The California Legislative Analyst’s Office reported Wednesday that Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers could face a relatively small $2-billion budget deficit next year, but warned that the outlook looks worse in the future and does not account for changes under the incoming Trump administration.
The Newsom administration agreed with the main tenets of the preliminary fiscal report and said the state should “expect even more uncertainty than usual.”
“Every California budget can be affected by forces outside of our control – whether it’s conflict overseas or an unpredictable stock market here at home,” said H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the governor’s Department of Finance, in a statement. “But this year, we have the added uncertainty of dramatic changes in federal policy next year under a new administration, and how policies such as higher tariffs and changes in legal immigration could add additional costs that affect not only the California economy overall, but our bottom line as well.”
The outlook released from the Legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal advisor offers lawmakers a preliminary analysis of the state budget picture through summer 2026. Newsom will unveil an official deficit estimate during a presentation of his budget plan in January.
The LAO said the state should be in a much better financial position for next year’s budget than earlier this year when Democrats were forced to reconcile a nearly $50-billion shortfall. Analysts attribute the shift to higher-than-expected tax revenues and prior actions to offset the deficit.
The forecast assumes the state will receive about $7 billion more in tax revenue above estimates made in July. The balanced budget outlook through 2025-26 also relies on $7 billion from the state’s rainy day fund, which Newsom and lawmakers previously agreed upon, and continuing to limit corporate tax deductions and credits.
“It’s really been driven by income gains among high income taxpayers, which are benefiting a lot from the very strong stock market trends that we’ve been seeing,” said Gabriel Petek, legislative analyst.
But Petek warned that revenues are not high enough for lawmakers to make new spending commitments. The LAO is forecasting a deficit of about $20 billion in 2026-27 and an even higher shortfall by 2028-29 of about $30 billion.
The California economy has been in a gradual slowdown over the last two years, Petek said. New job creation has largely been in government and healthcare sectors, with the state reporting about 25% more unemployed workers overall. He also pointed to declining trends in consumer spending.
The passage of Proposition 35, which extends a tax on managed healthcare plans, and Proposition 36, which increases penalties for some theft and drug crimes, is expected to add about $3 billion in costs for the state through summer 2026.
California is also expecting new costs associated with a $25 minimum wage increase for healthcare workers. The LAO said their outlook accounts for higher costs to fight wildfires, but doesn’t calculate in other unanticipated disasters, such as earthquakes or another pandemic.
“We need to show restraint with this year’s budget, because California must be prepared for any challenges, including ones from Washington,” Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) said in a statement. “It’s not a moment for expanding programs, but for protecting and preserving services that truly benefit all Californians.”
State Sen. Roger Niello (R-Roseville) said he shares concerns about the threat of higher tariffs, which Trump vowed to impose when he takes office, both for his family car dealership business and as a representative of a state that exports goods.
He offered a reminder to Democrats that California Republicans can help bridge the divide with the Trump administration.
“It might be a good idea for the governor to remember that while Republicans are a minority here, nonetheless, we’ve got a lot of Republicans involved in state government, and we would be every bit as concerned about the fiscal impacts,” Niello said about disaster assistance and other issues.
“We have lots of relationships with Republicans in Congress, not just those in California, but beyond California. The president and the administration being Republican, I would have to believe that they would pay some credence to the concerns that California Republicans would have,” he said.
Nearly half of Muslim students surveyed at California colleges and universities say they have been targets of anti-Islamic harassment or discrimination in the last school year as pro-Palestinian protests erupted on campuses, a sharp increase from four years ago, the Council on American Islamic Relations said in a new report.
The study, which surveyed hundreds of Muslim students attending a cross-section of about 87 California public and private campuses, found that 49% of students, or 352 of 720 of respondents, said they had experienced anti-Muslim acts by students, staff or administrators at school.
CAIR and the Center for the Prevention of Hate and Bullying, a CAIR-affiliated group that jointly published the study, attributed the rise to widespread pro-Palestinian protests, which in the past year led to hundreds of arrests and multiple lawsuits against universities, including UCLA and USC, over accusations of unjustified police use of force, free speech and equal access violations.
Pro-Palestinian campus protests tended to include a diversity of students, including many Muslims and Jews, and demonstrators were often accused of using antisemitic language or symbolism as they pushed for universities to divest from Israel. In many cases, encampments attracted counterprotesters, including a violent confrontation at UCLA.
“Instead of feeling safe and supported on their own campuses … many universities, administrators, and law enforcement have failed to offer the necessary support, leaving students feeling threatened, targeted, and isolated,” said Bayanne Kanawati, program manger for the center, which surveyed students at campuses including UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC Berkeley and Cal State Fullerton.
“College administrators must create a safe and inclusive environment for all, particularly those from marginalized communities. Students should be able to express their identities and political views freely, without fear of discrimination,” Kanawati said.
The survey was conducted online between March and July, a period that covered the height of campus protests in April, May and June.
The CAIR report, released this week, came out as UCLA’s response to protests have come under scrutiny. Multiple campus groups have released findings about discrimination on campus, while the University of California system this month also published an external report that criticized UCLA’s handling of the encampment. This fall, UCLA initiated new protest restrictions, increased security patrols and launched dialogue programs on campus to bring together groups that were on opposite sides in the spring.
CAIR’s study echoed findings of the UCLA Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Muslim, and Anti-Arab Racism, which released a report in April and June that decried a campus that’s “less safe than ever” for those groups and criticized “increased harassment, violence, and targeting” of them.
Another report last month from the UCLA Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias, which surveyed more than 428 Jewish or Israeli students, faculty, staff and administrators, also found 84% believed that antisemitism had “worsened or significantly worsened” since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
CAIR also reported students were generally reluctant to tell administrators about their experiences or seek help from university leadership. About half of all surveyed students — 47% — said they felt either neutral or unsafe about their safety on their campus.
“Islamophobia is not just a political issue. It has deeply personal consequences for students navigating their education under constant fear and scrutiny,” Osman Khan, Director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate and Bullying, said in a prepared statement.
While the report found negative trends in Muslim students’ perceptions of their place on campuses, it’s data are limited.
Most of the schools surveyed were in the San Francisco Bay Area or Southern California, where the bulk of the state’s Muslim students are located. Only a handful of colleges in Central and Northern California, including UC Merced and Cal Poly Humboldt, were included. Several campuses where there were major pro-Palestinian protests involving Muslim students, such Pomona College, were not surveyed.
The numbers of survey respondents at individual campuses were also small. At UCLA, where more than 46,000 graduate and undergraduate students are enrolled, the survey logged responses from 26 Muslims. At USC, the number was 21. The most represented university in the study, UC Irvine, had 43 people participate.
The season of atmospheric rivers is again upon us. The 2024-2025 water year’s first major storm is arriving, and from space it looks like a behemoth.
The storm currently off the northwest coast of the U.S. — described by meteorologists as a “bomb cyclone” — brings with it an atmospheric river. High winds and intense precipitation are expected.
The image below from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows the bomb cyclone and the atmospheric river below it dumping precipitation on Northern California and surrounding states.
A bomb cyclone approaches California on Wednesday.
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
The past two winters have been uncommonly wet in California, and while it’s unclear how this season will turn out, this first storm is certainly kicking it off to an impressive start. This week’s weather event marks the first major atmospheric river in months; the last two water years saw dozens of them.
The animation below gives a sense of the storm’s motion, spinning counterclockwise and forming a classic cyclone as a jet of moisture flows from it over the West Coast.
Seen from space, the storm is enormous, spanning a large portion of the Northern Pacific ocean. Wave data showed swells of more than 20 feet in the waters off of Northern California on Tuesday as winds exceeded 40 knots.
The exceptionally strong bomb cyclone is helping drive this monster storm, but because it intensified so far from the coast, its effects are diminished.
Just because it’s officially a bomb cyclone, that doesn’t mean it’s the worst storm on record, Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist, said in an online briefing. “It’s bombing out hundreds of miles west of the shoreline.”
Though dramatic in nomenclature, a bomb cyclone is a low pressure system found north of the tropics and south of the Arctic that deepens, or intensifies, very rapidly over a 24-hour period.
This system did so at a rate almost four times what is necessary to be deemed a bomb cyclone, officials said. The worst of its winds occurred offshore, but the intense system still brought major winds to the Pacific Northwest and is helping push the large atmospheric river towards the West Coast.
A bomb cyclone hits the West Coast on Nov. 20, 2024
(Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere / National Weather Service)
The animation below, from NOAA’s GOES-West satellite, shows the formation of the cyclone and its movement up the coast.
Many areas in Northern California can expect more than six inches of precipitation through the rest of the week, according to the National Weather Service office in Sacramento. In Southern California, light rain is expected over the weekend.
Northern California is expected to see heavy precipitation from the atmospheric river arriving on Nov. 20, 2024
(National Weather Service, Sacramento)
Some 38,000 Californians were without power as a result of the storm, and two people in Washington were killed by falling trees, the Associated Press reported.
Experts warn of flood risk from the heavy rain expected to fall on much of the Pacific Northwest in the next several days.
A Los Angeles assistant principal was arrested Friday on suspicion of molesting eight young children while working at a Santa Paula elementary school several years ago, authorities said.
David Lane Braff Jr., 42, of Thousand Oaks is accused of molesting eight students ages 6 to 10 in a school office at McKevett Elementary School, where he worked as a counselor from 2015 to 2019, according to the Ventura County district attorney’s office. At the time of his arrest, Braff was an assistant principal and school counselor at Ingenium Charter Middle School in Winnetka, prosecutors said.
David Lane Braff Jr., 42, of Thousand Oaks was arrested Friday.
(Ventura County district attorney’s office)
He has been charged with 17 felony counts of lewd acts upon a child under 14 years old and will be arraigned Monday in Ventura County Superior Court, prosecutors said.
He is being held in Ventura County jail on $3-million bail, prosecutors said.
“The defendant is alleged to have molested multiple elementary school children over a number of years, shattering the trust placed in him by parents, educators and the public,” Ventura County Dist. Atty. Erik Nasarenko said in a statement. “We intend to vigorously prosecute this case and encourage others to come forward who may have information about additional victims and crimes.”
The district attorney’s office and the Santa Paula Police Department launched an investigation into Braff last month, and that effort continues. Prosecutors believe that Braff has worked at other schools in Southern California and may have been a volunteer for youth organizations.
Anyone who believes they may have been victimized, or who witnessed suspicious conduct, is encouraged to contact Greg Webb, an investigator at the Ventura County district attorney’s office, at (805) 477-1627, regardless of whether the incident occurred in Ventura County.
For years, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department employee was living large, spending lavishly on Santa Ana dinners, West Hollywood bars and a nightclub in Las Vegas. But it wasn’t the department’s payroll footing the bill — it was her unsuspecting grandmother, authorities said.
Roxana C. Laub, 33, of Santa Ana, recently pleaded guilty to two felony charges for forging checks and fraudulently using credit cards in her grandmother’s name, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release.
She faces up to 30 years in federal prison for the bank fraud count and up to 15 years in federal prison for the identity theft count, according to the DOJ. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 9, 2025.
Laub, whose employment with the department has included a stint as a uniformed correctional officer at the Orange County jail, is accused of stealing her grandmother’s identity and savings for more than five years, prosecutors said.
From 2015 to 2017, she forged her grandmother’s signature on more than 20 checks in order to fraudulently deposit some $45,000 from her grandmother’s bank account into her own, prosecutors said.
Her 75-year-old grandmother had no clue what was going on, prosecutors said.
During this time, Laub attempted to pose as her grandmother on the phone with the bank to extract personal information about her grandmother’s account. After admitting she wasn’t the grandmother, she put her actual grandmother on the phone who told the bank employee she had no knowledge of the checks made payable to Laub, prosecutors said.
Laub then took the phone away from her grandmother and told the bank employee that her grandmother was feeling ill and unable to talk any further, even though the employee requested that the grandmother be put back on the line, prosecutors said.
Then from March 2020 to September 2022, Laub used her grandmother’s credit card to charge thousands of dollars for personal expenses such as meals at restaurants in Santa Ana and West Hollywood, bars in West Hollywood and a night club in Las Vegas, prosecutors said. She used her grandmother’s bank account to make more than $14,000 in payments for those credit card charges without her grandmother’s knowledge, prosecutors said.
Laub has shown some remorse for her acts and, in a text thread uncovered by government agents, told a family member “I know what I did is unforgivable,” prosecutors said. Laub has also agreed to pay back all the money she stole from her grandmother, prosecutors said.
The crimes were investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of the Inspector General with assistance from the Long Beach Police Department.
Help for financial fraud victims age 60 and over is available through the National Elder Fraud Hotline at (833) 372-8311.
A woman told Monterey police that Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Defense secretary, took her phone, blocked her from leaving his hotel room and sexually assaulted her, according to a newly released police report.
The Monterey Police Department on Wednesday night released a 22-page report revealing graphic details in the October 2017 assault allegation filed against Hegseth, which did not result in any charges. The report shows two starkly different narratives about what unfolded during a sexual encounter in his hotel room while the two were attending a Republican women’s conference in the city.
The woman, who is referred to as Jane Doe in the report, claimed that she repeatedly told Hegseth “no” during the alleged assault, and that he ejaculated on her stomach and told her to “clean it up” — an incident she said left her with nightmares, according to the report.
Hegseth told police that the pair had consensual intercourse and that he made multiple attempts to ensure she was comfortable during the encounter, according to the report. He has denied any wrongdoing, and the Trump transition team has continued to publicly support his nomination as Pentagon chief.
Hegseth addressed the situation in a brief comment to reporters at the Capitol on Thursday: “The matter was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared, and that’s where I’m going to leave it,” he said.
The police report raises more questions about what was already gearing up to be a controversial confirmation process for the Trump nominee. Hegseth, 44, is a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and was a Fox News host since 2017 and a contributor since 2014. His employment with the network ended the day his nomination was announced.
The alleged assault occurred at the California Federation of Republican Women‘s conference at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa, where Hegseth was a keynote speaker.
According to the police report, both Doe and Hegseth told officers that the two of them went with a group to the hotel bar after Hegseth’s speech and an after-party in a hotel suite.
While they were drinking at the bar, Hegseth allegedly put his hand on another woman’s knee. She told police that she made it clear it was “not acceptable,” but he still invited her to his room. She declined, according to the report.
The woman tried to get Doe’s attention so she could act as a “crotch blocker” to deter Hegseth’s sexual advances, according to the report.
Doe told police that she observed Hegseth acting inappropriately toward women at the conference, rubbing their legs and giving off a “creeper” vibe.
The police report contains conflicting information over how intoxicated Doe and Hegseth were that night. Doe had difficulty remembering some of the night’s events and, during a sexual assault exam, later told a nurse that she believed something might have been slipped into her drink, according to the report.
Doe told police that her memory “got fuzzy” while she was at the bar.
After leaving the bar, Doe told police she confronted Hegseth near the hotel pool about his behavior with women at the conference. He responded that he was a “nice guy,” according to the report.
An employee who had been working that night told an investigator that hotel guests had called to complain about two people causing a disturbance by the swimming pool about 1:30 a.m. The employee said when he approached Hegseth and a woman, Hegseth cursed at him and said that he “had freedom of speech.” The woman intervened and said that “they were Republicans and apologized for Hegseth’s actions,” the report states.
The staffer said the woman was “standing on her own and very coherent,” while Hegseth was “very intoxicated,” according to the report.
Doe recalled being in a hotel room alone with Hegseth. She told police she tried to leave the room, but Hegseth blocked the door. She remembered saying “no” a lot, she told police.
Her next memory, she told police, was of herself lying on a bed or couch with Hegseth’s dog tags hovering over her face. She said he ejaculated on her stomach, threw a towel at her and said to “clean it up” before asking her whether she was OK, according to the report.
Hegseth recalled a very different sequence of events.
He told police that Doe led him to his hotel room, where things progressed between the two of them, according to the report. There was “always” conversation and “always” consensual contact between himself and Doe, he told police.
Hegseth recalled Doe displaying “early signs of regret” after the incident and that she said she would tell her husband she fell asleep on a couch in another hotel room, according to the report.
Four days after the encounter, on Oct. 12, Doe went to a hospital to request a sexual assault forensic exam and brought with her the unwashed dress and panties that she was wearing during the alleged assault.
Doe reported experiencing memory loss and nightmares in the aftermath of the sexual encounter, according to the report. An associate of hers also told officers that she had very little energy and would burst into tears out of the blue after the incident, according to the report.
The police document reinforces portions of a memo that a friend of Doe sent to Trump’s transition team last week in which she alleged Hegseth raped the 30-year-old conservative group staffer during the conference, the Washington Post reported.
The newspaper, which obtained a copy of the memo, reported that Doe had tried to step into the conversation between Hegseth and others after two other women attending the conference complained that he was being “pushy” about taking them back to his hotel room.
Hegseth is a graduate of Princeton University and has a graduate degree from Harvard University. He was decorated with two Bronze Stars and a Combat Infantryman Badge for his military service. He left the military after President Biden was elected, saying he’d been ordered to stand down from guard duty at the inauguration after top brass dubbed him an extremist and “white nationalist.”
Nam-Yong Horn, former president of the California Federation of Republican Women, said in a statement on Facebook this week that she attended the 2017 event and described Hegseth’s behavior as “professional.”
The Mountain fire, driven by powerful winds, razed 243 buildings and damaged dozens more in Camarillo and nearby communities in western Ventura County, according to data released by state fire officials.
The tally places the blaze as the third most destructive wildfire in Southern California since at least 2013.
Ventura County was also the epicenter of the region’s two most devastating recent fires, both sparked by power lines.
The 2017 Thomas fire destroyed over a thousand buildings as it tore through 281,000 acres of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, becoming the largest wildfire in state history at the time. Two people were killed.
A year later, the Woolsey fire ignited under similarly heavy winds in Simi Valley. The blaze ultimately destroyed 1,600 structures — mostly in Los Angeles County — and killed two people.
The area within the Mountain fire perimeter has seen eight significant wildfires in the last four decades. Most began in the fall, when Santa Ana winds can become particularly dangerous. Southern Ventura County is a “favorable corridor” for dry offshore winds, said Ariel Cohen, the lead meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Oxnard office.
While the area’s chaparral ecosystem evolved to withstand some wildfire, repeat burns every 10 or so years can create a feedback loop that erases the larger, more resilient shrubs and allows for flammable invasive grasses to take over. That phenomenon was particularly relevant this fall, which saw a hot late summer following two wet years and extreme growth. About 30% of the area burned by the Mountain fire was grassland, according to a Times analysis of land cover data.
“This was definitely an area with very high vulnerability” Cohen said. “Coming out of two water years of 150 to 200% of normal percent precipitation … that’s been able to grow a lot of that vegetation, brush, grasses, that ends up being the base for fires to very efficiently spread.”
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Ventura County, National Land Cover Dataset, National Hydrography Dataset, U.S. Census, NASA
Sean Greene LOS ANGELES TIMES
Most of the area burned by the Mountain fire was in sparsely populated area in the Santa Susana Mountains north of Highway 118. But early in the fire’s progression on Wednesday, Nov. 6, the blaze jumped the highway and began threatening a suburban neighborhood in the Camarillo Hills. For the next two days, firefighters were on the defensive. When calmer conditions prevailed that Friday, crews were able to focus on containment.
The devastation was concentrated on a handful of streets surveyed by state and county officials.
On Santa Cruz Way, 89% of homes were destroyed or sustained at least minor damage. West Highland Drive saw the highest number of homes severely impacted, with 33 out of 50.
Flames from the Mountain fire surround homes in Camarillo on Nov. 7.
(Maxar)
The fire destroyed or severely damaged 20 homes on both sides of Old Coach Drive in Camarillo. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
W. Highland Drive saw the most destruction. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Many of the streets in this area are lined by ravines, which can prove particularly dangerous during wind-driven ember fires. Should an ember land at the bottom, fire can can climb uphill on both sides.
“One of the biggest risks that you can take — from a community perspective — is increasing development and the number of people at the wildland-urban interface,” said Alexandra Syphard, senior research scientist at the Conservation Biology Institute and a leading researcher on how to protect homes from wildfire.
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Ventura County, National Land Cover Dataset, National Hydrography Dataset, U.S. Census, NASA
Sean Greene LOS ANGELES TIMES
At a community meeting on Nov. 10, Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner and other officials announced a new website where the county would post information about the rebuilding process.
“I know we suffered great damage, but thousands of homes were saved and hundreds of lives were rescued,” Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner said Sunday night at a community meeting. “We suffered loss, but we’re able to rebuild.”
Staff writers Paloma Esquivel and Matt Hamilton contributed to this story.
Nearly half of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ record $1.3-billion homelessness budget for fiscal 2023-24 went unspent, an analysis by the city controller found.
Controller Kenneth Mejia found that only $599 million had actually been spent. An additional $195 million was encumbered, leaving at least $513 million unspent.
Mejia blamed “a sluggish, inefficient approach” for the underspending, listing lack of staff and resources, programs spread over multiple city departments and council offices, obsolete technology and absence of real-time data as contributing factors.
According to Mejia, the city spent or encumbered only about 30% of its $262 million in grants from the state Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program and 58% of its $267-million budget for Bass’ Inside Safe encampment reduction program.
The encumbered amount will probably, but not necessarily, be spent eventually.
The city also spent or encumbered less than half of the $150 million it received from Measure ULA, the so-called “mansion tax” on real estate sales of $5.15 million or more, and also failed to spend $30 million from other federal, state and local grants and $16 million for substance use disorder treatment beds.
The City Administrative Office questioned some of Mejia’s findings. It said $100 million of the “unspent” Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention funds included multiyear grants not intended to be spent in one budget year.
The analysis of the unspent Inside Safe funds did not account for more than $42 million used to expedite purchase of the Mayfair Hotel to get people off the street and later reimbursed to Inside Safe.
A spokesman for Bass issued a statement defending her record on spending.
“While the Controller is saying there’s too much money being spent one day, and not enough being spent the next, Mayor Bass has been executing a prudent and comprehensive strategy that brought down homelessness overall for the first time in years and reduced street homelessness by 10%,” Deputy Mayor of Communications Zach Seidl said.
“Even before taking office, she warned that the city’s antiquated systems would get in the way, but while others ponder reports about the decades-long problems, she has been leading the charge to fix the issues head on.”
Mejia acknowledged that overall homelessness declined by 2% in 2024 but said the city had lost an opportunity to do more.
“Imagine how much bigger the drop would have been had the city utilized the full potential of its homelessness budget,” he said.
The report indicates the city moderately overspent on several categories, including a family source center expansion, short-term housing assistance and a fast response vehicle.
The powerful board of Southern California’s largest urban water supplier will soon vote on whether to continue funding a large share of preliminary planning work for the state’s proposed water tunnel in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
The 38-member board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is set to consider approving $141.6 million for planning and preconstruction costs at its Dec. 10 meeting.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and his administration have requested additional financial support from suppliers that would eventually receive water from the project, and the MWD is being asked to cover its share of nearly half the initial costs.
The district, which provides drinking water for about 19 million people in Southern California, has spent $160.8 million supporting the project since 2020, and is expected to help foot the bill as requested by the state.
Newsom has said building the proposed Delta Conveyance Project is critical for California’s future. The 45-mile tunnel would transport water beneath the Delta, creating a second route to draw water from the Sacramento River into the aqueducts of the State Water Project.
The state has estimated the total cost at $20.1 billion, and Newsom has said he hopes to have the project fully permitted to move forward by the time he leaves office in early 2027.
Supporters and opponents of the project made their arguments to MWD board members at a meeting Monday. The discussion ranged widely from the vital role of the Delta’s water in California’s economy to potential alternative investments aimed at boosting the state’s supplies.
Supporters, including leaders of business and labor groups, said they believe building the tunnel would improve water-supply reliability in the face of climate change, sea-level rise and the risks of an earthquake that could put existing infrastructure out of commission.
“On the climate front, warming temperatures have put water storage capacity of the Sierra Nevada mountains in long-term decline,” said Adrian Covert, the Bay Area Council’s senior vice president of public policy.
Covert said the project would be a cost-effective way for the state to adapt, and that reliable water will also figure in future efforts to address the state’s chronic housing shortage. “Our great concern is that, without action, water scarcity will emerge as a major constraint on housing production across California,” he said.
For now, the MWD board will only be deciding on whether to agree to the state’s funding request for the next three years. The board is not expected to vote on whether to participate in the project until 2027.
“We encourage you not to pull out, stay the course and fund the study so that we can learn whether it’s good or not to buy into for the long run,” said Tracy Hernandez, chief executive of the Los Angeles County Business Federation.
She said the funding will enable the water district’s leaders to “continue shaping this project.”
Hernandez said her organization views the project as an affordable way of ensuring water reliability. Other supporters cited a recent cost-benefit analysis by the state Department of Water Resources, which concluded that building the tunnel would deliver water at lower cost than investments in seawater desalination, wastewater recycling or stormwater capture.
Opponents of the project have argued the state’s analysis is flawed and underestimates the costs while overestimating the benefits. They’ve called the tunnel a boondoggle that would harm the Delta and its deteriorating ecosystem, and have argued the project would saddle ratepayers with high costs.
“Please, stop throwing good money after bad,” said Pat Hume, a Sacramento County supervisor and chair of a coalition of Delta counties. “If these costs are this high before the project even begins, imagine what will happen to the projected costs to actually deliver the project.”
Different versions of the plan have been debated for decades — at first calling for a canal around the Delta, and later twin tunnels beneath the Delta, followed by Newsom’s current proposal for a single tunnel.
Environmental groups, Indigenous tribes, fishing organizations and local agencies have filed lawsuits seeking to block the project. They have argued the state should instead invest in other approaches in the Delta, such as strengthening aging levees and restoring natural floodplains to reduce flood risks, while changing water management and improving existing infrastructure to protect the estuary’s health.
“I believe there are a lot of alternative projects that could be explored and potentially delivered, in a more timely and more cost effective manner,” Hume said. Focusing instead on strengthening levees in the Delta and restoring tidal marshlands, he said, would ensure that water is “delivered to the doorstep of your existing pumps reliably.”
Other critics argued that California’s efforts to address its housing affordability aren’t constrained by water but rather by other issues. They noted that tribes and environmental groups are currently challenging related state water-management decisions in the Delta, and said more legal challenges are likely. Some called for continuing to increase investments in local water supplies in Southern California to reduce reliance on imported water from the Delta and the Colorado River.
“When you’re building something that creates environmental harm, environmental damage, that impacts local communities, there’s a cost to that. It impacts tribes, there’s a cost to that,” said Bruce Reznik, executive director of the group Los Angeles Waterkeeper.
Pumping to supply farms and cities has contributed to the ecological degradation of the Delta, where fish populations have suffered declines in recent years. State water managers say the tunnel would enable California to capture more water during wet periods. They also say the tunnel would lessen limitations on water deliveries linked to fish protections at the state’s existing pumping facilities.
Reznik said Southern California has a great deal of untapped potential to boost supplies locally through investments such as recycling wastewater and capturing stormwater. “There is so much we could be working on together,” he said.
The state Department of Water Resources has asked MWD to provide about 47% of the $300 million in planning and preconstruction costs, with 17 other water agencies funding the remainder.
The state’s current plans call for starting construction of the tunnel in late 2029. Construction would take about 15 years.
Deven Upadhyay, MWD’s interim general manager, called Monday’s discussion a “fantastic dialogue” that allowed board members to hear from those on different sides of the debate.
In a separate project, the district is also moving ahead with plans to build the largest wastewater recycling plant in the country. The facility in Carson, called Pure Water Southern California, is projected to cost $8 billion at full build-out and produce 150 million gallons of water daily — enough to supply about half a million homes.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced this week that the federal government will provide $26.2 million to support the project, adding to $99.2 million in federal funds committed earlier this year. The Metropolitan Water District’s managers say the plant could start operating and delivering water in 2032.
The water recycling project will benefit the entire state and the Southwest, said Adán Ortega, Jr., chair of the MWD board.
“It will help lower demands on our imported water sources from the Colorado River and on the Northern Sierra,” Ortega said. “And it will help keep the economic engine of Southern California running, regardless of the future drought conditions we may face.”
SAN FRANCISCO — In his victory speech three days after winning election, surrounded by hundreds of supporters in Chinatown, mayor-elect Daniel Lurie declared a new day in San Francisco.
“Your call for accountable leadership, service and change has been heard,” Lurie, 47, said to great cheers and applause.
That same enthusiasm vaulted Lurie, a centrist Democrat who has never held elected office, to an upset victory this month in his mayoral bid against incumbent London Breed and three other City Hall veterans.
Lurie’s opponents underestimated his appeal, calling out his lack of political experience as a disqualifying factor when it came to leading an iconic American city known for its tangled bureaucracy and Machiavellian politics.
It turns out his status as “the non-politician” is exactly why voters like him.
In an election seen as a referendum on the city’s post-pandemic struggles with homelessness and street crime, Lurie pitched himself as a change agent who could lead San Francisco into an era of recovery.
He has promised to make public safety his priority, including plans to declare a fentanyl state of emergency on his first day in office. He wants to “get tough” on drug dealers, as well as homeless people who refuse to accept shelter or treatment. And he vows to reinvigorate the downtown economy with art and a bevy of new businesses.
In the end, Lurie won 55% of San Francisco’s ranked-choice vote against Breed’s 45%, as of this week’s count.
“I entered this race not as a politician, but as a dad who couldn’t explain to my kids what they were seeing on our streets,” Lurie said. “In our house, when you love something as much as we love San Francisco, you fight for it.”
Daniel Lurie walks with his daughter, Taya, left, and wife, Becca Prowda, while campaigning in San Francisco.
(Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)
The last time San Francisco elected a mayor without prior government experience was five years after the 1906 earthquake devastated the city. In an election night speech to donors and campaign volunteers at a music venue in the Mission, Lurie drew comparisons to that catastrophe and the “inflection point” San Francisco faces today.
Turning the city around, he said, requires a “new approach.”
But even as a political newcomer, Lurie is far from an outsider.
Lurie was born into a prominent Jewish family. His father, Brian Lurie, was a rabbi and community leader. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother, Miriam Haas, married Peter Haas, the great-grandnephew of Levi Strauss, the iconic denim company founder. Peter Haas, a top Levi’s executive, became Lurie’s stepfather. He died in 2005, leaving Lurie and his mother as heirs to the vast family fortune.
“You need to give credit where credit is due. … They were successfully able to position the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune as an outsider,” said Eric Jaye, a Democratic political consultant who worked on an independent expenditure committee backing one of Lurie’s opponents, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin.
Lurie’s personal wealth buoyed his candidacy. He funneled nearly $9 million of his own money into his campaign, while his mother contributed another $1 million to an independent expenditure committee backing his election. His brother gave $150,000 to the committee, and his father spent $25,000, according to campaign finance records. The family’s combined spending helped make the 2024 mayor’s race one of the most expensive in modern history.
The city’s tech sector also played an influential role, infusing millions more into independent committees that overwhelmingly benefited Lurie, Breed and former supervisor Mark Farrell — all moderate Democrats whom tech titans saw as their best options to move San Francisco politics more to the center.
It was a marked shift for a sector that has largely stayed out of local politics, but whose leaders have grown frustrated with what they see as dysfunctional governance.
Lurie received a bachelor’s degree in political science at Duke University and a master’s in public policy at UC Berkeley. In 2005, he founded Tipping Point, a Bay Area nonprofit that has raised more than $400 million for community organizations focused on job training, housing and early childhood initiatives.
Before Tipping Point, Lurie met his wife, Becca Prowda, while the two were working in New York at another poverty-focused nonprofit, the Robin Hood Foundation. Prowda is now a high-ranking aide to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Lurie doesn’t minimize the role of his family’s wealth in his successes. But he also credits his family for inspiring a life of service. He said his dad, as a longtime executive director of the Bay Area’s Jewish Community Federation, assisted people living in poverty and fleeing persecution. His mom is an advocate for early childhood education to help balance the scales for low-income youth. The Haas family has a long tradition of philanthropy.
“I ask everybody to look at what I’ve done with my career. It’s always been about serving this community, bringing people with means into the fold and making them realize that we need to provide opportunities for everybody,” Lurie said. “Anytime a door has been opened for me, I brought as many people through that door as possible.”
Still, when it comes to being mayor, some of those most familiar with San Francisco’s political scene question whether he’s ready. While most everyone agrees Lurie is a nice guy, they aren’t sure he’s got the knuckles and elbows it can take to lead.
“He’s been a topic for quite a while now,” said Susie Tompkins Buell, a longtime Democratic donor who backed Breed. “I’ve never heard anyone speak ill of him. It’s always been complimentary. It’s just that he has no experience.”
Buell said Lurie’s family is “very philanthropic,” and that it’s clear Lurie shares those values.
But when it comes to politics, “you have to learn on the ground,” Buell said. “You gotta learn how to dance and fight at the same time, and make very serious decisions that are going to make you not popular.”
Among the decisions ahead that could lose Lurie a popularity contest: tackling a budget crisis that could require deep cuts across departments; stabilizing a financially unstable city schools system; and curbing an addiction crisis that resulted in more than 800 fatal overdoses last year.
“He has to get up and running and master one of the toughest jobs in America with no experience doing that job,” said Jaye, the political consultant.
People who have worked with Lurie at Tipping Point and on the campaign said it would be a mistake to underestimate him. They say he is a hard worker and effective leader who knows how to build coalitions across the ideological spectrum.
“He’s an incredibly nice guy. But don’t let that fool you,” said Sam Cobbs, who took over as CEO of Tipping Point in 2020 after Lurie stepped down. “He’s an incredibly intense guy that holds people accountable. He just does it in a nice way.”
Is that such a bad thing?
“Who wants to be represented by a mean, nasty, vindictive mayor?” said Tyler Law, Lurie’s campaign strategist.
Lurie won because voters were sick of the “pettiness and toxicity” of San Francisco politics, Law said, and wanted a mayor focused on results.
Lurie’s winning strategy included daily walks through different neighborhoods to talk with shop owners, families and residents eager for someone to listen to their struggles. His campaign knocked on tens of thousands of doors, and used some of Lurie’s money to buy TV ads and flood mailboxes with campaign material.
“For a year and a half, he showed up in every neighborhood, every day. He listened and talked to everybody he ran into,” said Dan Newman, a strategist who ran the independent expenditure committee supporting Lurie. “He was willing to meet everybody, to listen to people, to disagree politely when needed, and when you saw the results … virtually every San Franciscan either loves Daniel Lurie or likes and respects him.”
Lurie said he will keep walking San Francisco’s streets as mayor, similar to how the late-Sen. Dianne Feinstein approached the job after she became mayor during another period of crisis: after the 1978 assassinations of her predecessor, George Moscone, and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
“The city’s going to see a mayor walking the streets demanding accountability, demanding action and serving the people again,” he said.
And like Feinstein, Lurie plans to make time for family. He said he hopes to be home at least one night a week for dinner with his children, who also have busy schedules. His daughter, 13-year-old Taya, has ballet classes six days a week and is preparing for a performance of the “Nutcracker.” His son, Sawyer, 10, spends weekends playing in a baseball league.
Feinstein, like Lurie, was part of San Francisco’s wealthy elite, the wife of financier Richard Blum. But Feinstein “was a great mayor because she never backed down,” Jaye said. If Feinstein is Lurie’s inspiration, he’ll need her grit and determination in the face of sharp opposition. That, and a staff of smart people who can help him “realize his vision, but also understand all the many, many, many political landmines that await him,” Jaye added.
On Monday, Lurie unveiled a transition team to help him prepare for taking office. The co-chairs include Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs and a list of high-profile Democrats who have served in city government. Lurie is already navigating some criticism of his choices, after the San Francisco Standard noted that OpenAI has been lobbying the city for tax breaks.
Lurie he said he isn’t naive about the challenges ahead, or how difficult the job might get. But he’s confident he’s the right person to help the city write a new chapter.
“That’s the mandate that I was given by the people of San Francisco,” he said. “They want results. They want action. And I’m all in.”
