.
“Despite repeated enforcement actions and abatement orders, the landfill operators have not adequately addressed the situation,” said Dusan Pavlovic, senior deputy county counsel for Los Angeles County. “This lawsuit seeks to ensure immediate action to stop the harm. The resources that have been deployed in the community fall woefully short.”
Chiquita Canyon representatives could not be reached immediately for comment on the lawsuit.
A Christian Bible school in Riverside County was ordered to cease operations after a recent state hearing into multiple allegations over failures to properly educate and maintain records.
Amid student accusations of forced and unpaid labor at Olivet University, which is headquartered in the high-desert town of Anza, Calif., school leaders leaders tried to protect the university’s fate against state regulators’ attempts to revoke its license.
Presiding Judge Debra Nye-Perkins, who presided over the Office of Administrative Hearings, ordered the school to halt the enrollment of new students and help current students figure out a plan to finish their degrees elsewhere. The decision was finalized on Dec. 10 and goes into effect on Jan. 10.
“The only degree of discipline that would protect the public is the revocation of respondent’s approval to operate,” she wrote in her decision, ordering the school to pay more than $64,000 for violations. Nye-Perkins had 30 days to issue her ruling after the three-day hearing in early November,
Olivet said in a statement that it will appeal the judge’s order and has submitted an application to continue operating in California under “religious exemption.”
A state investigation was launched into the private university in 2022 by the Bureau of Private and Post-Secondary Education — a unit of the California Department of Consumer Affairs — over concerns for student safety and quality of education, officers testified in November.
Olivet President Jonathan Park and Vice President Walker Tzeng said that the probe was racially and religiously prejudiced and was prompted by news reports from Newsweek, which university leaders claimed to be inaccurate. The media outlet is owned by former Olivet members.
During two unannounced visits to Olivet’s campuses outside of Riverside and San Francisco, Bureau of Private and Post-Secondary Education officers testified that few students and faculty were viewed in living quarters and in classrooms. Most classes that were observed, officers said, were attended by a handful students — sometimes five or seven — and taught via a live-stream.
Administrative representatives at the university’s main campus in Anza and a branch campus in Mill Valley, Calif., did not have documents readily available related to student and faculty rosters and class syllabi, officers said. Some documents lacked detail, such as how many hours quantified “full-time work” for a student and several faculty contracts were either missing or expired.
Joanna Murray, a senior specialist at the bureau, said that one graduate class she observed was not rigorous enough for that level of education and that there was a lack of engagement between teacher and student.
“It’s not what I expected from a Master class,” she said.
Tzeng and Park accused the bureau of playing “gotcha” with its unannounced visits and said that a true review of the university would examine graduates’ impact on ministry — the focus of the school’s training and mission. School leaders continued to argue that the bureau’s assessment was prejudiced.
In one tense exchange, Tzeng said that BPPE officer Ashley Cornejo’s note that he “spoke good English” during her visit reflected a racial bias against Olivet, which has a majority of students from East Asia. The officer said the note was in keeping with other documented observations she wrote when she had trouble understanding a person she interviewed.
“When you look at people with a different skin color, do you assume they don’t speak English well?” Tzeng asked.
“No, because I know what that feels like,” Cornejo, a person of color, responded.
Throughout the testimony, Park and Tzeng said that the university was in good standing with its accreditor, the Assn. for Biblical Higher Education. Nye-Perkins and Deputy Atty. Gen. Dionne Mochon, who represented the bureau, said that accreditation was irrelevant to the case at hand. The BPPE is responsible for giving Olivet authority to grant degrees in California.
“Respondent continues to show a cavalier attitude toward compliance with the BPPE’s statutes and regulations,” Nye-Perkins said in her decision.
The Olivet university system, which has multiple campuses across the country, has faced ongoing scrutiny over its ability to educate. The accreditor previously put Olivet on probation in 2020 and placed the university under warning in 2022 until earlier this year. The university also previously lost permission to operate its New York campus after it failed to meet state requirements for curriculum, administrative policies and working conditions.
The Bible college system is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is connected with World Olivet Assembly Inc. — a nonprofit connected to ministry work. Both have reported tens of millions of dollars in revenue and assets on tax returns.
The university is also under federal investigation.
Several former students and employees from Olivet University have alleged that administrators prevented adults from leaving campus without permission and forced them to work, sometimes for free. These claims were made in interviews with The Times, and in a lawsuit filed this year against the university and school leaders, including, Korean American pastor and founder David Jang and former president Matthias Gebherdt.
Those allegations were not the central focus of the state hearing.
Some who spoke with The Times anonymously said they feared retaliation. Two former students who spoke on record, Tingbo Cao, 41, and Qilian Zhou, 35, were present at the hearing. They previously told The Times that they had been promised scholarship money, but that their time was eaten by work that was forced on them to pay for their education. They made loans to the school, they said, and received pushback when they asked for repayment.
The university has denied all allegations.
Cao and Zhou left the university earlier this year with their young daughters.
“As a former student who experienced firsthand the lies, manipulation, and abuse at Olivet University, I am relieved by California’s decision to revoke the institution’s accreditation,” Cao said in a statement. “This action validates the concerns I—and many others—have raised over the years and helps ensure that future students will not suffer the same injustices that I did.”
The federal judge in Los Angeles who presided over Hunter Biden’s criminal tax fraud case has been sued over a party at his home where “significant” underage drinking allegedly led to a guest being assaulted and later hospitalized.
The injured guest, Alex Wilson, filed the suit against U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi and his wife, Laura Scarsi, alleging that they were negligent in allowing teens from “various schools, including Loyola High School and St. Francis High School,” to consume alcohol without proper supervision.
The party occurred sometime in 2023 — the lawsuit offers two conflicting dates — at the Scarsis’ gated Pasadena mansion. While the festivities were underway, a fight among “heavily intoxicated underage minors” erupted in front of the Scarsis’ home and on their property, according to the suit, which was filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court and first reported by Law360.
Wilson alleges that one of the guests, Jackson Dorlarque, assaulted him and struck “his head and body on a curb on the Scarsi property.” From the beating, Wilson lost consciousness, sustained a traumatic brain injury, and had to be hospitalized for more than two weeks, according to the lawsuit. The suit contends that a “major” cut to Wilson’s face has left permanent scarring that “will require” plastic surgery.
Wilson’s age, background and educational status are unclear, with the lawsuit offering just one detail: He is a resident of L.A. County. Wilson’s attorney, James Orland, did not respond to multiple messages seeking comment.
In addition to the physical injuries, Wilson alleges he has suffered emotional trauma and social anxiety in the wake of the incident.
Wilson is seeking unspecified damages, arguing that the Scarsis did not properly supervise or secure the party and that they are liable “if they knowingly provide alcohol to minors or allow underage drinking to occur on their property.”
Wilson also brought an assault and battery claim against Dorlarque and his parents, Aaron Dorlarque and Jessica Brumfiel, arguing that the parents are liable for their son’s alleged conduct.
It’s unclear whether Scarsi and his wife were present during the alleged party or beating. Scarsi did not respond to requests for comment, including an email sent to the judge’s chambers. Dorlarque and his parents did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Then-President Trump appointed Scarsi, 59, to the federal bench in 2020. Before assuming his lifetime appointment, Scarsi was a prominent patent and intellectual property attorney.
From his courtroom in downtown L.A., he has presided over high-profile matters, including two cases brought by special counsel David Weiss: the prosecution of Hunter Biden and a separate prosecution of a former FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov.
Recently, Scarsi gained national attention after he penned a rebuke of President Biden’s reasons for issuing a “full and complete” pardon of his son, Hunter.
Scarsi was scheduled to sentence Hunter Biden, probably to prison, after Biden pleaded guilty to tax offenses. In Delaware, Biden had been convicted of illegally purchasing a gun, but the pardon wiped both convictions away.
Scarsi excoriated the president for asserting in a news release that his son was treated unfairly because of his last name. After also criticizing the president for offering an incomplete version of his son’s criminal case, Scarsi tartly noted that the president enjoyed “broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States … but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.”
Smirnov pleaded guilty Monday to lying to a federal agent about a fake bribery scheme involving the Bidens, along with tax evasion. Scarsi is scheduled to sentence Smirnov next month; prosecutors have agreed to seek four to six years in prison.
For weeks, people in several states, including California, have reported seeing drone-like objects flying across the night sky in clusters.
Concern over the sightings reached new highs in recent days, prompting some officials to urge calm.
But there still remain many unanswered questions about why people seems to be seeing so many drones and, if this is an uncommon occurrence, what is the case?
Here is what we know.
Officials downplay concerns
Federal officials said over the weekend that the multiple drone sightings over New Jersey and other states are “in fact, manned aircraft being misidentified as drones.”
On Saturday, officials said in a White House statement there isn’t any evidence that the drones are involved in any illegal activity or foreign involvement.
“At this point, we have not identified any basis for believing that there’s any criminal activity involved, that there’s any national security threat, that there’s any particular public safety threat or that there’s a malicious foreign actor involved in these drones,” a U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said during a briefing.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy urged the public Monday morning to “calm down” and stressed that there isn’t “evidence of anything nefarious here.”
Murphy declined to specify details of the federal investigation into the sightings but said there are “very sophisticated systems” that “come with really sophisticated individuals” to figure out what’s happening.
New Jersey is epicenter
Reports about drones in the skies have been building for three weeks. New Jersey has been the epicenter of the sightings, along with some nearby states.
California has seen some reports but far less than on the East Coast.
On Nov. 18, there were multiple reports of drones operating at night made through the New Jersey Suspicious Activity Report System, officials said. The FBI opened an investigation into the sightings two days later.
By Dec. 3, the FBI network had established 800 tip lines in order to free up the 911 call centers that were getting reports about the drones. About 5,000 tips have been received through the national tip line and fewer than 100 leads have been deemed worthy of further investigation.
Through visual observation teams throughout New Jersey, FBI officials have “determined all large fixed-wing reported sightings have been manned aircraft.” The sightings also appear to match the approach patterns for Newark-Liberty, John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports.
“This modeling is indicative of manned aviation being quite often mistaken for unmanned aviation or UAS,” they said.
Homeland Security officials said they also “determined that there is no evidence to date of any foreign-based involvement in sending drones ashore from marine vessels in the area.”
View from Southern California
Southern California residents have also taken part in the national surge in drone-spotting.
On social media, viral videos from Temecula and Riverside appeared to show groups of lighted objects hovering in the sky.
Damon Angel, a music producer in Temecula, posted several videos on Instagram showing what he classified as suspicious lights from an elevated road.
In a subsequent video, he said he hoped his videos of the suspected drones — which drew millions of views online — would help to bring attention to the issue. Another video, from a TikTok user in Riverside, claimed to show several unidentified objects in the sky.
FAA reminds about drone rules
On Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration released guidelines on drones that detailed their use.”More and more people are using drones, which means more people are noticing them in the sky,” the FAA guidance read.
The FAA stressed that it’s legal to fly a drone in most locations in the U.S. during the day and night as long as they remain below 400 feet, avoid other aircraft and don’t cause a hazard to any people or property.
Two temporary flight restrictions have been put in place for Picatinny Arsenal, a military base in New Jersey, and Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.
The Picatinny Arsenal restriction spans 2 nautical miles and 2,000 feet and will expire Dec. 26. The Trump golf course restriction has a 1-nautical-mile, 1,000-foot restriction that expires Dec. 20.
Murphy and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul have urged Congress to pass the Counter-UAS Authority Security, Safety, and Reauthorization Act, which would renew federal authority to investigate and track drones and give state authorities the power to create their own drone mitigation program.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced the departure of his chief of staf.f Dana Williamson. and tapped Nathan Barankin, a former aide to Vice President Kamala Harris, as the fourth person to fill the top job in six years.
The Democratic leader is making the switch from one seasoned Sacramento operator to another with added experience in Washington as he begins his final two-year stretch as California governor and speculation mounts about his political future.
“I greatly appreciate Dana’s counsel and her service to the state and the people of California over the last two years,” Newsom said in a statement. “I’m honored to welcome Nathan — his leadership and vision will ensure our administration continues delivering on our promise to create a more affordable, healthy, and prosperous California.”
Barankin, who is married to Newsom’s Cabinet secretary Ann Patterson, left his consulting firm and joined the governor’s office two months ago as a senior advisor in an elongated transition. He served as a senior advisor to Harris during her failed 2020 presidential bid, as her chief of staff in the U.S. Senate and worked as her right hand in the California attorney general’s office.
Compared to prior governors, Newsom has experienced particularly high staff turnover. Each of Barankin’s predecessors in Newsom’s office held the fast-paced and demanding role for about two years.
“It’s a high-burnout job,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist who worked for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and described Barankin as a “well-experienced, even-keeled, steady hand.”
“I can’t think of who would have been a better choice,” he said.
The governor surprised California politicos in 2018 when he hired Ann O’Leary, a Washington, D.C., policy veteran and longtime aide to Hillary Clinton, as his first chief of staff despite her lack of familiarity with Sacramento. O’Leary stepped aside after lifting his administration off the ground, battling against then-President Trump and managing the state’s response through the first turbulent year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Newsom went in the opposite direction when he hired Jim DeBoo, a veteran political operative with experience working inside and outside California government, as O’Leary’s replacement at the end of 2020. DeBoo helped stabilize the governor’s relationships with lawmakers and interest groups and navigate the state’s path to post-pandemic normalcy. He guided Newsom’s team as the governor survived a GOP effort to recall him from office in 2021 and sailed through his 2022 reelection to a second term.
Williamson joined Newsom’s office in DeBoo’s stead in early 2023 with a reputation as a smart and tough Cabinet secretary to former Gov. Jerry Brown. She took over at a time when California’s budget outlook swiftly changed from surplus to shortage and Newsom was forced to cut programs and delay funding for some of his policy promises.
She led the governor’s political fight with the oil industry, facilitated deals between business and labor over fast-food workers’ wages and workplace lawsuits and provided a steady hand in Sacramento while Newsom traveled around the country during the 2024 presidential election.
“It’s always hard to leave this work, but in two short years, we’ve made a lasting impact,” Williamson said in a statement. “I’ve had the honor of serving under three governors and when asked what I will miss the most, my answer is always the same — the privilege of working with some of the smartest and most committed people I’ve ever known. I’m grateful for every day that I’ve had.”
Barankin takes the reins as Newsom braces for battle against the incoming Trump administration over abortion access, climate change programs and disaster assistance, among other anticipated tussles and the potential loss of billions in federal funding that threatens to worsen California’s grim future budget outlook.
The new chief of staff will also face the charge of cementing a positive legacy for the 40th governor of a state beset by homelessness, a housing crisis and other big-picture problems, while Newsom sets himself up for a possible run for president in 2028.
“I am deeply humbled to step into this role at a time of both challenge and opportunity,” Barankin said. “As chief of staff, my focus will be on serving the people of California by advancing the governor’s bold agenda to create jobs, ensure safe neighborhoods, and improve the health and well-being of every family in our state.”
