Gentle reader,
It’s election primary season in Los Angeles, and there are shadowy forces seeking to shape the outcome for reasons we cannot know.
Down in the Westlake District, a block south of MacArthur Park, a stark billboard atop of the Carpenters Local 25 calls out Council District 1 representative Eunisses Hernandez for permitting sidewalk tent encampments near schools.
We were curious about who had paid for the billboard, which criticized the incumbent without suggesting an alternative.
The small print identifies the sponsor as “Neighbors First, A Local Nonprofit.” Their website is © “a coalition of Los Angeles residents committed to promoting a safer, cleaner, more prosperous and more collaborative city.”
But as we quickly discovered once we started to dig, that’s not actually true.
Voters in the district have complained of unsolicited text messages and numerous fliers, all with an anti-Hernandez, tough on street homelessness slant.
We reached out to one unhappy text recipients and they shared this message, sent from an old school local 213 area code.
The neighbors-1st.org website was registered for one year on September 12, 2025 with the owner’s information obscured. Their first Instagram post, featuring an incoherent AI generated logo, was made on October 6, 2026; nobody liked it.
By early February, annoyed Angelenos were seeking out the account demanding to know who was behind the campaign and its unsolicited communications, with no response.
We found the answers on the California Secretary of State’s Charities Registry.
According to a letter from AG Rob Bonta, quoting the entity’s founding documents, “Neighbors First… is a nonprofit public benefit corporation that does not solicit or hold assets for charitable purposes, and engages solely in the following public purpose… to promote the common good and social welfare of the people of Los Angeles by educating the public and advocating on important issues of public policy that will improve life within the many diverse neighborhoods of Los Angeles.”
The nonprofit’s agent is Steven S. Lucas, an attorney with waterfront offices at 2350 Kerner Boulevard, Suite 250, San Rafael, California 94901, on the San Francisco bay next to San Quentin State Prison.
Lucas is also associated with the similarly branded Neighbors for A Better San Francisco, an entity which effectuated the recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin in 2022.
There’s quite a tangled web of shadowy Bay Area organizations that continue to battle for power and influence up north.
Now it seems wealthy San Franciscans are spending significant funds in an attempt to influence the Los Angeles primary election in a district reeling from profound poverty, housing insecurity, drug addiction, street homelessness, metal theft, squalor and immigration raids on top of decades of poor leadership.
The hell with these guys. Los Angeles cannot afford to suffer the manipulations of deep pocketed outsiders using the legal loopholes of their 501(c)(4) status to deceptively claim they are our “neighbors” while seeking to shape our city’s future.
Anyone who has had the misfortune of trying to advocate with her staff for vulnerable bungalow court tenants, historic landmarks, legacy queer bars or reasonable planning standards on narrow hillside streets knows that Eunisses Hernandez isn’t up to the job, and that her pro-developer planning team might as well be working for Hernandez’ unpopular predecessor Gil Cedillo. (If you click only one link in this paragraph, make it the last one. Yikes!)
But that doesn’t mean it’s okay for dark money PACs to campaign against her while masquerading as concerned Angelenos.
Eunisses Hernandez stinks, but she’s our stinker, not yours, “neighbors.”
Here’s to a free and fair election and to better leadership ahead, and that’s a message from people who live in and love Los Angeles, in spite of everything!
Saturday’s tour is Christine Sterling & Leo Politi: Angels of Los Angeles, a walk that celebrates a couple of poor dreamers who fell in love with the raggedy old section of the city and helped shine it up into a jewel we can all enjoy nearly a century later. The annual Blessing of the Animals ceremony happens that afternoon, which means you’ll get to meet some of the sweet critters waiting to be blessed as they hang out on the Plaza. This is an especially magical day in old Los Angeles and we hope you’ll join us, do!
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
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Our work—leading tours and historic preservation and cultural landmark advocacy—is about building a bridge between Los Angeles’ past and its future, and not allowing the corrupt, greedy, inept and misguided players who hold present power to destroy the city’s soul and body. If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.
UPCOMING WALKING TOURS
• Christine Sterling & Leo Politi: Angels of Los Angeles (4/4) • John Fante’s Downtown L.A. (4/11) • Early Hollywood’s Silent Comedy Legends (4/18) • Downtown Los Angeles is for Book Lovers (4/25) • Highland Park Arroyo (5/2) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (5/7) • The Run: Gay Downtown History (5/23) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (5/30) • The Real Black Dahlia (6/6) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (6/13) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (Sunday, 6/21) • Westlake Park (6/27)
CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
According to u/supernormal on Reddit, the Original Tommy’s neon roof sign has been removed and placed on a truck. No permit has been sought for work on the sign or the roof. Where is this crew taking this L.A. treasure and why?
The Guardian makes one last visit to Taix, where dedicated patrons are skeptical of the redevelopment scheme. Great to see a link to Francophile L.A. historian C.C. de Vere’s Empty Los Angeles blog in this piece. She’s right!
And as soon as Taix locked the doors, LADBS opened (and promptly closed, perhaps wrongly) an inspection into a report of unpermitted construction (or demolition?) at the newly shuttered Taix. Has anybody seen a crew on site?
New on the Rancho Land blog: thoughts on an Esotouric Bunker Hill time travel walk with historian Nathan Marsak and native son Gordon Pattison, who keeps his lost neighborhood in his heart and on his tongue forever.
On Thurs. April 16 at 11am, all are invited to honor pioneering black LASD deputy “Major” Julius Boyd Loving (1866-1938) at his graveside in Evergreen Cemetery (204. N Evergreen, Boyle Heights) for a brief ceremony and history lesson.
What a treat when our Know Your Downtown LA tour guests encountered The Regulars’ Reunion outside the King Eddy Saloon with music, merch & good fellowship. Learn more or get a T-shirt or photo book from skidrowfolk on Instagram. Someone please bring this Skid Row dive bar back!
The “Once in a Generation” Development Opportunity that is the gutted facade of the Art Deco Fairfax Theatre is no longer listed for sale at an eye-watering $45 Million, nor $24 Million (September 2025 reduction) but for $13.7 Million. Will anyone bite on this slice of urban blight? Stay tuned!
A Hollywood landmark is saved! Reps from Homeboy Industries appeared at a Hollywood United Neighborhood Council meeting to discuss their plans for the Monastery of the Angels campus, which our preservation pal Rev. Dylan Littlefield went to Rome to advocate for.
Angelenos for Historic Preservation, appealing demo of landmark Barry Building for no new project, object to City Council’s attempt to “do over” the voided PLUM vote. Then the property owner objects to their interpretation of the Los Angeles Municipal Code and considers the proposed re-agendized PLUM hearing on April 14 to be valid. This is wild procedural stuff a judge must straighten out.
Scoop: Trader Joe’s is moving into the long-vacant Fox Venice! The 1951 theater has great bones and history, and a neon tower just begging to be restored.
The Great Hotel Clark Chair Dump of 2026. Emptied by the Chinese government in 1992, the 555 room Hotel Clark is still vacant today. Reopening plans stalled in Jose Huizar’s office. Now all the chairs are in the dumpster! No guest ever slept in rooms completed in 2012.
