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Civil Grand Jurors' Association of California

3 days ago

Front Page Los Angeles Times- Civil Grand Jury News-LA County and the Los Angeles Zoo

By Ruben Vives
A Los Angeles County civil grand jury report says the L.A. Zoo can’t continue operating the way it has been, citing deterioration of its facilities and rapidly declining membership.

The grand jury urged city officials to create a new public-private partnership, saying the action is crucial for the landmark zoo’s long-term survival.

The L.A. Zoo is the last major American zoo governed by a city department, the report said. The grand jury noted that managing it requires navigating a bureaucratic jungle that includes theZoo Commission, neighborhood councils, the city attorney, the city controller and other departments, as well as the mayor and the City Council.

The grand jury found that the city, faced with financial problems including a $1-million budget shortfall this year, would continue to struggle in managing the zoo, which has deteriorated and lacks funding for maintenance and new projects amid ongoing revenue loss.

According to the report, zoo membership dropped from 36,914 in April 2025 to 28,440 in February 2026, a 23% decrease in less than a year.

“Simply stated, to keep these important educational institutions afloat, almost all zoos across the United States have turned to public-private partnerships,” the grand jury wrote in its 2025-2026 report.

A spokesperson for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said that her office is “reviewing their recommendations — including the proposal to leverage public-private partnerships” and that Bass “looks forward to exploring these options.”

“Mayor Bass thanks the volunteer members of the Los Angeles County civil grand jury for their interest in the success of the L.A. Zoo and for their recognition of the zoo’s leadership in animal care and conservation as identified in the report,” the spokesperson said.

City officials have been talking for several years about ways to draw more visitors to the zoo.

In 2021, they unveiled a proposal for a $650-million remaking and expansion of the facility so it could better compete with tourist attractions such as Disneyland. But the plan met with some pushback from environmentalists who questioned the size of the expansion.

At the time, officials said roughly 89% of the zoo’s annual visitors were residents of Los Angeles County and 11% were tourists. A bigger zoo might draw more tourists, experts said at the time.

In 2023, the City Council approved the environmental impact report for the renovation of the 1960s-era zoo, but officials were still developing specific plans.

The grand jury said major changes to the zoo would be difficult.

“The zoo transition is extremely complex, involving chain of command, authority, management, supervision, labor, utilities, maintenance, construction, finances, and animal care (acquisition, exhibits, and disposition),” the report read.

“Every participating agency, director, and manager must understand this is not a ‘win-win’ situation, but rather a question of ‘What is best for the Zoo?’ ”

Representatives for the zoo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The civil grand jury recommendation comes as the city remains in a legal dispute over a $50-million endowment with the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn., a longtime fundraising partner.

For nearly five decades, GLAZA assisted the zoo by funding exhibits, plant and animal species conservation, capital projects, and education and community outreach programs, according to the report.

“A community zoo needs consistent nourishment to flourish,” the report read. “For a zoo, besides significant volunteer participation, the nourishment is money.”

The jury noted that it is often a wealthy benefactor or nonprofit that generates that money, and for years the Los Angeles Zoo believed ithad that in GLAZA.

“When that belief turned into litigation, our zoo’s future became imperiled,” the report read. “Its relationship with GLAZA now lies in ruins, crashed on the rocky shore of a major lawsuit” in L.A. County Superior Court.

In providing its recommendation, the jury suggested that the city look at other successful private-public partnerships, including the L.A. County Museum of Art and the Natural History Museum.

Each is run by a nonprofit, with some of its leadership appointed by the county Board of Supervisors.

The Los Angeles Zoo, which houses more than 1,600 animals, has become dilapidated over the years.

Exhibits for lions, bears, sea lions and pelicans have closed because they need major renovations.

The last two elephants, Billy and Tina, were transferred last year to the Tulsa Zoo in Oklahoma after decades of campaigning by animal rights advocates over living conditions and a history of deaths and health challenges.

Animal rights groups had sought to have the elephants moved to a sanctuary.

The 59-year-old zoo, which occupies 133 acres in the northeastern corner of Griffith Park, has struggled to maintain its national accreditation, with federal regulators finding peeling paint and rust in some exhibits.

U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors and the Assn. of Zoos and Aquariums found a “critical lack of funding and staffing to address even the most basic repairs,” L.A. Zoo officials wrote in a budget document in November 2024.

The civil grand jury made similar notes when it visited the zoo as part of its inquiry.

“The Zoo is special, a community asset with naturalistic exhibits, conservation initiatives, animal interaction, and in-depth programming, providing such a meaningful experience takes money, lots of it,” the civil grand jury wrote in its report. “The City of Los Angeles today can no longer tolerate or sustain that burden on its budget.”

To safeguard the zoo’s legacy, the report recommended that the city begin looking for a new benefactor at least by April, in particular someone familiar with the public-private zoo partnership to assist with the transition. ... See MoreSee Less

L.A. Zoo needs to evolve, grand jury says

enewspaper.latimes.com

A Los Angeles County civil grand jury report says the L.A. Zoo can’t continue operating the way it has been, citing deterioration of its facilities and rapidly declining membership.

Civil Grand Jurors' Association of California

5 days ago

Shasta County Grand Jurors' Association
Media coverage: 2026 Shasta County Grand Jury Report examing funding for the Redding Civic Auditorium. ... See MoreSee Less

New Grand Jury report examines city funding for Redding Civic Auditorium

krcrtv.com

The Shasta County Civil Grand Jury has released a new report examining the City of Redding's decision to provide capital improvement funding for the Redding Civ

Civil Grand Jurors' Association of California

3 weeks ago

MONTEREY COUNTY CIVIL GRAND JURY
Seawater intrusion a top priority
enewspaper.montereyherald.com/html5/reader/producti…paign=norcal-monterey_herald-eNotify-nl&utm_content=eNotify
BY DENNIS L. TAYLOR
NEWSROOM@MONTEREYHERALD.COM
SALINAS — A recent Monterey County Civil Grand Jury report finds thatefforts to identify and advance projects to stem ongoing seawater intrusion in the Salinas Valley must accelerate in order to protect portions of the region’s multi-billion-dollar agricultural economy.
Titled “Seawater Intrusion — A Shared Problem in Monterey County,” the report lays out findings and recommendations, primarily to three agencies in the county: the Board of Supervisors, the Monterey County Water Resources Agency and the Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency.
Seawater intrusion is directly linked to the decades-long problem of overdraft — pumping more water out of the ground than rain and the Salinas River is able to recharge. Most of the groundwater overdraft is associated with agricultural pumping. As inland groundwater levels decline, reduced freshwater pressure allows seawater from the coast to migrate farther inland. Recent mapping shows elevated salinity levels approaching the city limits of Salinas.
Salt water is a death knell to many vegetable crops.
Overdrafting these aquifers — specific underground pools of water
divided by clay layers that comprise basins — is such a problem
statewide that in 2014 the state Legislature passed the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act, which applies to 127 designated high and medium-priority basins and sub-basins throughout California.
These troubled basins account for roughly 96% of the state’s total
groundwater. The Sustainability Agency is responsible for meeting state mandates to achieve groundwater sustainability by 2040. But water officials emphasize the agency can’t solve these challenges alone. The issues are complex and the potential solutions involve significant technical,
financial and regional coordination challenges. The findings by the
Grand Jury are challenges water officials say they are painfully aware of. “In many ways, the (Grand Jury) recommendations describe exactly what (the Sustainability Agency), its Advisory Committee, its board, partner agencies, consultants, growers, municipal representatives and community members have been actively working on for years,” said Piret
Harmon, the general manager of the Sustainability Agency.
Ara Azhderian, general manager of the Monterey County Water
Resources Agency, said the jury was thorough and well-sourced in its summaries. He agrees that the solution must come from multiple agencies and stakeholders.
“The Monterey County Water Resources Agency is working closely in support of the (Sustainability Agency’s) efforts to develop potential projects and management actions that address an array of undesirable groundwater conditions, including seawater intrusion,” Azhderian said.
He cited several new potential projects that his agency and the SVBGSA have been collaborating on, including what’s called the New Seawater Intrusion Project, or NSIP, that is also noted in the Grand Jury report.
Modeled after the current Castroville Seawater Intrusion Project, or CSIP,which provides recycled water for agricultural irrigation in northern Monterey County after the water has been treated to meet required standards.
By delivering recycled irrigation water through CSIP’s “purple pipe”
distribution system, growers within a roughly 12,000-acre service area are able to reduce groundwater pumping. While the project does not eliminate seawater intrusion, it has helped slow its inland progression.
The proposed NSIP would extend a similar service to an additional
10,000 acre area around Salinas.
One of the grand jury’s findings is that “although multiple technical and feasibility studies addressing seawater intrusion have been completed, no major seawater intrusion mitigation project has advanced to full approval, funding, or construction.”
Water officials interviewed by the Herald agree that there are significant reasons for a measured pace.
Addressing groundwater overdraft and seawater intrusion is
extraordinarily complex and will require long-term, coordinated
solutions rather than quick fixes, Harmon said. Efforts to achieve
sustainability in critically overdrafted subbasins need to be balanced with the needs of agriculture, municipal water systems, domestic well users, environmental resources and the broader regional economy. At a recent meeting of the Advisory Committee to the Sustainability
Agency’s Board of Directors, it was clear that there are wide range of perspectives on how best to address groundwater sustainability and seawater intrusion. The Sustainability Agency’s team developed three portfolios, or combinations, of projects and management actions intended to support further evaluations and, ultimately, help build consensus among the committee and the board.
Addressing these challenges involves far more than simply selecting and constructing projects. Over the past several years, the Sustainability Agency has invested heavily in developing and refining groundwater and seawater intrusion models, conducting annual monitoring and reporting, preparing and updating groundwater sustainability plans, engaging stakeholders and evaluating a broad range of potential projects
and management actions through feasibility studies.
“Over the last several years, the (the Sustainability Agency) has been building the technical and policy foundation necessary to make informed long-term decisions rather than rushing into projects that may not ultimately solve the problem,” Harmon said.
The underlying hydrology in the Salinas Valley is also highly complex. Aquifers do not function like uniform underground lakes; rather, they consist of interconnected and isolated water-bearing formations with varying characteristics across the basin.
Determining whether a project is technically feasible, economically
viable, and capable of producing the desired groundwater benefits
requires extensive study and analysis. Although commonly referred to as the Salinas Valley Basin, the Sustainability Agency jurisdictional area includes six distinct groundwater subbasins, each with different
hydrologic conditions and management challenges. Four of those subbasins currently are experiencing significant effects
from groundwater depletion, with the 180/400 foot aquifer and the
Eastside Subbasin in a state of critical overdraft. The Eastside Basin
borders the Gabilan mountains to the east while the 180/400 aquifer borders the Sierra de Salinas mountains and further south along the Santa Lucia range. As a result, solutions effective in one area may not necessarily work in another.
Over the past several months, the Sustainability Agency Advisory
Committee and the agency’s Board of Directors have been reviewing feasibility studies and technical analyses for a range of potential projects and management actions. These include Aquifer Storage and Recovery, the Brackish Groundwater Restoration Project, Castroville & Eastside Canals and Alternatives, the New Seawater Intrusion Project, optimizing the Castroville Seawater Intrusion Project and demand management measures. Aquifer Storage and Recovery is similar to programs already operating
on the Monterey Peninsula, where excess river flows are captured during wetter periods and injected into the underwater basins for later use.
The Brackish Groundwater Restoration Project was described in detail in a recent Monterey Herald article:
www.montereyherald.com/2026/04/11/950m-water-project-on-drafting-table/
The Eastside Canal concept dates back to the late 1950s but was never constructed. The project involves diverting water from the Salinas River
and injecting it into the groundwater basins or delivering directly for agricultural irrigation. Another major activity under evaluation is demand management, which generally refers to reducing groundwater pumping through a range of possible measures. The studies show that significant pumping reductions could have substantial economic impacts, including reduced agricultural production and related job losses. Under the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act, groundwater basins are required to
achieve sustainability by 2040, and state intervention is possible if
adequate progress is not made.
As a result, the local Sustainability Agency is considering potential
demand management approaches as part of its broader groundwater sustainability planning and implementation efforts.
The Grand Jury report recommends additional public workshops and Sustainability Agency staff say they support continued public outreach and engagement. They also note that agency meetings are already open to the public and include ongoing stakeholder discussion and input opportunities.
One of the most challenging issues will be determining how to fund and share the costs of any future projects. Long-term success will require broad county-wide collaboration and leadership to bring communities together around shared solutions, Azhderian said. “Certainly, groundwater is a shared resource but, moreover, it is our shared economy that supports the communities and culture we value so much as residents of Monterey County,” he said. ... See MoreSee Less

Civil Grand Jurors' Association of California

4 weeks ago

The Sierra County Civil Grand Jury approves and releases their final report - 2026

Note: this article is behind a paywall after the first access. ... See MoreSee Less

2025-2026 Sierra County Grand Jury Releases Final Report | The Mountain Messenger

www.themountainmessenger.org

Independent panel examines local government operations and offers recommendations for improvements.