Part 156: Why I’m Leaving Los Angeles – California Love and Future Realities

Published February 14, 2025.

Feb 14, 2025

Photo of Los Angeles City Hall, Gloria Molina Park, and the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center as seen on January 7 by author (GoPro Hero 11 Black).

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

The legendary, late-rapper Tupac Shakur in his 1996 smash hit “California Love” once described the track as a “serenade to the streets of LA” including places such as Pasadena and Inglewood as part of a constellation of places where “It's all good, from Diego to the Bay.” Perhaps the most celebrated rapper of the 20th century, the Los Angeles of 1996 is not the same place in 2025 nearly three decades later. Once a mecca for suburban development and proverbial family life, Los Angeles is increasingly unaffordable. Conservatives who would never listen to 2Pac have made the perceived demise of the city a political punchline. The final straw may have been the Eaton Fire that devastated Altadena, Pasadena’s neighbor, but on some-level, even if I understand the sentiments of so-called California Quitters. Legendary Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano writing in August 2022 noted about exiled LA journalists that those he found in Nashville were “drawn as much by the cheaper living as the chance to advance in their careers.” Ironically, Nashville is a fraction of the size of Los Angeles.

Whatever the potential culture clash, the “scribe pipeline” is real. Is it simply that Los Angeles with its high-cost of living and low-moral reward has become inhospitable? Or is Nashville the new Portland, the dream of the 90s as the television show Portlandia popularized in 2011? The IFC breakout show ended in 2018 because Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen wanted to “end the show while we all loved doing it and we had good feelings about it.” Los Angeles is clearly out of control, and not in a way that even the producers know how to fix, and in LA those people are billionaires. Perhaps I’m just trying to get away from Rick Caruso, who recently lost his appeal to stop the renovation of CBS’s “Television City” after his lawyers argued the resulting traffic would ruin the neighborhood around The Grove. Caruso told Arellano and other reporters amidst his failed mayoral campaign that heavily sought to court Latino voters, that “This really is their [Latinos’] opportunity to change the direction of the city” adding “their vote is their voice.”

At the same time in August 2022 that Gustavo Arellano was documenting the flight of California reporters to Tennessee, I was busy dealing with Rick Caruso’s dirty laundry. The failure to truly reform the University of Southern California (USC) following one of the most disappointing streak of scandals in higher education history, and warning that I suspected Rick Caruso’s former employee at his eponymous real estate firm was about to get wrapped up in audio leak scandal. USC still just can’t seem to get it right, and whomever the next President is after USC’s top attorney fills-in for outgoing President Carol Folt is going to have to deal with a boatload of faculty (particularly) that don’t believe the institution has seen the light. It’s right there in the LA Fed Tapes on the cusp of Kevin de León’s lips: “That what they’re doing has legs, just keep it going, just keep it going, just keep it going.” Since getting voted out of office last November, KDL has seemingly disappeared. The scandal took down former LA City Council President Nury Martinez hard, and his sidekick Gil Cedillo is now being represented by the same law firm as KDL in his civil suit against the two accused leakers, now former employees of the labor union.

Whether Geragos & Geragos, the firm of famed attorney Mark Geragos and his brother can pull out a win in June for Kevin de León provided he defeats an anticipated appeal, much less for Cedillo’s suit which is also against the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor (LA Fed), the AFL-CIO’s local branch remains to be seen. The trial set for June 25 following a final status conference on June 12 promises to be a barn burner. Tragically, beyond this publication no one else has covered the highly contested civil proceedings to date. The two employees who have been accused maintain their innocence completely, and they are no longer facing criminal prosecution. The story was scooped by Stefanie Dazio of the AP, whose now leaving Los Angeles too for Berlin, and the Los Angeles Times, which won Pulitzer Prizes for covering the scandal is in disarray under owner Patrick Soon-Shiong. Meanwhile, Caruso’s guy, Sam Garrison, still USC’s Senior Vice President of University Relations remains installed at USC.

On the reocordings, Kevin de León tells Nury Martinez: “Yeah, the son of Jim Garrison. He told me that a couple of reporters got Pulitzer Prizes.” The scandal effectively branded both as racists, yet it’s Caruso who has continued to make borderline racist remarks. In July 2023, in interview with Vanity Fair journalist Joe Hagan, he all but branded Karen Bass as a DEI-hire claiming his loss was due to “idenitity politics.” Now Caruso is attacking Los Angeles Department of Water and Power CEO and Chief Engineer Janisse Quiñones in an interview with Joe Rogan, of all people, as capably described by former City Hall employee turned Substack Hayes Davenport writing that he’s all but using coded language in calling her a “political hire” and demanding she be terminated. Quiñones is anything but a political hire, with decades of career experience in engineering and having only taken the cursed post in May 2024. The language was also noted by Torched LA journalist Alissa Walker as noxious.

Davenport concludes that “Caruso didn’t explicitly announce a run [for Governor or Mayor] on the Joe Rogan Experience as much as concepts of a run.” The truth is that Caruso ever since being defeated by Mayor Karen Bass has all but sought a political rerun. The guy didn’t deliver a concession speech in person issuing only a statement, and then immediately got back to work with his consultants in scheming how to protect his power and advance his prestige. The quite Romanesque billionaire real estate and shopping mogul isn’t the type to lose and just go away. Caruso who reportedly did polling on a potential run for the governership in 2026 likely didn’t fair well, and is it seems far more completely probable that he’ll again challenge Bass. To be fair, the Mayor has been stumbling, and Caruso’s daughter Gigi lost her home in the Palisades Fire. To most, the idea that Caruso’s campaign and not two LA Fed employees could be behind the LA Fed Tapes leak is morally offensive, but the proof against the two LA Fed employees is thin.

Rick Caruso can have LA if he wants, and assuredly with his deep pockets he can again wage a spending blitz against Karen Bass. Whether another MAGA-esque type of campaign works though remains to be seen. Assuredly, Caruso doesn’t plan on going down like Richard Nixon. Recently, the former President who resigned appeared again in the Los Angels Times in reference to his watering down of wooden shingles on his home during the 1961 wildfire. While arson may be a crime, political arson isn’t going to get punished unless you get caught. Caruso who’s leadership at USC keeps secret the outside investigation into former USC gynecologist George Tyndall that he personally promised is probably grateful to have outran the scandals. So even as the greatest political crime in the 21st century goes unsolved we’re still dealing with his egomania. Rick Caruso might build nice properties, but should he really be voter-elected?

I haven’t watched Caruso’s full Joe Rogan interview, nor do I particularly care to because I’ve seen enough Caruso already. The guy who simultaneously led USC while running for Mayor and dragged it through the political mud over Mark Ridley-Thomas was all but enabled by the Los Angeles Times. While Ridley-Thomas’s appeal is still pending, you can hear the pain in Nury Martinez’s voice about Caruso having MRT turned into the Feds for bribery, fraud, and conspiracy: “Caruso is the one that… Remember that?” Short of Caruso turning up red-handed with a knife and bloody glove, the guy isn’t planning to go down in Nixonian fashion, and most especially not because his long-time subordinate showed the hand he was about to play to a whistleblower with a snicker on his face. So in the end, Los Angeles isn’t rid of corruption, it’s simply more divided, and living in an alternate reality that City Council wishes would go away.

Political dirty tricks or not, Los Angeles is struggling with some grave crisises. From wildfires to homelessness, the inability of leadership to coalesce, much less fully reckon with the place has become deeply problematic. Can you blame people for wanting to flee its borders? Los Angeles Times national correspondent Jenny Jarvie writes about its expansionism: “As the emerging metropolis began to overtake San Francisco as the most populated city in the West, shrewd real estate developers began to cast their eyes up to the foothills of the Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains.” Apparently, Rick Caruso is casting his eyes mostly on himself, and whomever’s willing to listen to his sad tale of losing to Karen Bass. Pobecito! As Gustavo Arellano wrote about his $104 million dollar campaign post-mortem: “If Caruso wanted to change people’s lives through goodwill, there are many ways he could’ve done so with that same money.” He’d be almost better off handing out money than creating a lobbying outfit.

Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez panned his Steadfast LA effort and those of other philanthropists writing, “Four separate civic groups have stepped up in the interest of raising money or offering guidance for the massive rebuilding projects ahead, but a fifth civic group might be needed to coordinate all those efforts.” Lopez drove it home writing, And it’s fair to wonder if the offers of help suggest, in some cases, a lack of faith in local leaders, if not a power grab.” Truly, even in wildfire relief we can’t keep out politics. Maybe that’s just LA hubris? Most certainly, no one expects Rick Caruso to humble himself even if he did have some Latino appeal, and even as he does give away some wealth, his repeated pattern of being untransparent should be a dark cloud over his electoral prospects. Bass may not be perfect, and there’s an ego too, but the last time I pointed a camera at her, she smiled after a minute and didn’t get angry and send guards after me like I was a journalistic troublemaker. Caruso who has been busy imposing his will on Montecito is a facing multiple challenges on his resort expansion. The man with a $100 million dollar yacht called Invictus just isn’t being straight.

As reported by Noozhawk journalist Joshua Molina in Santa Barbara “The fight is not over” with non-profit organization Heal The Ocean appealing the project’s approval. Appeals are also expected from at least one labor union and other residents. In its filing, the group argues “that the proposed affordable housing units are at risk of mudslides and inundation from tsunamis and long-term sea level rise.” Caruso’s firm maintains that their “plan complies with the California Coastal Act and all other applicable regulations.” Heal The Ocean has retained a consulting firm, which has found that climate-change is likely to increase the risk, with Caruso’s planned retail development of course being built in the less risky corner of the property. No one is saying that Rick Caruso doesn’t do nice things, but sometimes it’s not just about the 4-course dinner at media rate at his two-Michelin star restaurant, and sometimes the rare rain is a disaster. Caruos’s staff had touted their openly helpful response to the Montecito mudslides during the final approval hearing, but post-Palisades fire his discount response is lacking.

Perhaps instead of whining about red-tape in the rebuilding process, a real issue, and thumping his chest about his time at the DWP, he could make himself useful. Assuredly, you won’t see Caruso giving away hotel rooms or even going to see the burn zones, instead there he was sitting with Joe Rogan in a little room, himself a California Quitter to Texas following the Woolsey Fire with a banner display: “THE QUALITY OF LIFE IN LOS ANGELES HAS REACHED A NEW LOW.” Perhaps Caruso should have Rogan make his next round of campaign ads. Rick Caruso is entiteled his opinion, but what’s he really doing to make a difference? Stuffing his pocketbook with even more bucks on his way to a new retail development. Is Caruso going to pick-up the tab on the next round of private firefighters for a rebuilt Pacific Palisades? Perhaps Caruso can finance the rebuild instead of just complaining about the rebuilding process being too slow.

From out in the Coachella Valley where I’m planning to relocate post-Eaton Fire, I’ve really got to wonder if he can connect with a broader swath of California. Ironically, Caruso couldn’t even really connect with USC when he was there, being a non-factor outside of board meetings and formal ceremonies. His leadership was an absent, liminal presence, failing to deliver on his promises of safety and transparency, and especially on the latter count. On February 14, 2023, USC Annenberg Media student journalist Hannah Joy writing: “Do whatever it takes to release the report revealing who is to blame for the unchecked sexual abuse and harassment that damaged so many young women students and cost the university at least $1.1 billion in settlements.” Caruso claimed that releasing the report, which he’s even denied really exists would cause victims more trauma. Joy disagreed, noting that Caruso had claimed inexperience under deposition as the reason for his lack of follow-through. Was that really it though?

In the same deposition, Caruso disclosed having received a phone-call on his personal cellphone about the investigation from an LAPD captain while praising Sam Garrison’s performance as his Chief of Staff stating, “Well, he did such a good job he was promoted.” Caruso can’t remember who called him, or who he met with from the Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. Apparently, such a polished executive has spotty memory sometimes. Joy who drives home her appeal for transparency, “Rick, you can redeem yourself this Valentine’s Day” adding that “The truth will eventually come out.” This Valentine’s Day it’s my duty as a journalist to remind my readers that we’re still looking for answers, no matter which journalists Rick Caruso chooses or doesn’t choose to speak with. I won’t even forget out in the California desert. It’s like Nury Martinez says about his response to the college admissions bribery scandal: “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sent a helicopter to get the kid off the yacht in the Bahamas. Shit, what a life, huh?” No huh’s about it, Caruso deserves another grilling, and perhaps redemption.

UPDATE: According to a new report by Alissa Walker, editor of Torched LA, on February 7, a new lawsuit was filed by Rick Caruso’s firm challenging the CBS Television City redevelopment under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Link: Column: They moved from California to Nashville and found a different Golden State

Link: Why the Final Season of ‘Portlandia’ Won’t Be Sentimental

Link: Column: Rick Caruso’s Latino appeal isn’t bought — it’s real. But is it enough to win?

Link: Prosecutors will not file criminal charges against 2 people at center of Los Angeles racism scandal

Link: Inside the room: The entire L.A. City Council racist audio leak, annotated by our experts

Link: Can Anyone Fix California?

Link: Rogan/Caruso and LA's most cursed job

Link: ‘Built to burn.’ L.A. let hillside homes multiply without learning from past mistakes

Link: Column: In aftermath of fires, consultants might help, but L.A. needs someone to lead

Link: Heal the Ocean Files Appeal with Coastal Commission to Halt Miramar Project

Link: I dined at billionaire Rick Caruso's 5-star hotel. The restaurant was so good I think it deserves a second Michelin star.

Link: Opinion: Show USC some love, Rick Caruso