AVP Huntington Beach Open: Hagen Smith, Logan Webber advance to semifinals

• May 11, 2025

HUNTINGTON BEACH — Born into beach volleyball royalty, Hagen Smith might finally be ready to take the throne.

Smith and partner Logan Webber are having one of their best weekends since teaming up three years ago, reaching the semifinals of the AVP Tour’s Huntington Beach Open with a pair of hard-fought three-set victories on Saturday.

The 12th-seeded pair will take on top-seeded Miles Partain and Andy Benesh in the first semifinal at 10 a.m. on Sunday.

Smith is the son of Sinjin Smith, widely regarded as one of the greatest beach volleyball players in the history of the sport. Smith was the first to win 100 beach volleyball events before finishing his career with 139 titles.

Hagen Smith, who turned 30 last month, has been competing on the AVP Tour since 2017, but has yet to reach a final of a major event.

“We want to win this,” Smith said. “We’re trying to establish ourselves as one of the dogs.”

Smith showed the type of intensity and emotion that was a trademark of his father’s style.

At one point during the quarterfinal match, Smith ripped off his tank top following a successful spike, drawing a roar from the crowd.

“I tested it and I heard the little rip and I just went for it,” Smith said. “You’ve got to know whether it’s the right time to rip a jersey or not because sometimes it just doesn’t go and then you look like an idiot.”

Watching from beyond one of the end lines in the shadow of the pier was Sinjin.

“I wasn’t strong enough to do that,” Sinjin said of the shirt tear. “He’s good. He knows how to play to the crowd, which is important, I think, for all sports. You want the people to connect with the athletes. It makes them want to come out and watch and cheer.”

Hagen Smith and Webber took on the fifth-seeded pair of Tim Bomgren and Paul Lotman in the first round and lost the first set 20-22 before winning the next two 21-18, 15-11.

The duo then faced the 13th-seeded Brazilian pair of Alison and Alvaro Filho, who had knocked off fourth-seeded Chaim Schalk and James Shaw in the first round, and Smith and Webber advanced with a 22-20, 20-22, 15-13 win.

“It’s really hard to watch because it’s nerve-wracking for me. I know what he’s capable of,” said Sinjin, who turned 68 on Wednesday. “When he does well, it’s not much better. It makes you want to cry as a parent. You feel so good for him.”

Hagen Smith grew up in the Pacific Palisades and was a two-year letterman as a setter and outside hitter for the boys’ volleyball team at Loyola High.

He then followed in his father’s footsteps and went on to play four seasons of indoor volleyball at UCLA, ending his career fourth in program history in assists and sixth in digs.

Smith went through a series of partners during his early years on the AVP Tour before settling on Webber, a Michigan native who stands 6-9.

“Other than the two Olympic teams, we’re the longest-running men’s partnership right now,” Webber said. “We’re always finding new stuff to work on, so it’s fun. We’re very comfortable with each other.”

Sinjin Smith struggled early in his career until teaming with Karch Kiraly, and then another future Hall of Famer, Randy Stoklos.

“I think he and Logan are a good team,” Sinjin said. “You have to play with the right person that complements your style of play.”

Second-seeded Chase Budinger and Miles Evans, the other 2024 Olympic team in the field along with Partain and Benesh, will face third-seeded Taylor Crabb and Billy Allen in the other semifinal at 11 a.m.

The top four seeded teams in the women’s draw also reached the semifinals.

Top-seeded Kristen Nuss and Taryn Brasher will face fourth-seeded Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw in the first women’s semifinal at noon, and second-seeded Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft will take on third-seeded Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes in the second semifinal at 1 p.m.

Cheng is a former El Dorado High and USC star who teamed with Sara Hughes at the 2024 Olympics, but Hughes is sidelined with a calf injury.

Cannon starred for the USC women’s beach volleyball team from 2016-19, and Kraft from 2021-24.

​ Orange County Register 

Teagan O’Dell leads Santa Margarita sweep at CIF Division 1 swimming finals

• May 11, 2025

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WALNUT — Swimmers poured water over sun-drenched starting blocks as temperatures at the CIF-SS Division 1 championships climbed to almost 100 degrees at Mt. SAC. One swimmer grabbed a drink seconds before his race.

Staying as cool as possible became part of the strategy Saturday but there was no simmering down Santa Margarita’s Teagan O’Dell, her teammates or Northwood’s Derek Hitchens between the lane lines.

O’Dell continued to re-write Orange County aquatics history with two county records and two Division 1 marks to power the Eagles’ girls to a record-tying 11th consecutive championship.

“The G.O.A.T.” Northwood’s Andrew Maksymowski said of O’Dell, who won her seventh and eighth individual section titles and almost broke her own national record in the 200-yard individual medley.

Santa Margarita’s girls scored 418.5 points in matching the run of 11 consecutive titles by Mission Viejo’s legendary girls teams in 1970s and 1980s.

The Eagles’ boys used their depth to outdistance runner-up Northwood 321.5-265 for a fifth consecutive title. The Trinity League squad didn’t win an individual race but captured diving with Valentino Nieto.

O’Dell signaled her intentions by winning the 200 IM in a Division 1 record time of 1 minute, 53.43 seconds.

She split the first 100 yards (butterfly and backstroke) in 51.36, almost a second faster than her national record pace of 52.32. In the end, she touched five one-hundredth of a second off her 2023 national record (1:53.38).

O’Dell led off the winning 200 and 400 free relays by breaking her county records for the 50 and 100 freestyles. She blasted leadoff splits of 22.17 and 48.01, respectively.

The Cal-bound senior also touched first in the 100 backstroke in a Division 1 record 51.09.

“I actually enjoy racing in 100 degree weather,” O’Dell said. “The heat keeps my body loose and keeps me warmed up … but it definitely makes you more dehydrated so I’ve been drinking water all day.”

“I couldn’t be happier with my performances,” the three-time O.C. swimmer of the year added. “I’m just excited to roll into next week (at state) and see how much better I can do.”

Donned in neon orange-painted nails and gold earrings, O’Dell saved her most emotion for cheering teammates in the 400 relay. The relay featured sophomore Eileen Song, freshman Valentina Delgado and senior Sammy Cummins, one of O’Dell closest friends.

“She was fighting so hard,” O’Dell said of Cummins, who held off Mira Costa by about two-tenths of a second for the win in 3:21.38.

Hitchens blazed O.C. records in the 100 free (43.79) and 100 back (47.19) in claiming his first section titles. In the 100 free, the Columbia-bound racer broke the oldest county boys record, the 1994 standard of six-time Olympian Derya Buyukuncu of Woodbridge (43.85).

“I really wanted it,” Hitchens said of the mark. “(The heat) definitely (had) a really big factor … but you can only control so much.”

Maksymowski showed his grit in the 200 free relay. Not long after winning the 500 free in 4:23.91 for his second individual title, the Texas-bound senior split a 20.12 anchor to out-touch JSerra by one-hundredth of a second for the victory in 1:22.47.

JSerra earned some revenge by capturing the 400 free relay in a school-record 3:00.75.

In other highlights, Fountain Valley’s Alyssa Ton swept the 200 (1:44.12) and 500 (4:43.39) freestyles in lifetime-best times on her 16th birthday. The Barons finished third in team points. Newport Harbor’s Connor Ohl captured the 50 free in 20.04, just missing his second 19-second effort.

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County restaurants shut down by health inspectors (May 1-8)

• May 10, 2025

Restaurants and other food vendors ordered to close and allowed to reopen by Orange County health inspectors from May 1 to May 8.

Tambuli Seafood Market, 4710 Lincoln Ave., Cypress

• Closed: May 8
• Reason: Cockroach infestation

Sugar ‘N’ Spice, 310 Marine Ave., Newport Beach

• Closed: May 8
• Reason: Insufficient hot water

Nana San, 3601 Jamboree Road, Suite 15-B, Newport Beach

• Closed: May 6
• Reason: Rodent infestation
• Reopened: May 7

Burger King, 2210 E. Lincoln Ave., Anaheim

• Closed: May 6
• Reason: Rodent infestation
• Reopened: May 7

Asia Foodie Kitchen, 1198 W. Katella Ave., Anaheim

• Closed: May 6
• Reason: Rodent infestation
• Reopened: May 8

Updates since last week’s list:

Jack’s at 20191 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach, which was ordered closed May 1 for a reason that wasn’t provided, was reopened May 2.

Tacos & Co. at 3601 Jamboree Road, Suite B-6, Newport Beach, which was ordered closed May 1 because of a cockroach infestation, was allowed to reopen May 3.

Food sales at Michaels, 25652 El Paseo, Mission Viejo, which were ordered to stop May 1 because of a rodent infestation, were allowed to resume May 5.

This list is published weekly with closures since the previous week’s list. Status updates are published in the following week’s list. Source: OC Health Care Agency database.

​ Orange County Register 

Santa Anita horse racing consensus picks for Saturday, May 10, 2025

• May 10, 2025

The consensus box of Santa Anita horse racing picks comes from handicappers Bob Mieszerski, Eddie Wilson, Kevin Modesti and Mark Ratzky. Here are the picks for thoroughbred races on Saturday, May 10, 2025.

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​ Orange County Register 

Rep. Young Kim rejects SALT cap proposal of $30,000, calling it a ‘slap in the face’

• May 10, 2025

Rep. Young Kim won’t vote for a budget bill with a state and local tax deduction cap of $30,000.

That’s the number Kim and other Republicans from high-tax states say has been floated as an offer as the powerful House Ways and Means Committee continues work shaping major parts of President Donald Trump’s budget proposal, including the modification of tax provisions.

But they say the proposed $30,000 figure for the tax deduction cap, commonly referred to as SALT, is still too low and would not get their support.

Kim called the $30,000 proposal a “non-starter” and a “slap in the face to the hardworking taxpayers in her district.”

“I’ve become one of the saltiest members of Congress,” she said during a roundtable with small business owners at the Yorba Linda Public Library on Friday, May 9.

Kim and a group of other Republicans from high-tax states — including New York and New Jersey — are complicating House Republican leadership’s efforts to push through the budget bill through the House by Memorial Day, actively campaigning for a SALT cap deduction increase.

Kim said she’d prefer a SALT cap set at $62,000 for individuals. That wouldn’t fully restore deductions for married couples, she said, but that would be a “reasonable offer.”

But when asked what figure she’d be willing to accept if lawmakers couldn’t agree on her proposal of $62,000, Kim said she didn’t have a number. That $62,000 cap, she said, would reflect what works best for her district, and the proposed $30,000 is too low to get her support.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, told Politico the $30,000 figure was just a number floated. “It’s still an ongoing discussion among the members, and I think we’ll find the right point,” he said.

Before 2017, Americans could deduct the full amount they paid in state and local taxes from their federal income taxes. But the 2017 law capped those deductions at $10,000, even for married couples filing jointly.

While most Americans saw modest tax cuts under the law, about 11 million people living in states with high housing costs and tax burdens, including many in Southern California, saw their federal tax bills go up because they could no longer fully deduct property taxes.

It’s become a sticking point for Kim, a Republican who represents parts of Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and other GOP members from high-tax states. Kim represents California’s 40th Congressional District, where nearly 50% of owner-occupied homes are valued at over $1 million.

And with a narrow three-seat majority in the House, Johnson can’t afford to lose those votes, especially as lawmakers face a July 4 deadline set by the White House to deliver what Trump has dubbed the “big, beautiful bill.”

If Congress doesn’t act, tax cuts initiated during the first Trump administration would expire in January 2026, which would trigger tax increases for an estimated 80% of Americans, according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a nonpartisan research organization.

But the SALT deduction is just one of several economic flashpoints, alongside rising costs and Trump’s proposed tariffs, that are shaping the stakes for the 2026 elections and putting blue state Republicans, including Kim, in the middle of public fights over the Republican Party’s tax priorities.

Voters across the country — and locally — ranked the economy as their No. 1 issue in the 2024 election cycle.

Going into 2026, Democrats, looking to regain ground in Orange County and nationally, are leaning into pocketbook issues and painting themselves as the party of the working and middle class.

Plus, the political optics aren’t great for Republicans in Congress right now.

With Trump’s poll numbers at record lows, Republicans are facing the challenge of convincing voters that they can ease financial pressures, even as Trump’s policy implications loom large ahead of an election year that historically favors the party out of power.

That means the pressure is especially high for Kim, who has campaigned on promises to fix the SALT cap and lower the cost of gas and groceries and has said she’s running for reelection in 2026.

Raising the SALT cap deduction would benefit not just the higher-income people in Orange County, but also the middle class, said Anil Puri, director of the Woods Center for Economic Analysis and Forecasting at Cal State Fullerton.

“So I think it’s more than a partisan issue,” said Puri.

Jon Fleischman, a longtime Republican consultant and official with the Republican Party of Orange County, said the stakes couldn’t be higher for Republicans eyeing reelection in 2026.

“There’s nothing more important to the reelection of all of these people than passing the big, beautiful bill,” Fleischman said. “If they can’t actually go through the process of extending the Trump tax cuts, they’ve all got big problems. Republicans will lose the House if they don’t pass the bill.”

Blue-state lawmakers like Kim are walking a fiscal tightrope, said Fleischman.

“Blue state Republicans need to decide their priority,” he said. “Is it preserving Medicaid and other entitlement spending that has ballooned, or is it getting more tax cuts for middle-class Americans? There’s not enough money to do both.”

On Friday, Kim reiterated that she would oppose any budget resolution that cuts vital Medicaid services for vulnerable residents in her district, but noted savings could come from establishing work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients without dependents.

“We have a vested interest … in making sure the Medicaid is protected,” she said.

Roughly 20% of residents in her district are enrolled in Medicaid, according to data from the California Health Care Foundation.

With the clock ticking on Trump’s tax cuts and a September deadline looming for the next continuing resolution to fund the government, Kim said she hopes lawmakers can reach a compromise on SALT soon.

“It’s to ensure certainty for Americans who are wondering if they’ll have a budget,” she said. “We have a lot at stake.”

Kim, on Friday, met with about a dozen small business owners and chambers of commerce representatives in her district, along with officials from the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which typically endorses Republicans and backed Kim in 2024.

Meanwhile, local Democrats rallied outside Tijeras Creek Golf Course in Rancho Santa Margarita to oppose the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

“While working families are asked to sacrifice more and more, the ultra-wealthy continue to benefit,” said Florice Hoffman, chair of the Democratic Party of Orange County.

​ Orange County Register 

Why Jack Kirby is one of the most important American artists of the past 100 years

• May 10, 2025

There was a time when the work of one of the 20th Century’s greatest artists could be had for a dime.

That artist is the subject of a new exhibition: “Jack Kirby: Heroes and Humanity,” which opened last week at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Kirby was the creator or co-creator of many of the most iconic superhero characters ever dreamed up – Captain America, the X-Men, the Avengers, Iron Man, Black Panther, Thor and more – as well as a stylistic innovator whose work changed the industry and has continued to reverberate over the decades.

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A combat veteran of World War II, Kirby served as an infantry scout, often entering hostile areas alone to gauge the danger – “If somebody wants to kill you, they make you a scout,” Kirby once told an interviewer. He saw horrors up close, channeling those experiences into war comics like “Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandos,” “Battle” and “The Losers” among them – as well as introducing Captain America by showing him socking Adolf Hitler in the jaw on the cover of his first comic.

The exhibition shows the dizzying range of Kirby’s work, its development and evolution over time, and its inventiveness and continuing influence on our culture. My colleague Peter Larsen wrote about the exhibit, and I got to walk through it with co-curator Ben Saunders, who grew up in Wales reading Marvel Comics and eventually became a professor of English at the University of Oregon, where he founded the first comic studies minor in the world about 15 years ago.

Saunders makes the case for Kirby as one of the artistic giants of the last century, citing his influence on everything from comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe to musicians like Paul McCartney (who wrote “Magneto & Titanium Man” based on Kirby’s work) and masked rapper MF Doom as well as inspiring novelists such as Jonathan Lethem and Glen David Gold, the latter an expert on Kirby who contributed rare materials to the exhibit.

There’s a quote from Kirby on one of the walls, and it’s as good a description of the work as you’ll find: “I began to realize with each passing fact what a wonderful and awesome place the universe is, and that helped me in comics because I was looking for the awesome.”

As a reader and a comic book fan (whose first comic was a ‘70s-era issue Jack Kirby Captain America issue), I had plenty to talk to Prof. Saunders about, but don’t worry: The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. What makes Jack Kirby so special?

There are a bunch of comic book artists that I loved when I was 15: John Byrne, Neal Adams, Bernie Wrightson. But I don’t like them now any more than I did when I was 15.

With Kirby, as I have matured, my ability to appreciate what he is doing has only grown, which I think means he was doing something different. As a kid, it could almost be off-putting. I certainly wouldn’t have ranked him as a better artist than Neal Adams, and now I think of him as one of the most important American artists of the last 100 years in any media.

Q. That’s a strong claim. Can you talk more about that?

You could think about it in terms of the longevity of his influence across fields. I teach this stuff to 19-year-olds of every race and gender, and they react to Kirby in ways that they don’t necessarily react to perfectly competent – excellent – comic book artists of the same era. Curt Swan is just not going to get them excited in the way that Jack Kirby does.

You can see his fingerprints are all over the imagination of the 21st century. In the area of the novel, in the area of popular music, particularly hip-hop, in the area of contemporary film, and, of course, in the area of contemporary comics, Jack’s hand is on everything. How many artists could we say that about who died in the ‘90s and who were doing their peak work probably between the ‘60s and ‘70s?

His reputation is probably higher now than at any point in his lifetime. So these are all things that suggest to me I’m backing a winner in terms of making a broad claim for his real genius.

Q. What can you tell us about his war comic, “Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos,” which I read growing up?

Jack, who had served [in World War II] by this point, is trying to destroy the racist myth that people of color didn’t make good warriors, couldn’t be good soldiers. So the Howling Commandos are self-consciously and ethnically mixed, where you’ve got your Italian, you’ve got your Jewish member, you’ve got Gabe Jones, the African American, and Dum Dum Dugan, the Irish American. They’re all part of this team.

I’ve seen some people react to the representation of the Howling Commandos as a whitewashing of the war because, of course, one of the great ironies of World War II is that we fought Nazis with a segregated army. My own grandfather fought in World War II, and his only encounter with Americans was when he was in the service. One of the only things I remember him saying about that was how shocked he was at the treatment of Black servicemen. It genuinely appalled him.

So I understand why people would see this as a kind of retroactive whitewash, but that’s actually a misunderstanding of Kirby’s goal. Kirby’s whole point was, yes, that was terrible, and I’m going to show you a military unit where the whole point is that all of America can serve and all have a place.

When this [comic] first came out, the colorist assumed that there couldn’t possibly be a Black person in the unit, so Gabe Jones was colored in the same pink tone as everybody else. Jack had to have it corrected.

Q. Kirby, who created Captain America with Joe Simon, famously introduced the character by showing him punching Adolf Hitler on the book’s first cover – but people forget this was in 1940, before the country was even at war. In the exhibit, you show footage of a 1939 American Nazi rally in New York City and make a connection between the two.

As I was doing the research, I did know about this event, but I didn’t know it had been filmed so I stumbled over it. And I watched this really stunning seven-minute movie and then I’m putting the dates and locations together and having this scholarly, obsessive moment where I’m calling up the map of Manhattan trying to figure out where the old version of Madison Square Garden was in relation to Jack and Joe’s office in Manhattan. And I’m realizing, this is where they would have gone to see boxing matches, they would have gone to see shows at Madison Square Garden – and the Nazis are in their neighborhood.

It came home to me with a whole new immediacy. This is 12 months before Pearl Harbor, so we know they’re not cashing in on war but it’s only a few months after this [rally], so I think the two of them were like, ‘Those [expletive] Nazis came to our neighborhood!’ and then they invent an American hero whose job it is to punch Nazis. This can’t be a coincidence.

Joe Simon tells a story about how their offices started to get phone calls and hate mail from Nazis after this came out. Jack apparently misunderstood and thought that there were Nazis in the lobby, and he ran downstairs so he could punch them. When he got there, he was disappointed there weren’t any Nazis to fight.

Q. Tell us about this drawing Kirby drew of Jacob and the Angel from the Book of Genesis. You said it’s the image you most wanted to have in the show.

It’s Jacob and the Angel, which means you’ve got a foundational Jewish story, but then he’s rendered the angel as a piece of Kirby tech. I’m kind of obsessed with his obsession with technology, because I think it’s one of the places where he discovers a kind of delirium of drawing.

One of the things that makes him a great artist – and not just a great comic book artist, but a great artist – is that he has themes. And one of his themes is what my friend Charles Hatfield calls “the technological sublime.” So the fact that we see all of these things coming together. We see Jewish myth, a personal identity piece, and then you see the lifelong obsession with tech.

It’s also prescient, right? I mean, we’re all wrestling with technology right now. We’re in the mess that we’re in right now because [gestures to his phone] we can’t put the angel down: ‘I will not let you go until you bless me.’ We could all be saying that to our phones.

Q. You grew up in Wales. Were American comics easy to find there?

When I was six years old, my parents would take me to my grandmother’s house every Friday night and come and get me on Saturday. It was their night off.

The key hadn’t quite turned for me as a reader. And one day I arrived when my grandmother bought me something called Spider-Man comics weekly [which featured condensed stories from a range of Marvel comics].

That was my entrée. Somebody had actually gone through and corrected the spelling, adding ‘u” back into all the words because they didn’t want British parents saying, ‘This American rubbish means our kids can’t spell ‘colour’ anymore!’

Q. Even as a comic book reader whose first purchase was a ‘70s-era Jack Kirby Captain America, I was surprised by how moved I was by some of this exhibit.

I have teared up in front of pieces of original comic art. For some part of myself, there’s still a connection to the idea that this is the America that I fell in love with before I ever moved here. This is the sort of aspirational America of discovery and adventure and decency and inclusivity.

Also, it’s being really acutely aware of it as a made thing, that this is a fantasy that somebody had at a drawing board and that they sat there and painstakingly rendered every single one of those lines.

​ Orange County Register 

Grunion run event will explore mysterious creature at Doheny State Beach

• May 10, 2025

The wiggly little grunion wash up with the waves and cover the sand, a mating ritual unique to their fish species – a nighttime spawning act that only happens at California beaches.

“They are just mysterious and beautiful, and there’s so much we don’t know,” said Karen Martin, a Pepperdine University expert who has studied the curious creatures for more than 25 years. “It’s fun to contemplate them.”

Martin, along with retired State Parks ranger Jim Serpa, will lead a Grunion Run night starting at 8 p.m. on May 13 at Doheny State Beach, a gathering that will start with an educational talk followed by participants hanging out by the shoreline starting at about 9:45 p.m., waiting for the fish to arrive.

Sometimes the grunion show, and the reward is watching a National Geographic-like scene on the sand, an odd sight as the fish mate at high tide, the eggs put in a hole, where they sit for about 10 days until the next high tide brings waves to shake them up enough to hatch and the babies making their way out to sea.

“It is quite unique. It’s probably the only fish that incubates fully out of water and has an environmentally queued hatching process,” Martin said, describing how the turbulent waters help hatch the critters.

Serpa, who ran a grunion program at Doheny State Beach for 22 years, from 1992 to 2013 when he retired, will mimic the action on land with eggs from the last grunion run a few weeks ago. He will show how shaking the eggs releases the fish before taking them out to sea.

Two weeks ago, Serpa went to Doheny to see the grunion run that was supposed to be just after high tide at about 10:30 p.m. He waited and waited, he said, and was just about to leave just after midnight, when he noticed the birds start going crazy, flocking to the shore.

So he waited a few more minutes and a wave washed up thousands of the grunion, flopping around on the sand, the birds plucking some up for a feast.

A couple on the sand visiting from Utah marveled at the unexpected sight, he said.

“They were going nuts, giggling and screaming,” he said, giving them an impromptu science lesson on the sand as he told them all about the creatures.

“It just cracks me up,” Serpa said. “I love to watch people get excited. The beach comes alive with these silver, wiggling, little grunion. I just love it.”

What makes it even more special is that it only happens here, though there is a closely related subspecies in Baja that does the same thing, but in daytime hours.

Martin runs a citizen scientist program called Grunion Greeter where surveyors go out and report on population numbers. Watching the grunion – and the anticipation waiting for them to show up – never gets old, she said.

“I am never tired of it. There are times when you go out in the middle of the night and they don’t show up. That’s because they are wild creatures looking out for their schedules, not ours,” she added. “I’ve never complained about waiting on the beach.”

She first got her first glimpse of the grunion during a Boy Scout outing when her son was young, she said. The intrigue about this fish out of water still, decades later, intrigues her.

“Any animal that is not where you expect it to be is really fascinating,” she said. “It just gets under your skin, what else are they doing that we don’t know about?”

Part of the unknown this season is also whether the grunion are being impacted by the toxic algae bloom that has caused a deadly domoic acid outbreak among sea creatures that eat the poisoned algae. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife on May 9 announced a restriction on taking sardines due to elevated levels of domoic acid.

Martin said she has sent grunion samples to the public health department for testing because they eat the same algae as anchovies and sardines — the little fish then make up the diet of sea lions and dolphins, which is causing stranding and sickness among the marine mammals.

“I do personally think the fish are affected by it, I do see some unusual strandings during harmful blooms and strange behaviors,” Martin said of the grunion.

Testing that comes back, however, shows amounts that are lower than dangerous for human health, she said.

“It’s probably not going to harm you, but if there’s any question in your mind, this is probably not the best thing to have for food when there’s so many other things out there,” she said.

Grunion, at least through June, are off limits anyhow. The state sets no-take periods during the grunion running season aimed at helping the species rebound. During July and August, people are allowed to take them, but only if caught by hand and there is a limit of 30. Anyone over 16 needs a fishing license.

“They can replenish their stocks pretty well if given the chance,” Serpa said. “Let’s protect them.”

More about Grunion runs

The state Fish and Wildlife department posts expected grunion run times and more information at wildlife.ca.gov/Fishing/Ocean/Grunion.

Here are times for the rest of this month, the season goes until August.

• May 12: 9:25 p.m. – 11:25 p.m.

• May 13: 9:50 p.m. – 11:50 p.m.

• May 14: 10:20 p.m. – 12:20 a.m.

• May 15: 10:55 p.m. – 12:55 a.m.

• May 26: 9:05 p.m. – 11:05 p.m.

• May 27: 9:50 p.m. – 11:50 p.m.

• May 28: 10:35 p.m. – 12:35 a.m.

• May 29: 11:25 p.m. – 1:25 a.m.

The times reflect a probable two-hour window for spawing; the second hour is usually better. The best runs normally occur on the second and third nights of a four-night period.

This schedule predicts grunion runs at Cabrillo Beach near the Los Angeles Harbor entrance. The timing varies along the coast, for example, San Diego runs occur about 5 minutes earlier and Santa Barbara runs occur about 25 minutes.

​ Orange County Register 

Susan Shelley: Warning for Californians: tax hikes are coming

• May 10, 2025

Cell phones have emergency alert apps that will shriek and buzz loudly enough to wake you up at night if there’s an earthquake or wildfire. It’s a good thing there’s no app to warn of impending tax increases. Nobody in California would get any sleep.

The state government is in the middle of what it calls the “budget process.” It’s more process than budget. The governor makes a proposal in January and revises it in May, and then state lawmakers write and pass a budget by the legal deadline in June, because if they don’t, they don’t get paid. But it’s not the real budget. There is no real budget. Instead, there’s an open-ended process of “trailer bills,” which are backroom deals quickly amended into blank bills passed earlier.

Yes, the California Legislature passes blank bills. Stacks of them, every year.

With a budget process like this,  it shouldn’t surprise anybody that we don’t even know whether the budget is in deficit or surplus. In January, the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office guessed that the budget “remains roughly balanced.” But this was achieved by declaring a budget emergency and raiding the “rainy day” fund. The state has used “about half of the Budget Stabilization Account,” the LAO reported.

The basic problem, according to the LAO, is that “revenues have not caught up with expenditures” and “expenditure growth exceeds estimated revenue growth.”

In other words, the state government is spending money it doesn’t have. Yet.

This is why the emergency app on your phone would be blaring like an air-raid siren to warn you of impending tax increases.

One of the wildest proposals for tax hikes was floated at a recent meeting of the state Board of Equalization, the agency that oversees property tax assessments. The board invited a law professor to explain how the Legislature could pass laws to get more money out of property owners without voter approval.

Currently, increases in property taxes are limited by the 1978 initiative, Proposition 13, which caps increases in the assessed (taxable) value of property at no more than 2% per year until there’s a change of ownership. Prop. 13 also cut the tax rate to a flat 1%, though it allows a slightly higher rate to pay off voter-approved debt.

Because Prop. 13 was a constitutional amendment, it can’t be undone by a vote of the Legislature. However, the presentation viewed by the Board of Equalization suggested that the Legislature could get around this hurdle by passing laws to impose “income tax increases on those whose property taxes are far too low relative to income.” It also suggested “a tax on unbuilt parcels.”

That should certainly set off alarms.

And so should this: two major sources of government revenue are set to expire in 2030, and planning is quietly underway to figure out how to renew them. One is the “temporary” income tax increase on earnings above $250,000 that was on the 2012 ballot as Proposition 30. It was a “citizens’ initiative,” but to help it pass, Gov. Jerry Brown threatened voters that if it didn’t, there would be apocalyptic cuts to education. In 2016, special interests funded another initiative to extend the “temporary” tax increase until 2030. Voters approved it.

Would a majority of voters say yes a third time? State lawmakers can renew the tax increase themselves, but it will take a two-thirds vote of the legislature.

That also applies to the second expiring revenue source, the cap-and-trade program. Though it’s supposedly not a tax, it’s close enough that a judge might strike it down if the legislature passed a bill to renew the program with less than the two-thirds vote the constitution requires for tax increases.

Cap-and-trade, run by the California Air Resources Board, is a program aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by collecting billions of dollars from selling “allowances” to “emit.” These extra costs raise the price of gasoline, electricity and everything.

This month, the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported that cap-and-trade is adding “about 23 cents to each gallon of retail gasoline sold in California” and could add as much as 74 cents per gallon in the future.

Cap-and-trade has collected roughly $31 billion for the state treasury’s slushy “Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund” since the program’s start in 2006. If it continues, the LAO estimates it will bring in between $70 billion and $260 billion (in 2025 dollars) by 2045. If the Legislature does not renew cap-and-trade, that money stays in your wallet instead. You can call your representatives now and let them know what you think. Look them up at findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov.

California is facing projected budget deficits in the next three fiscal years estimated between $15 billion and $30 billion annually. But instead of recognizing that it’s time to cut spending, the Legislature is considering Assembly Constitutional Amendment 1, a measure that would actually erode a legal limit on spending growth that voters put into the constitution with an initiative in 1979.

The governor won’t even cut spending for the ridiculous high-speed rail project, insisting that it would be “reckless” to stop now, just as we “enter” the track-laying “phase.”

Where is the money to continue this escapade? Nobody knows. Right now, high-speed rail is funded with 25% of the money from the cap-and-trade program, another reason that some in the state government will try anything to keep that program going, no matter how much it raises the cost of living in California.

The solution to California’s budget problems won’t be found in schemes to raise income taxes or make energy more expensive. The answer is a change in tax, energy and regulatory policies to promote strong private-sector economic growth: more people making more money and paying lower taxes. California can’t thrive by relying on soak-the-rich taxes and federal bailouts.

And speaking of the federal government, the national debt is up to $36.8 trillion, and Congress is busy erasing the DOGE savings with new spending.

Every phone in the country should be shrieking an alert over that.

Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley

​ Orange County Register