The Thorn West is a state and local news roundup compiled by volunteer members of DSA-LA. Our goal is to provide a weekly update on the latest developments in state and local politics, and to track the issues that are most important to our membership. Writers and copy editors wanted! Email [email protected] if interested!

Issue No. 226 - February 21, 2025

City Politics

• As many criticize the city’s lack of wildfire preparedness in advance of the Santa Ana winds, Mayor Karen Bass has today fired LAFD chief Kristin Crowley. The LA Times covers the firing in the context of a “sense of disarray that has enveloped City Hall.”

• Children’s Hospital Los Angeles stopped offering several forms of gender-affirming care, in response to a Trump administration executive order threatening the funding of any medical institution that provided this care to transgendered youths. The hospital has now partially reversed that decision, following weekly protests.

Housing Rights

• The LA City Council postponed voting on a motion that would offer eviction protections to Angelenos economically impacted by the wildfires. It will revisit the issue in March. A similar measure did pass at the County Board of Supervisors. That motion applies countywide, but only protects those who specifically lost work. Tenants in Maui, devastated by wildfires in 2023, suffered a variety of cascading displacements, despite the passage of stronger tenant protections than LA is considering.

• The California FAIR Plan, a state-administered fund that provides fire insurance to property owners in high-risk areas, has run out of money in the aftermath of the wildfires. This triggers a condition that allows the fund to collect an additional $1 billion from insurers. Half of this cost may be passed onto consumers, with the state’s approval.

Education

• This week, a Los Angeles Unified School District policy went into effect that bans student phone use during school hours.

• The Trump administration’s terrorization of immigrant communities is depressing school attendance, per CalMatters.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• A member of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Civilian Oversight Commission has resigned, amid a conflict pitting the oversight body against county attorneys, LASD, and the State Attorney General's office.

• In San Francisco, an effort to bolster recruitment to the Police Department has failed, as a growing percentage of cadets are dropping out of the police academy.

Transportation

• A long-awaited discussion about how Los Angeles will implement Measure HLA was delayed; the City Council's Transportation Committee has been drawn into the efforts to block an affordable housing development, and ran out of time.

• The Trump administration has signaled that it will sabotage a California high speed rail project. At Union Station, a press conference by the U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was shouted down by project advocates.