California
A cross, a bracelet and a body: Who was the woman found in a California creek?
The San Diego River was less than 3 feet deep at sunrise.
By noon, the depth was 10 feet and growing as rainwater roared in from culverts and pipes and the sky.
Forester Creek meets the river from the east. Part of the channel is wide and unobstructed, but other areas are dense with foliage, including one stretch in Santee around the Olive Lane Bridge.
A little before 4 p.m. on Jan. 22, someone passing the creek’s southern border looked down and thought they saw a body.
***
It was briefly believed that no one had died during the historic storm that hit San Diego in January.
Then officials found a man whose car had crashed into debris in Lemon Grove. Another drowned in the Tijuana River while crossing into the United States. In both cases, the moments leading up to their deaths seemed clear.
The woman in the creek was a different story.
She had no identification. If this was a suicide, there was no note. Was she a visitor camping too close to the water? Had she gotten drunk and stumbled into the current? Was anyone else responsible?
Ligia Ceja, an investigator with the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office, arrived on the scene a little after 5 p.m., according to a report she wrote later. Sheriff’s deputies and members of the Santee Fire Department had already pulled the woman out of the brush and set her on a sidewalk. A disposable blanket lay on top.
Ceja stepped through the rain and lifted the sheet. The woman was White and appeared to be middle aged. Her eyes and hair were brown, although the latter, still damp and matted with leaves, looked gray at the roots.
The investigator spotted a handful of personal items, including a chain necklace with a metal crucifix and a bracelet engraved with the date “4/21/2006.” On the woman’s right leg was a tattoo of a dolphin with butterfly wings.
On the same leg, Ceja helped attach a yellow tag with two words: “Jane Doe.”
***
Faith Angle’s first act was to make her mother miss church.
On an October Sunday in 1977, Charlene Angle was headed to a service in North Park when the contractions ramped up. She made it to the building, dropped off her oldest daughter, and then drove south to the Naval Medical Center. Faith Angle was born within the hour.
Her father was in the U.S. Navy, so the family’s time in San Diego was followed by stays in Long Beach and Mountain View, and Vancouver, Wash., according to relatives.
As a kid, Angle enjoyed accompanying her older sister to video game arcades (Galaga was a favorite) and later liked waking that same sibling to borrow a prized Guns N’ Roses T-shirt. (Hope Angle said she was more likely to say “yes” to the second request, if only so she could go back to sleep.)
Faith Angle’s favorite hymn was “I Am a Child of God”:
Lead me, guide me, walk beside me,
Help me find the way.
Teach me all that I must do
To live with him someday.
At the same time, there were signs something was off. A younger brother said Angle sometimes seemed like a deer in traffic, wide-eyed and still.
One day, after arriving at middle school, Angle refused to go inside. She wouldn’t even leave the car. Her mother eventually walked onto campus herself.
“I brought her,” Charlene Angle recalled telling someone from the school. “Now you get her out.”
A staffer approached the vehicle. Faith Angle still would not budge. Her mother finally climbed back in the driver’s seat and drove to a psychologist.
***
Around a dozen people filed into a Kearny Mesa conference room the morning after January’s storm.
The Medical Examiner’s Office holds daily meetings to discuss recent deaths, and the list that Tuesday included the body in the creek. The group looked at photos from the scene and reviewed the few facts they knew. First responders had received reports during the flood that up to three people had been washed away, and it seemed likely this woman was one.
Steven Campman, the chief medical examiner, thought she might have been homeless, he said later. Yet his hypothesis was complicated by the woman’s jewelry. In Campman’s experience, people living outside often ended up selling their necklaces and bracelets.
An autopsy was conducted the same morning. Some of the woman’s skin was scraped and bruised, but examiners didn’t see signs of foul play, nor were there needle marks on the arms. A toxicology report similarly found no traces of alcohol, fentanyl, methamphetamines or a host of other drugs.
“Based on the autopsy findings and the circumstances surrounding the death,” a deputy medical examiner wrote, “the cause of death is drowning, and the manner of death is accident.”
Investigators still didn’t know how the woman ended up in the water. Nor were they any closer to getting a name.
A staffer made copies of the woman’s fingerprints and walked them across a parking lot. A nearby office had access to CAL-ID, a system that can run prints through multiple databases.
Perhaps one of those could identify the woman.
***
The psychologist believed Faith Angle needed a hospital.
The girl was eventually diagnosed with bipolar and schizoaffective disorders, according to her family. There was also post-traumatic stress: Angle had been abused by a relative.
Sometimes hallucinations led to screaming, crying and cutting, said her brother, Joseph Angle. “She would be saying, ‘The voices are talking again.’”
Medication gradually brought stability. Angle finished high school through a special education program in San Diego County, moved into a group home and then an assisted living facility.
That’s where she met Curtis Harper.
“She kind of felt like she was unlovable, and that maybe it wasn’t in the cards for her to find somebody,” said her sister, Saray Angle. “So when she did, she grabbed and held on as tight as she could — and he became just about her everything.”
Harper was tall, nearly 20 years older and a fan of fixing up mountain bikes, according to public records, social media posts and a friend of the couple. The two met on April 3, 2006, and were engaged the next year. It doesn’t appear they ever formally married, although Angle would refer to Harper as her husband. One photo shows the couple beaming in front of a Christmas tree, Angle’s head nestled into Harper’s neck.
Money was tight. Angle didn’t work and they lived off disability and Social Security payments. But her older sister, Hope, whose married name was now Webber, lived nearby and Webber’s husband became Angle’s payee, meaning he managed her finances. The couple was able to land their own apartment in El Cajon.
Angle loved making jewelry with beads, watching Disney’s animated “Cinderella” and reading Harry Potter. One online quiz confirmed that, had she attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Angle would have joined Hufflepuff, the house for the patient, loyal and overlooked.
All the while, living in San Diego County was becoming increasingly expensive. By 2022, Webber had had enough. Her family needed to move somewhere cheaper, perhaps in the Pacific Northwest.
She asked Angle and Harper to join them.
***
The Medical Examiner’s Office got a response within hours of submitting the woman’s fingerprints to the CAL-ID system.
She wasn’t there.
Ceja, the investigator who examined the body by the creek, sent prints to the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They, too, found nothing. The office then uploaded what information they had to NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System run by the federal government and open to just about anyone.
Investigators could not, however, check with the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Searching the DMV’s database required more than a set of fingerprints.
Everyone knew the clock was ticking. If the woman had a weekly routine, say, buying groceries at a certain store, people she interacted with would be more likely to notice her absence immediately afterward. The longer somebody stayed missing, the easier it became to forget.
One day passed. Then two.
Ceja’s supervisor decided to broaden their scope. She wrote up an email, attached a photograph of the woman’s face and hit “send.”
***
Faith Angle initially agreed to move north.
Her older sister found a house in Colville, Wash., not far from the Canadian border. Angle and Harper could take the basement while other members of the family, including their mom, would live upstairs.
Then Harper and Hope Webber, Angle’s sister, had a falling out and living all together was no longer an option. Angle didn’t want to leave the man she’d been with for years, so in the summer of 2022 she helped her mom and sister tape up boxes and said goodbye. Much of the family headed to Washington. Angle stayed in El Cajon.
Things fell apart within months.
Angle and Harper, now in charge of their own finances, stopped paying rent. A friend, James Farmer, later said their apartment had black mold the landlord wouldn’t fix, and it’s possible the couple directed what little money they had toward repairs.
As Christmas approached, Angle created a GoFundMe campaign online. “We need help this holiday season with relocating,” she wrote on Facebook. “Any donations would help.”
If they did raise money — the campaign is no longer active — it wasn’t enough. Sometime during the first half of last year, Angle and her partner lost the apartment.
***
PJ Puterbaugh opened her email to find a photo of the drowned woman.
Puterbaugh is a freelance forensic artist for agencies around the country. From a home studio in Carlsbad, she studied the picture in front of her. The woman’s facial muscles had relaxed in death, leaving the eyebrows raised and eyes closed. Puterbaugh needed, she would say later, to “wake her up.”
The artist pulled the image into Photoshop. Since the woman’s hair was wet, Puterbaugh Googled pictures of comparable cuts to create a new head of hair. Muscles were tightened. The eyes opened.
Within two hours, Puterbaugh had a black-and-white image of a smiling, middle-aged woman.
A county spokesperson then took the finished sketch, attached photos of the woman’s bracelet, crucifix and butterfly tattoo and sent them all to hundreds of reporters and law enforcement officials around Southern California.
The accompanying press release began with a plea: “Do you know this woman?”
***
More than 1,200 people countywide became homeless during January of last year.
It’s not clear if Faith Angle was represented in that statistic, since the Regional Task Force on Homelessness can only track people who interact with certain organizations. Regardless, Facebook messages show Angle was living in a motel that same month. Soon she and Harper were on the streets of El Cajon.
The couple looked for a place to sleep. Angle messaged Dave Spaeth, a friend from childhood, and asked to set up a tent in his yard. The friend sent back resources, including a crisis phone number and information about San Diego’s safe sleeping sites, but Spaeth said later that he wasn’t comfortable with someone camping outside his home.
Angle launched a second GoFundMe. “We need out,” she wrote online. Nobody donated.
Her health worsened. Angle had asthma and sometimes called an aunt, Joyce Welsh, in a panic. “Breathe through your nose,” Welsh would say, “and out your mouth.”
Months passed. Angle turned 46.
She became familiar to others living outside, and several people later remembered her generosity. One man, Everett Palmer, said Angle once bought him a burger and fries from Jack in the Box. A woman, Shana Bingham, grew close enough to call Angle her cousin.
Relatives helped when they could, and the younger sister drove Angle to a hospital when she appeared to have pneumonia. But although Saray Angle lived in the area, her home was a converted garage that couldn’t accommodate more people.
In Washington, Angle’s older sister was nauseous knowing what had happened.
Sometimes Hope Webber was in the room when their mom got a call from Angle. Good, Webber would think. She’s alive. Then the conversation would end and the pressure inside her started to build back up.
In El Cajon, Angle developed a new plan: She and Harper would move in with Welsh, her aunt. Welsh had an apartment in Beaverton, Ore., just west of Portland, and she loved the idea of living with her niece. They could make lasagna together. Hand-made pizzas. Welsh rounded up winter boots, a dresser and a twin-sized foam topper.
The couple needed around $300 for train tickets. They sold a bicycle to save up. The aunt further believed that Angle had qualified for a Section 8 housing voucher, which can help cover rent and boosted the odds that Angle and Harper might again secure their own place.
While they waited and saved, the couple worried about citations from police, according to James Farmer, the friend from their apartment days.
He made a suggestion. Farmer had spent years living in stormwater tunnels and knew of one channel behind a Jerome’s Furniture store. Why didn’t they move underground?
***
The rains came. The river rose.
On the day of the January storm, emergency dispatchers received a call at 10:32 a.m.: At least two people appeared to be in a waterway by an El Cajon auto body shop, not far from a furniture store.
A truck from East County’s Heartland Fire and Rescue Department sped out, followed by a second, third, fourth and fifth. A Heartland pickup turned onto the road too, along with an ambulance, bringing the number of first responders to about 20 — and that was from just one agency.
The caravan split up along Forester Creek. Austin Strand, a firefighter and paramedic, got out by North Marshall Avenue, pulled on a helmet and helped a colleague saw through a chain-link fence.
The pair squeezed through the metal toward the water. A nearby fire captain thought the current below looked like it was traveling, what, 30 miles an hour? Forty? Eucalyptus trunks and debris the size of dinner tables whipped by.
Lines of rope held the team to a light pole. Rescuers gripped more rope to throw in the water the moment somebody surfaced. Everyone stood in the downpour, watching and waiting.
Angle’s family waited, too.
Welsh, the aunt, grew nervous in the days that followed. Why hadn’t Angle called? Welsh reached out to Angle’s mom, only to learn she hadn’t heard anything either. Yet the family was used to radio silence. Phones are easily lost, stolen or drained on the street.
Meanwhile, the sketch of the smiling woman ricocheted around the Internet.
A few people called the Medical Examiner’s Office to say her face looked familiar, including a psychic who reported that the woman was homeless, officials said. One advocate for homeless people suggested a name that turned out to be wrong.
The sketch made it as far as Pennsylvania, where it was seen by Summer Allen, whose sibling, Farmer, had suggested living in the tunnels. Allen later said the “Do you know this woman?” plea hit a nerve, as her own mother had similarly died homeless and unidentified.
Furthermore, Allen thought the woman looked like someone her brother knew.
Allen found Angle’s older sister on Facebook and sent a message. Hope Webber saw the note but didn’t recognize the sender, so she ignored it until a brother called about the sketch.
“Damn,” Webber thought when she finally saw the image. “That kind of looks like me.”
She showed the picture to her mom. Her mom began to cry.
The family got on the phone with the Medical Examiner’s Office and offered up Faith Angle’s name. That same day, the homelessness advocate who’d previously suggested an incorrect identity called back to additionally identify Angle as the missing woman and provide a possible driver’s license number.
Investigators could now check with the California DMV.
But when the fingerprints were finally scanned, DMV officials said they weren’t high enough quality. It appeared the woman’s skin had wrinkled too much in the water. Investigators took more prints and sent them over Feb. 15, more than three weeks after the storm.
The next day, the family received confirmation that Angle was dead.
***
The body of Curtis Harper, Angle’s partner of almost 18 years, was eventually found in a different part of Forester Creek, records show. A friend who’d been living near them, Manuel Andres Perez, also drowned.
They were, at minimum, the 29th, 30th and 31st homeless people to die in the county during January of this year, according to preliminary public data. They joined the 1,755 known to have died throughout the last three years from fentanyl and hypothermia and an array of other causes. That total is almost certainly an undercount.
Webber, the older sister, is angry that Angle was allowed to take over her own finances and that she wouldn’t move north alone. But Webber simultaneously feels a small sense of relief now that she doesn’t have to worry about her sister every moment of every day.
Welsh, Angle’s aunt, recently tried looking through text exchanges with her niece. It was hard to finish.
Farmer believes the deaths are partially on him. He’d been living in an apartment and wasn’t underground when the storm began. “I should have been there to pull them out,” the friend said.
But Farmer also thinks there’s broader culpability. “Society doesn’t want to see the homeless, so what do we do? We try to get out of sight,” he said. “It’s everybody’s fault why they died.”
Some questions remain unanswered. Members of Angle’s family don’t know the significance of the date on her bracelet, but since April 21, 2006, fell just weeks after she met Harper, it’s possible the day was significant to their relationship.
The full story behind the dolphin-with-butterfly-wings tattoo is similarly unknown, although Angle had long loved butterflies.
She told an aunt that monarchs sometimes flew into her campsite. Hummingbirds, too. A few even swooped in toward Angle’s face.
If she didn’t move, each might stop to hover a few inches away. Then they were gone.
Originally Published:
California
California junior college athletes speak out on trans controversy that’s now in the Trump admin’s crosshairs
Santa Rosa Junior College was just supposed to be a stepping stone for Madison Shaw. Instead, she stepped right into a transgender athlete scandal that is now being investigated by the federal government.
With her graduation coming up, she has to move forward without being able to chase her dream of playing NCAA volleyball, which was the whole reason she went to Santa Rosa in the first place.
“It was the only plan I had,” Shaw told Fox News Digital of transferring to an NCAA program.
“I was planning on going to Chico [State University] and transferring, and getting set up through the recruiting process in that. And I wasn’t even able to upload any film or have a coach come out for my sophomore year. Because that year I was forced to be off the team.”
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Shaw had to step away from her volleyball team in the fall because she didn’t want to share a locker room with a biological male, and felt her Title IX rights to privacy, safety and equal opportunity were being violated. She had to throw away her plans for her sophomore season, and any chance of making it to an NCAA program.
Because Santa Rosa, as a junior college and not affiliated with the NCAA, and did not have to comply with the NCAA’s updated policy to prevent biological males from competing in women’s sports, Madison and her teammates ended up on the same roster as a trans athlete.
The California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) allows transgender athletes to participate based on their gender identity. Biological males can compete on women’s teams after one calendar year of testosterone suppression treatment.
Santa Rosa and the CCCAA as a whole have been under Title IX investigations by the U.S. Department of Education, and the federal Title IX task force, since January, after Madison and two teammates sent an S.O.S.
SANTA ROSA WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS OPEN UP ON TRANS TEAMMATE’S ALLEGED SPIKES TO THE HEAD
Madison, and her freshman teammates Brielle Galli and Gracie Shaw, Madison’s sister, filed a Title IX complaint last September that brought attention to what was going on with their team.
Once the complaint became public, and garnered national media attention, multiple tense on-campus incidents allegedly occurred.
The three women allege Santa Rosa President Dr. Angélica Garcia led a pro-trans rally before a volleyball game, handed out packets to attendees.
“The president of our school had a rally to support our male athlete and had packets that were being hand handed out that said that our school is a gender inclusive closet,” Gracie Shaw alleged, with Madison Shaw and Galli corroborating the allegations.
INSIDE GAVIN NEWSOM’S TRANSGENDER VOLLEYBALL CRISIS
Santa Rosa Junior College students Gracie Shaw, Brielle Galli and Madison Shaw (Fox News)
Teammates who had once been friends began distancing themselves, and in some cases, they said, actively excluded them.
“We were completely ostracized,” Gracie Shaw said. “We were left in the dark.”
They said teammates created separate group chats without them and held meetings they were not invited to, effectively cutting off communication.
The players said they received backlash on social media and, at times, felt uncomfortable on campus. In one instance, they recalled being recorded and photographed by other students after being recognized in connection with the complaint.
The incident occurred when two other students set up a table with a sign that read “We are Christians, ask us anything.”
The women claim that the two men at the table were being told by other students that they were “hateful people.”
And soon, the anti-Christian crowd realized who the three women were, and two other students allegedly began to record Gracie Shaw and Galli, non-consensually.
The women say the only time the college and its administrators expressed concern for their well-being was in an investigative interview after news of their Title IX complaint had gone public.
“Those interviews really rubbed me the wrong way,” Galli said.
“They kept pushing the same questions on us trying to get a different answer and trying to make us say something that wasn’t true. They kept stating that or they wanted us to state that it was our choice when really we were left with no choice with the way that we were made to feel uncomfortable and unsafe…
“They kept in bringing up the fact that there are so many resources available to us, so many counseling options and just so many resources that are just the school will provide for us. And that was a little ridiculous to me because throughout the whole season when we were participating, we had made it clear to our coach that we didn’t feel safe coming to the games.”
Santa Rosa Junior College provided a statement to Fox News Digital responding to the three women’s statements.
“Santa Rosa Junior College is committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive environment for all students and employees. The District complies with California Community College Athletic Association regulations, which govern student eligibility and participation in our athletic programs,” the statement said.
“We respect the legal privacy rights of all students and cannot discuss individual circumstances. What we can affirm is that SRJC takes all reports seriously and responds through established procedures.”
But there were some moments when the women felt they were being supported, not by administrators, but male athletes at a competing school.
When Santa Rosa Junior College faced Sierra College in Rocklin, California, weeks after the complaint was filed, a “save women’s sports” protest broke out outside of the gym.
One of the protesters, local women’s sports activist Beth Bourne, handed out protest signs to students who attended the game and said it was the first time she’d seen college students protest the issue in person.
Sierra’s men’s athletes even joined in on the protesting.
California college students protest the participation of a transgender volleyball player at a women’s game. (Beth Bourne)
“There were men that were college students… that were holding those signs in support of us. Even though they probably didn’t know who we were. They knew that this was something that, that they could, even if it’s a small thing, just like just holding a sign up, they knew that it would make an impact,” Galli said.
It was a rare bright moment in an otherwise grueling school year. But now the summer is coming.
The women can at least move forward knowing their activism caught the attention of the federal government, as the Title IX investigations into the college and the entire CCCAA press on.
And as the three women look to regroup and determine the next step in their education, they each expressed gratitude for President Donald Trump’s administration for having their backs.
But they’re still dealing with the irreversible effects on their futures, and are now navigating life after missing a chance at their NCAA dreams.
Madison Shaw said she is currently working three jobs as she tries to save up for tuition.
“Coming from a very athletic family, we all played sports,” she said. “For them to see this opportunity taken away was very hard on them, knowing that I wasn’t going to get the same opportunities they had when they played sports. And even just financially, this was a way for me to move on past the JC, so it was hard for them to watch.”
Galli found herself in the same situation.
“I saw it as my opportunity to pursue [NCAA sports],” Galli said of her decision to play at Santa Rosa. “I wanted to reach out and try to get recruited, and like Madison said, we didn’t really get the opportunity to play so we didn’t have any film that we could send to the coaches.”
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Gracie Shaw did not step away from the team right away, and continued practicing, but wouldn’t play in games as a form of protest. But eventually she just couldn’t take it anymore. she stepped away from the team as the situation progressed, and more national attention befell the team.
“I always wanted to get recruited and play at the next level, that was the plan,” Gracie Shaw said.
Madison Shaw continues to work her jobs and explore opportunities outside of playing sports, while Galli and Gracie Shaw are currently set to do another year of junior college.
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Ahead of the June primary election, the Southern California News Group compiled a list of questions to pose to the candidates who wish to represent you. You can find the full questionnaire below. Questionnaires may have been edited for spelling, grammar, length and, in some instances, to remove hate speech and offensive language.
Name: Tom Steyer
Current job title: Climate Advocate
Age: 68
Political party affiliation: Democratic
Incumbent: No
Other political positions held: Co-Chair, Governor’s Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery (2020)
City where you reside: San Francisco
Campaign website or social media: tomsteyer.com
What is your top economic development priority for the state? How will you work with cities to achieve this? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
My top economic priority is building an economy that works for everyone, not just the billionaires and biggest corporations. As governor, I’ll call a special election to get this done and make sure our economy grows from the bottom up, not the top down.
This starts with fixing the inequities in our tax system created by what I call the “Trump Tax Loophole.” Closing this loophole will force corporations and the billionaires who control them to pay their fair share — even Donald Trump himself. Right now, cities are starved of revenue because large commercial property owners are paying artificially low, outdated tax rates and that holds back local investment in schools, housing and infrastructure. I’ll partner with cities by giving them the resources they need by closing this loophole and returning billions of dollars to local communities.
Affordability continues to be top of mind for Californians. What is one specific area where the state could bring about immediate relief for residents? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
The fastest way we can deliver real relief is by lowering the cost of housing for both renters and homeowners who are being squeezed every month. That means putting money back into people’s pockets now — expanding the Renter’s Tax Credit while also providing targeted relief to help homeowners stay in their homes and manage rising costs. I will fully enforce California’s Tenant Protection Act to ensure renters are protected statewide, including the cap on excessive rent increases, just-cause eviction standards and relocation assistance for displaced tenants.
At the same time, we need to make sure people can access the support they need, from housing counseling to homelessness prevention, so fewer Californians fall through the cracks. This will provide immediate relief while we build more housing and fix the underlying affordability crisis for the long term. But short-term fixes alone won’t solve this crisis. That’s why we’re committed to building 1 million new homes over the next four years — funded by closing corporate tax loopholes and making sure big corporations finally pay what they owe. Expanding housing supply remains the most durable solution to the affordability crisis and will serve as a cornerstone of this agenda.
Legislative Republicans this year called for a one-year suspension of the state’s gas tax. Meanwhile, another legislative proposal would consider charging drivers based on how much they use the roads as opposed to the fuel consumed. As governor, would you support any of these proposals? How else would you hope to alleviate prices at the pump for California drivers? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
I support a windfall profits tax on the oil companies that are making billions in extra profits at the expense of California families, and paying it out directly to the citizens of California. The companies that caused this crisis should pay for it. We need to provide immediate relief to Californians, but do it in a way so we can maintain our roads. Any solution that can’t lower costs and maintain our critical infrastructure is not a serious solution.
How do you propose to manage the state’s budget to ensure long-term fiscal stability? What areas would you consider for spending cuts, and, similarly, where would you like to see increased investment and why? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
I will never balance the budget at the expense of working people — especially not when some of the wealthiest corporations and people on earth aren’t paying their fair share in taxes to the state of California. Long-term fiscal stability starts with fairness: closing the Trump tax loophole created by Proposition 13, which costs California cities, schools and communities $15 to 20 billion a year, is the single biggest step we can take. That revenue would allow us to invest in education, health care, affordable housing and local services without raising taxes on working families. At the same time, I’d ensure every dollar the state spends is accountable and effective, focusing on programs that deliver real results. This approach balances fiscal discipline with bold investments in the people and communities that make California strong.
One of the main concerns cited by opponents of a proposed billionaire tax is that it would push the state’s wealthiest residents to move elsewhere. Should this tax proposal qualify for the ballot and be approved by voters, what would you do as governor to ensure California remains a place where entrepreneurs and innovators want to live, so that the Golden State can continue to benefit as one of the world’s largest economies? And if it doesn’t pass, how would you propose the state pay for health care amid the Trump administration’s funding cuts? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
California is the best place in the world to start and grow a business. We imagine and build the future here like no place on earth. To keep it that way, locally, we need to expand Film Tax Credits to keep arts and entertainment in Los Angeles and keep an industry in California that employs tens of thousands of people. Broadly, the single most important thing we can do to ensure that entrepreneurs and innovators want to stay in California is to bring down costs — and I have plans to bring down the cost of housing, energy, health care and more.
Regardless of what happens with the specific billionaire tax on the ballot, I’m proposing we close the corporate property tax loophole in Proposition 13, which would bring in $15 to 20 billion every year for California schools, health care and local services. It’s a long-term solution that ensures everyone pays their fair share and that communities get the resources they need year after year.
Speaking of health care, should the state provide free or subsidized health care, such as Medi-Cal, to undocumented immigrants? Should there be any conditions placed on their eligibility? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
Health care must be a right for every Californian, and that includes undocumented immigrants who are here participating in our society, working in our society, paying taxes and bringing up their families. Ultimately, I’m fighting for a single-payer system, which is the only way to make coverage universal, affordable and equitable. But the answer is not to turn people away from hospitals when they need medical care — access to care shouldn’t depend on income, status or luck. It’s to make corporations and billionaires pay their fair share, and to structurally change the system so we can afford to deliver health care as a right to everybody in California.
Would you continue to implement CARE Court, which is meant to help get people with severe mental illnesses off the streets? What changes, if any, would you make to the program? (Please answer in 200 words or less.)
CARE Courts may play a role in connecting people with severe mental illness to treatment, but they are not a substitute for housing or comprehensive support. My focus as governor would be on preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place and getting those who are on the street off it as fast as possible and into stable, supportive housing. We must treat this emergency with the urgency and depth of policy it deserves. We need to make sure people are paired with real housing, mental health services and case management, because treatment without a home doesn’t work. The priority has to be a full continuum of care — emergency interim housing, permanent supportive housing and mental health services — so people can rebuild their lives safely and sustainably.
As part of combating homelessness, elected officials often talk about the need to prevent people from losing their homes in the first place. What policies or programs should the state adopt to make housing more affordable for renters and homeowners? What do you propose the state do to incentivize housing development and expedite such projects? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
I have released a comprehensive housing plan that addresses many of these questions. We have to tackle housing affordability on both fronts — keeping people in their homes today and building the homes we desperately need for tomorrow. That means expanding the Renter’s Tax Credit, protecting homeowners from rising costs and making sure renters know their rights and can access homelessness prevention services.
To quickly get unsheltered Californians off the streets, I will conduct a comprehensive spending review and partner with local governments to urgently expand interim bridge housing paired with robust stabilization services, ensuring we match the right type of housing and level of care to the specific needs of every individual.
At the same time, public dollars should bring investments to the table, not scare them away. Housing finance in California is too fragmented, burdensome and restrictive, and adds time, costs and complications that disincentivize the private investments that are vital for affordable housing. We need to cut the red tape that slows development, use publicly controlled land and give cities and developers real incentives to build affordable and mixed-income housing while confronting NIMBYism that too often blocks progress. This is about moving quickly to get people off the streets, into stable homes and finally creating the housing supply California families need.
What is a policy or project from the Newsom administration that you’d like to expand or continue? Is there something you’d change about the approach? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
Gov. Gavin Newsom has made real progress in positioning California as a global leader in clean energy and climate action, and that’s something I would absolutely build on. We should accelerate investments in clean tech — scaling renewable energy, electric vehicles and energy storage — because that’s how we create good-paying jobs and lead in the industries of the future. I’d focus on expanding these efforts so that every community shares in the benefits, from lower energy costs to cleaner air and new economic opportunities.
Conversely, name a policy or program from the Newsom administration that you’d want to eliminate or make major revisions to and explain the changes. (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
Gov. Gavin Newsom has done a good job standing up to Donald Trump and defending California’s values, and he’s made real progress on some of the toughest issues we face. But what he hasn’t been able to do yet is make billionaires like me and the largest corporations pay their fair share in taxes. As governor, I will. That starts with closing loopholes, especially in our commercial property tax system, so we can generate stable, ongoing funding for schools, health care and local services. It’s about strengthening the foundation we already have and making sure California’s prosperity is shared more broadly.
Artificial intelligence has become a ubiquitous part of our lives. Yet public concerns remain that there aren’t enough regulations governing when or how AI should be used, and that the technology would replace jobs and leave too many Californians unemployed. How specifically would you balance such concerns with the desire to foster innovation and have California remain a leader in this space? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
I am the first and only candidate in this race to have released a comprehensive AI policy plan because this issue is too important to ignore or get wrong. AI is a threat to our safety, mental health and kids, but if we get it right, we can support our schools, businesses and communities. That’s why my plan ensures companies are held accountable with stronger regulations, requires data centers to pay their own way and creates a “Golden State Sovereign Wealth Fund” by taxing AI-driven profits. That fund will be reinvested directly in Californians — supporting education, job training and new opportunities — so workers benefit from this boom, not just the companies at the top. We cannot let AI be a technology that helps a handful of tech billionaires become tech trillionaires while putting millions of Californians out of work.
Last summer, President Donald Trump not only deployed federal immigration agents to California to carry out his mass deportation policy; he also federalized the National Guard and sent them to Los Angeles. How would you respond as governor should the president deploy more federal agents or troops to California again? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
ICE, as it exists today, should be abolished and demolished — it’s a criminal organization that has operated without accountability and has caused real harm to families and communities across this state. When an institution is broken from top to bottom, you don’t patch it — you replace it with something that reflects our values and the rule of law. As governor, I’ll use every legal tool to stop federal overreach, protect our residents, stop masked ICE agents from terrorizing California citizens and make sure California stands for dignity, justice and accountability.
What’s a hidden talent you have? (Please answer in 250 words or less.)
Looking into the future.
OK, not literally. But I was a professional investor, and the job of an investor is to try to think about the future, anticipate it and figure out how to respond to it, knowing that you can never actually “know” what’s going to happen. And when we look at the problems that the California government has been having, that the institutional thinking has been having, we really haven’t seen a consistent focus on what’s going to happen — just a focus on what has happened, or what is happening now.
California
Should a California union dictate how clinics spend money? Employers sue to block ballot measure
California’s billionaires are not the only ones fighting back against the state’s largest health workers union this election season. Now the clinics are too.
The California Primary Care Assn., which represents more than 2,300 community health clinics, and Open Door Community Health Centers filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West from placing an initiative on the November ballot that would dictate how clinics spend money.
The clinic measure is less prominent than the billionaire-backed fight against a wealth tax, but recently came closer to appearing before voters.
The clinic’s lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that the union’s ballot measure would interfere with federal laws and regulations that place strict spending requirements on nonprofit health clinics that serve low-income patients.
Joey Cachuela, general counsel for the clinic association, said in a statement the initiative threatens patient care. “We are filing this preelection challenge and need the courts to act to prevent this drastic measure from ever going to the ballot. Patient lives are at risk,” Cachuela said.
Renée Saldaña, a spokesperson for the healthcare workers union, said the proposed initiative was “legally sound” and called the lawsuit a “desperate attempt by the clinic industry to avoid accountability.”
Dr. Elizabeth Sophy, right, who is a part of Father Joe’s Villages Street Health Team, examines Devlin Chambers at an encampment in downtown San Diego on March 22, 2024. Chambers, 60, said he has a pinched nerve in his back.
(Kristian Carreon / CalMatters)
Last month, union members turned in more than 1 million signatures to qualify the “Clinic Funding Accountability and Transparency Act” for the ballot. The union collected nearly double the number of signatures required to place the proposal before voters.
Under California’s election rules, proposals that gather enough signatures qualify for the ballot after the secretary of state’s office verifies their validity.
The union proposal would require federally qualified health centers to spend 90% of revenue on services that fulfill the stated mission to “provide primary and preventive care to low-income and underserved populations.” It would also punish clinics that do not adhere to this spending formula and place the money in a state-operated account that could later be used for worker training and staffing programs.
“It is the intent of this initiative to create a reasonable minimum standard of mission-directed spending … to ensure clinic patient service delivery and workforce stability is prioritized over management and overhead spending,” the initiative states.
Union leaders and members argue that clinics spend too much money on executive pay and administrative overhead and too little on patients. They also contend that some clinics spend only half of their revenue on direct patient care, an allegation that clinics call misleading.
“We have one message for our clinics: Put patients first. It’s time for an end to wasteful spending. It’s time to make sure clinics are putting their money in patient care and not CEO pay,” said Brisa Barrera, a medical assistant from Santa Rosa Community Health during an April rally to celebrate delivering the signatures.
The clinic association, however, argues that the initiative would illegally force hundreds of community health centers to close by stripping nearly $2 billion from health systems.
Tory Starr, chief executive of Open Door Community Health Centers, which operates clinics in Humboldt and Del Norte counties, said the measure would be “devastating” to the organization’s rural patients and would result in layoffs, reduced services and closures.
A nearly identical version of the ballot initiative failed to pass in the state Legislature earlier this year.
The initiative is one of three measures the union has submitted to the ballot. Another aims to limit healthcare executive pay at $450,000, and SEIU-UHW is also backing the “billionaire’s tax” that has drawn ire from both Democrats and Republicans.
Hwang writes for CalMatters.
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