Behind the harrowing evacuation of Will Rogers state park

By the time the winds started blowing the Palisades Fire from the Santa Monica Mountains toward Will Rogers State Historic Park on Jan. 7, California State Parks staff were boxing up artifacts where the famous 1930s vaudeville actor built his ranch house. 

A color-coded sticker system marked which art, books, ceramics and other objects to prioritize. Park resource advisors and facility staff packed three pickup trucks to the brim with roughly 150 objects, worth more than $3 million today, before making their escape toward Interstate 405.

• Noa Khalili, acting senior environmental scientist of the state parks’ Angeles district: “As we drove away, we could hear on the radio the entry alarm, the fire was bursting through the windows.”

In the end, Los Angeles County’s Palisades Fire killed at least 12 people, and damaged or destroyed more than 7,000 structures. It incinerated 8,000 acres of state parks land, including Will Rogers’ ranch house and the historic ranch motel at Topanga State Park. The department completed debris removal in February, but the long road to restore the parks still lays ahead.

In addition to the $3.6 million that lawmakers set aside in the state budget to rebuild Will Rogers park and its visitor center, the parks department received a one-time $1.5 million grant from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for fire resilience projects. The money helps pay for hardening new and existing buildings against fires, clearing defensive space around facilities and coordinating with fire agencies to maintain roads.

Because Will Rogers park is considered a historic landscape, restoration efforts must remain consistent with the park’s history, said Richard Fink, the Angeles district’s superintendent. That means likely keeping eucalyptus trees, which are fairly flammable, in the landscape plan, but replacing them with a less flammable variety. Park staff also have to be on the lookout for invasive plants, including the arundo donax, a giant, highly flammable reed.

For the next several months, the department plans to gather public feedback about its restoration plans. It’s unclear when the parks will be fully restored, but Fink says the department is aiming for a soft opening in late summer to welcome visitors, and a bigger grand opening in the fall.

In the meantime, as the rescued items sit inside a storage facility in Sacramento, the parks outside continue their own revival.

• Khalili: “Because of the rain after the fire, all the seeds, stumps and root balls began to sprout almost immediately. We’re actually seeing really great recovery across the landscape. It’s kind of beautiful to see.”

The California Supreme Court handed environmentalists and homeowners with rooftop solar panels a victory Thursday, issuing a ruling that directs a lower court to revisit its earlier decision to uphold compensation rates for solar installations, writes CalMatters’ Malena Carollo.

In 2022 the California Public Utilities Commission slashed compensation payments utilities paid homeowners with rooftop solar panels by around 75%, saying that it was reversing what it considered unfair subsidies to affluent solar customers. Environmental groups sued, arguing that regulators didn’t properly consider benefits to customers and disadvantaged communities.

An appeals court sided with the commission, using a legal standard that gives more weight to the regulators’ decisions. But California’s high court ruled that that lower court “erred” by using this standard, and kicked back the case to the appeals court for reconsideration.

Read more here.

From CalMatters homelessness reporter Marisa Kendall:

As cities crack down on homeless encampments, police in many places are citing and arresting more Californians for camping-related offenses. But it’s still rare for a case to go to trial, which is frustrating advocates who want to challenge anti-camping ordinances in court. 

Case in point: Prosecutors in Fresno have dropped charges against Joseph Quinney, who was set to be the first person tried under a new ordinance banning sleeping on public property. Prosecutors decided not to pursue the case, one week before the Aug. 13 trial date, said attorney Kevin Little, who represents Quinney.

While Quinney is “extremely relieved,” arresting people and refusing to prosecute them is a waste of everyone’s time, Little said.

Little also represents Wickey Two Hands, who was scheduled to go on trial in April for camping before that case, too, was dismissed at the last minute. 

Quinney’s case stemmed from arrests in October for camping and in 2019 for unauthorized lodging. The Fresno County District Attorney’s Office dismissed the 2019 charge “in the interest of justice” because it was an old, nonviolent offense, according to spokesperson Taylor Long.

The city attorney’s office, which dismissed the October charge, did not respond to a request for comment.

A California bill would force streaming platforms to follow the same-volume rules as broadcast television. CalMatters’ Ryan Sabalow and video strategy director Robert Meeks have a video segment on how the bill aims to prevent loud commercials from disrupting viewers as part of our partnership with PBS SoCal. Watch it here.

SoCalMatters airs at 5:58 p.m. weekdays on PBS SoCal.