This map shows where the Lake Fire is burning in Santa Barbara County

• July 8, 2024

The Lake Fire, burning in a rugged area of Santa Barbara County, has become the biggest wildfire of California’s season.

As of Monday morning, the fire was at 20,320 acres (31.7 square miles) with 8% containment, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.

That surpassed Sites, which burned 19,195 acres last month in Colusa County.

The Lake Fire’s evacuation order was expanded to about 50 square miles on Sunday evening.

The map above shows the approximate fire perimeter as a black line and the evacuation zones in red. For more evacuation details and latest updates, see Santa Barbara County’s emergency map.

The fire started around 4 p.m. Friday, July 5, near Zaca Lake, in Los Padres National Forest. Its cause is under investigation.

The fire’s western edge was within a mile of the former Michael Jackson Neverland Ranch, as well as several prominent wineries in the Foxen Canyon area.

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In 2007, the same area was burned by the Zaca Fire, which at that time was the second largest wildfire in California’s recorded history. It was started on July 4 by sparks from a grinding tool and wasn’t fully contained until Sept. 4; hot spots continued to burn until the last days of October. The final tally was 240,207 acres (375 square miles). Forty-three people were injured in the firefighting.

So far this year, the state has had five wildfires over 10,000 acres. Last year at this time, its biggest fire was 1,560 acres; all four of the fires in 2023 over 10,000 acres started in August, according to CalFire records.

​ Orange County Register 

16,000-acre Lake Fire in Santa Barbara County prompts evacuations and threatens Neverland Ranch

• July 8, 2024

A wildfire that erupted in the mountains of Santa Barbara County in Southern California has burned more than 16,000 acres, prompting an evacuation order and threatening ranches, including Michael Jackson’s former Neverland Ranch, authorities said.

The fire, called the Lake fire, broke out shortly before 4 p.m. Friday near Zaca Lake, just northeast of the city of Los Olivos, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The cause of the fire, which was zero percent contained as of Sunday, remained under investigation.

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office issued an evacuation order for an area near the Los Padres National Forest that includes the property once known as Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, a 2,700-acre property in Los Olivos, California.

About 100 residents were affected by the evacuation order, said Kenichi Haskett, a public information officer for Cal Fire. No structural damage, injuries or fatalities have been reported so far.

Winds were blowing the blaze southeast. The former Neverland Ranch and other ranches were in immediate danger Sunday, Haskett said.

Jackson bought the ranch for about $17 million in 1988 and transformed it into a private entertainment complex, complete with a zoo, a train and an amusement park that included a Ferris wheel and a 50-seat theater.

Related: This map shows where the Lake Fire is burning

He named it Neverland Ranch, after the mythical island home of Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up.

Before his death in 2009, he faced several allegations that he molested young boys, with some of his accusers alleging that they were abused at Neverland. After a 2005 trial that acquitted him, Jackson never returned to live at his ranch.

The amusement park rides were later removed and the property was rebranded the Sycamore Valley Ranch. It was sold in 2020 for $22 million to Ronald Burkle, a billionaire investor.

Scott Safechuck, a public information officer with Santa Barbara County Fire Department, said on social media that temperatures in the area reached into the 90s over the weekend and that relative humidity levels were low.

More than 750 firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service and Santa Barbara County Fire Department have been assigned to the fire, the U.S. Forest Service said. Aerial support included 10 air tankers and three helicopters, Safechuck said.

Evacuation warnings were in place north of Zaca Lake Road, east of Foxen Canyon Road and South of the Sisquoc River, according to Inciweb, the national incident information system for wildfires and all-hazard incidents. On Sunday evening, the sheriff’s office issued additional evacuation warnings to include areas north of Calzada Avenue, east of East Oak Trail Road, west of Happy Canyon, and south of the Sisquoc River.

The fire was first reported at 3:45 p.m., according to the U.S. Forest Service. A combustible mix of low relative humidity levels, gusty winds and scorching temperatures helped the fire swell to 4,000 acres by 11 p.m., the agency said. By Sunday, the blaze had ripped through at least 16,452 acres.

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​ Orange County Register 

LA-OC home prices 10 times greater than incomes, report finds

• July 8, 2024

Buying a home in Los Angeles and Orange counties costs 10 times more than what a typical family earns in a year, a new housing report shows.

That’s double what it was in 1980, when the price of a house was five times the median household income, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

The L.A.-Orange County metro area had the fourth-highest price-income ratio out of 385 U.S. metro areas listed in the report, which came out in late June.

In the Inland Empire, home prices were more than six times greater than its median income, the 37th highest price-income ratio in the nation.

San Diego County’s median home price was almost nine times greater than the median income, 11th highest.

By comparison, U.S. home prices were about five times the nation’s median household income, the report said.

The numbers were part of the Harvard center’s annual State of the Nation’s Housing report. The report compared 2023 median prices for existing single-family homes with Moody’s Analytics estimates of household incomes.

“Nationwide, home prices have jumped a shocking 47% since early 2020, … and 115 percent since 2010,” the report said. “As home prices have risen, they have grown to many multiples of household income.”

In Southern California, the median house price has jumped 45% since early 2020 and 183% since 2010, state Realtor data show.

Using numerous measures of home prices and rent, the report concluded that housing in America has been getting increasingly unaffordable.

“Both homeowners and renters are struggling with high housing costs,” the report said. “Millions of potential homebuyers have been priced out of the market by elevated home prices and interest rates. … For renters, the number with cost burdens has hit an all-time high as rents have escalated.”

More than 56% of Southern California renters are “cost burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent, according to the report. Almost a third spend at least half of their income on rent.

Those issues are even more exaggerated in Southern California and in the state as a whole.

For example, an Orange County homebuyer with a 3.5% down payment would have to earn just over $420,000 a year to afford payments for a median priced home. That’s the second-highest minimum income for homeownership out of 179 metro areas.

San Jose had the nation’s highest minimum income, with buyers needing to earn more than $566,000 a year to afford a median-priced home.

San Diego County ranked fifth among U.S. metros, with a required income of almost $302,000, according to the report. In Los Angeles County, the minimum income is $253,000, while the Inland Empire’s minimum totals almost $178,500.

Home prices have been rising steadily for the past 12 years, and economists don’t expect them to drop in the near future. Despite high mortgage rates and low affordability, prices keep rising because the number of homes for sale is well below pre-pandemic levels.

Real estate data firm CoreLogic predicted that this year’s U.S. home price will be 5.7% higher than in 2023.

“Housing supply and affordability remain major challenges,” the study concluded. “The number of households in need of assistance continues to grow even as funding for subsidies fails to keep up, contributing to rising homelessness.”

​ Orange County Register 

Trucks of sand start arriving today to build up beaches at San Clemente and Capistrano Beach

• July 8, 2024

Truckloads of sand will be heading to two south Orange County beaches starting Monday, July 8, as officials try to salvage sand-starved shores at Capistrano Beach in Dana Point and North Beach in San Clemente.

The county’s southernmost coastal town will get an estimated 50,000 cubic yards of sand at North Beach, an area in San Clemente that has long suffered from coastal erosion – now, at high tide little or no sand space is left for beachgoers.

At Capistrano Beach, another 20,000 cubic yards is planned, following a similar replenishment project that brought double that amount last summer to the beach, which had also been battered by a series of strong swells in recent years.

Capistrano Beach after an infusion of sand in Dana Point, CA, on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023. Another similar project will bring more sand to the troubled beach from the Santa Ana River starting July 8, 2024. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The sand is from a surplus stuck upstream in the Santa Ana River, natural debris that flows down the waterway but needs to be removed due to flooding concerns.

In previous years, the sand supply had been taken to landfills, but rather than let it go to waste, county officials worked to find ways to use the sand for area beaches in need.

Coastal erosion is an issue plaguing many beach towns across California, due to a number of factors including the concreting of channels, development and droughts that lock sand in place, rather than allowing it to naturally flow down stream to the coast. At the same time, big swells and high tides chomp away at beaches  – a problem that experts worry could worsen as climate change intensifies.

Replenishment projects are just one way authorities are trying to manage the coastline to keep the beaches intact – important not just for recreation but also a tourism and economic driver and protection for infrastructure.

San Clemente is also exploring various “sand retention” structures, studying ways to not just infuse sand onto the beach, but keep it in place using jetties or artificial offshore structures. There’s also been talk of a tax to help fund such beach-saving efforts. 

A recent project in partnership with the US Army Corps of Engineers added 140,000 cubic square yards of sand to the pier area, mostly filling in from the south side of the pier to T-Street. The project is only halfway complete and is expected to resume later this year.

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That project, however, doesn’t cover the northern end of town, where there’s so little sand a restroom building is at risk and lifeguards are unable to reach the area by foot, if needed, with a pedestrian bridge still closed due to a landslide last year.

The North Beach area that will be targeted with the new sand being trucked in starting Monday covers a portion of shoreline that is in the Orange County Transportation Authority’s area of concern because train tracks run oceanfront there. The agency is also proposing plans to add rocks and sand in its efforts to protect the rail line that has been closed multiple times the last couple of years because of damage and landslides.

The new sand comes following city officials declaring an emergency to get through permitting quickly, expected to cost an estimated $2 million.

“If you’ve been to North Beach lately, you will see that the beach is in pretty dire straits,” said Leslea Meyerhoff, the city’s coastal administrator, at that meeting last month.

Each truck will hold about 10 cubic yards, with about 40 loads transported a day, she said. The sand will be spread out across 1,500 feet of beach, from North Beach to the access way at Dije Court.

The goal is to “bolster the function of the sandy beach as a natural shoreline buffer to protect critical public infrastructure and existing structures,” city officials said in an announcement of the project. “North Beach is also a highly valued recreational amenity for the community and visitors.”

Some access points to the beach will be closed Mondays through Thursdays during the project, opening back up for weekend crowds. Construction equipment will be staged in the parking lot at North Beach.

For Capistrano Beach, the trucks will follow the same method used last year, with truckloads bringing the sand from the Santa Ana River to the parking lot to fill in eroded areas there and at Doheny State Beach. That project is expected to go through Aug. 30.

Plans are still underway to create a “living shoreline” in the area to help keep the sand in place, though the county is awaiting grant funding to move forward.

​ Orange County Register 

Californians rank 5th-best in US at bill paying

• July 8, 2024

Californians have been surprisingly good at paying their bills despite all the financial hurdles of Golden State life.

That’s what I found when my trusty spreadsheet looked at a decade’s worth of consumer delinquency data from the New York Fed. These stats came from Equifax credit histories tracking which debts go unpaid – mortgages, autos, credit cards and student loans.

For all the talk about the state’s sky-high cost of living impoverishing scores of residents, Californians had the nation’s fifth-best debt payment rate among the states between 2014 and 2023.

Statewide, 1.7% of combined debt balances in those categories were 90 days or more late – well below the 2.7% delinquency rate nationally. Utah had the fewest missed payments during these 10 years – just 1.4%. Next was Washington at 1.52% and Colorado and Alaska at 1.6%.

And the worst payment patterns? They were found in Mississippi, with 4.8% of debts delinquent. Then came West Virginia at 4%, Louisiana at 3.9%, Florida at 3.8%, and Oklahoma at 3.7%. Oh, and economic rival Texas was 17th-worst at 3.1% late.

Largest debts

Don’t let the good payment history obscure the fact that Californians like to borrow. Some might argue most Golden State residents need significant loans to financially survive.

The California consumer debt load equaled $70,414 per person during the past decade in these four categories. That level of per-capita loans was 45% above the U.S. norm. Only Delaware at $86,905 and Colorado at $70,466 had more.

The smallest debts were found in West Virginia at $27,766 per person, Mississippi at $29,545, and Arkansas at $31,800. And Texas was No. 29 at $42,930 and Florida was No. 26 at $44,273.

But when it came to dollars of late debts, California ranked only 23rd highest among the states – an average $1,206 per capita over the 10 years. And that’s 7% below the U.S. norm.

Tops for tardy balances? Delaware at $2,090 per capita, New Jersey at $1,901, and Maryland at $1,818. Lows? Nebraska at $712, West Virginia at $730, and North Dakota at $758.

Also, Texas was No. 15 at $1,325 and Florida was No. 6 at $1,668.

By the slice

California bill paying is by no means consistent across the four debt categories.

Mortgages: Californians have been excellent at paying their homes loans over the past decade. Tight lending restrictions helped stop missed payments and lowered foreclosure woes. Sadly, these rules also squash many homeownership dreams.

Home-loan delinquencies statewide were only 0.7% of all balances due statewide over 10 years – the ninth-lowest rate among the states and nearly half of the 1.2% national rate.

Auto loans: Californians are just OK at making car payments, nationally speaking. The state ranked No. 27 with 3.7% of 2014-23 auto loans balances delinquent. Nationally, 4.1% of car loans were late.

Student loans: California were equally mediocre the past 10 years – ranking No. 20 with 7.4% of balance late compared to 8% nationally.

Credit cards: A California weak spot, ranking eighth-worst at 8.8% late over 10 years compared to 8.1% nationally.

Bottom line

Let’s note one caveat: This data tracks only people with credit histories and the stats are averages, which can be skewed by higher-income folks.

Still, why do Californians typically pay these bills on time?

Look at some broad economic statistics for the top 10 states for bill paying compared with trends in the 10 worst late payment states. Debts aren’t missed as much in high-salary, vibrant economies.

Per capita income is more robust in the 10 best bill-paying states in 2014-23, averaging $58,568 compared to $46,540 for the worst-payers. That’s 26% higher. And California incomes were $64,815.

And pay raises are slightly larger. Incomes rose 55% in 10 years in the best bill-paying states compared to 51% in the worst-payers. California incomes grew 67%.

Plus, states with solid bill paying had noteworthy population growth: 7.2% average increases in a decade for the top 10 compared to 5.1% for the bottom 10. California didn’t fit this mold with only 1.9% population growth.

However, job growth was roughly the same 12.4% in 10 years in the best bill-paying states compared to 12.7% in the worst-paying. Yet California was up 17.7%.

But the unemployment rates were lower: 4.1% average in bill-paying’s top 10 compared to 5.1% for the bottom 10. California was an outlier at 5.9%.

Despite numerous monetary challenges Californians face, when it comes to meeting major financial obligations more than a few can “afford” the Golden State.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com

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​ Orange County Register 

The ‘lawfare’ against Donald Trump is collapsing

• July 8, 2024

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity didn’t sit well at all with the current occupant of the office.

“The American people deserve to have an answer in the courts before the upcoming election,” President Joe Biden said in a televised speech. “The public has a right to know the answer about what happened on January 6th, before they are asked to vote again this year. Now because of today’s decision, that is highly, highly unlikely.”

President Biden openly said what his Justice Department and Special Counsel Jack Smith have not been willing to say directly: they need former President Donald Trump convicted in time to affect the outcome of the November election.

The timeline looks so sketchy. Trump announced on November 15, 2022, that he would run for re-election. He was indicted in Manhattan the following April, then in Florida in June, then in Washington, D.C., on August 1 and in Georgia on August 15. All the conduct occurred years earlier, but Trump was criminally charged only after he became a candidate.

The first Republican primary debate was held on August 23, just one week after the indictment in Georgia. There were eight “not Trump” hopefuls on the stage that night. By March 6, they were all out of the race.

That probably increased the pressure to get Trump convicted before the election. However,  the Constitution guarantees due process of law, the opposite of arbitrary power.

In the Washington, D.C., case, Trump moved to dismiss the indictment based on presidential immunity from prosecution for his actions in office: making public statements, communicating with various officials about investigating election fraud and organizing contingent slates of electors, all within the “outer perimeter of his official responsibilities.”

Both U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that there is no presidential immunity, but in their rush to expedite the case, neither bothered to analyze whether the actions described in the indictment involved official acts.

That’s when the Supreme Court agreed to decide this question: “Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion in the case known as Trump v. United States.

“The first step is to distinguish his official from unofficial actions,” Roberts wrote. “In this case, however, no court has thus far considered how to draw that distinction, in general or with respect to the conduct alleged in particular. Despite the unprecedented nature of this case, and the very significant constitutional questions that it raises, the lower courts rendered their decisions on a highly expedited basis.”

Roberts explained the constitutional structure of separation of powers. Because the president is “the only person who alone composes a branch of government,” he is entitled to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his “exclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.”

One example of this type of power is the pardon, which can’t be limited or reviewed by Congress or the courts. Roberts related that during and after the Civil War, “President Lincoln offered a full pardon, with restoration of property rights, to anyone who had ‘engaged in the rebellion’ but agreed to take an oath of allegiance to the Union.”

It’s true, people fighting the actual Civil War were forgiven a lot faster than the January 6th protesters, still getting indicted almost four years later.

The court held that a president is also entitled to a presumption of immunity “for his remaining official acts,” but has no immunity for “unofficial acts.”

Which is which? That determination now goes back to the district court, but Roberts offered “guidance.” The courts “may not inquire into the President’s motives” or “deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law.” Subjecting the president to “judicial examination” or trial on a “mere allegation” would risk intruding on the constitutional separation of powers that immunity is intended to protect.

Additionally, prosecutors may not “admit testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing the official act itself.” Roberts wrote that “allowing that sort of evidence would invite the jury to inspect the President’s motivations for his official actions and to second-guess their propriety,” seriously impairing “the President’s exercise of his official duties.”

Turning to the conduct described in the indictment, the court said Trump’s “threatened removal of the Acting Attorney General” is within his exclusive power to remove “executive officers of the United States whom he has appointed.” Trump is “absolutely immune from prosecution for the al­leged conduct involving his discussions with Justice De­partment officials.”

Trump is “at least presumptively immune from prosecution for his discussions with Vice President Mike Pence.” The district court will have to determine the facts “with input from the parties.”

All the allegations in the indictment will now be subject to “fact specific” analysis to sort official acts from unofficial. And when considering Trump’s words, “content, form and context” will “necessarily inform the inquiry.” No deceptive editing.

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The Supreme Court’s decision is a wrecking ball into the indictments. Already Trump’s lawyers have challenged the conviction in the New York “hush money” case. Sentencing has been postponed until September, if it even happens.

And there’s more. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion explaining in detail why Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel is likely illegal. That question has already come up in the Florida case.

The “lawfare” against Trump is collapsing. Instead of 91 criminal convictions before the election, there may be 91 dismissed charges.

“Now the American people will have to do what the courts should have been willing to do but would not,” Biden implored the public in his televised speech. “The American people must decide whether Donald Trump’s assault on our democracy on January 6th makes him unfit for public office in the highest office in the land.”

The American people will decide. We’ll see who they think is unfit for the office.

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

​ Orange County Register 

Jon Coupal: Californians must reject costly bond measures this November

• July 8, 2024

California politicians are addicted to debt. For voters and taxpayers, it’s time to schedule an intervention. Let’s pick November 5th.

The amount of debt already assumed by state and local governments is easily in the hundreds of billions of dollars. In fact, if debt is defined as legally binding obligations that require future payment, this would include pension debt and promises for lifetime health benefits for public employees on top of more traditional debt such as general obligation bonds, revenue bonds, “certificates of participation,” and a host of other binding commitments. According to a 2022 analysis by the California Policy Center, this amount exceeds $1.5 trillion.

At the state level, politicians love debt because it gives them funding for their special projects or for rewarding their allies, yet they still are able to claim that they are not directly raising taxes. But under the category of “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” all debt must be repaid at some point. And too much debt, be it servicing bond debt or paying pension obligations, crowds out the ability to meet current needs.

In a welcome development, it appears that voters are becoming increasingly suspicious of politicians who pretend debt is free money. The recent statewide bond measure to address homelessness, Proposition 1, barely passed despite proponents outspending opponents by 15,000 to 1.

Moreover, while Californians still rank education as one of the state’s top priorities, they remain unwilling to write blank checks for bonds being pushed by special interests that include developers and the bond industry. In March of 2020, voters rejected, for the first time in decades, a statewide bond for school construction.

This November, California voters will be asked to once again approve a $10 billion statewide school bond as well as a $10 billion “climate bond.” In addition, voters in nine Bay Area counties will confront a massive $20 billion regional “housing” bond. For myriad reasons, all three bond proposals deserve to be rejected.

First, the school bond. AB 247 reflects typical credit card math by Sacramento politicians because it would borrow $10 billion from Wall Street and then make taxpayers pay it back plus interest. Depending on interest rates, the total cost to taxpayers could easily exceed $18 billion.

While no one disputes the need for adequate school facilities, the problem is that the state’s education establishment has failed to make the case for more capital spending in an era of declining enrollments. And this measure also presents a huge threat to homeowners. While it is true that the bond itself – plus interest, of course – will be repaid out of the state’s general fund, local school districts are required to provide matching funds except on very rare occasions. Those matching funds are generated by local bond measures which are repaid exclusively by property owners.

Another problem with AB 247 is the preference for school construction projects that employ a “project labor agreement.” This is a transparent payoff to the politically powerful construction trade unions. But for taxpayers, PLA’s can easily add 25% to 30% to construction costs as well as exclude responsible construction companies from competing for the business.

As for the “climate” bond, this $10 billion proposal is a scaled-back version of the $15 billion bond introduced earlier in the legislative session. It’s no bargain. Now renamed the “Safe Drinking Water, Wildfire Prevention, Drought Preparedness, and Clean Air Bond Act of 2024,” it would borrow money to cover the expense of running ongoing programs. If the programs are worthwhile, they should be funded in the budget instead of racking up interest charges for 30 years.

In a nutshell, this proposal is inconsistent with the principles of sound debt financing. Bond financing can be justified where the cost of a major infrastructure project – at either the state or local level – is greater than could be funded directly from general fund revenues without making significant reductions in service. But proponents have not made the case for why this grab bag of various projects couldn’t be financed from the general fund, other than the self-inflicted “budget crisis.”

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Finally, the largest affordable housing bond in California history will be decided by the voters in nine Bay Area counties. This regional bond proposal, which dwarfs all previous statewide housing bonds, will raise the property taxes on a typical home by thousands of dollars over the life of the bonds. The entire financial obligation will rest solely on the backs of property owners within the nine-county region. Given that homeowners are high-propensity voters, this bond from the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority is already facing organized opposition.

BAHFA is hoping for voter approval of ACA 1, which would retroactively lower the vote threshold for passing housing bonds from two-thirds to 55%. But taxpayers don’t like this kind of political gamesmanship, as evidenced by the negative polling on an earlier version of ACA 1.

An overarching problem for the tax-and-spend crowd is that, when voters are confronted with multiple proposals seeking more of their dollars, they could very well vote no on all of them just out of spite.

Spite or not, that would be the best outcome of all.

Jon Coupal is president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

​ Orange County Register 

He’s won professor of the year four years in a row. What makes him so popular?

• July 8, 2024

Criminology. Law. The Supreme Court. Bad Bunny. Harry Styles. Taylor Swift.

Any one of these topics could weave its way into a Brandon Golob lecture at the UC Irvine School of Social Ecology. At the surface level, his willingness to bring pop culture into the classroom is one reason why students have voted him professor of the year four years running in a school survey. He admits he scores bonus popularity points when he comes to campus with his rescue dog, Bruce, a 14-pound chihuahua-corgi mix.

Sure, students say Golob is well-liked because he can chat about the Grammys or the Oscars. On a deeper level, they say he’s a great professor because of the way he challenges them to think about democracy and the law and to analyze the way they perceive the world around them.

“Professor Golob creates a safe and engaging learning environment and also teaches critical thinking skills, especially with contemporary analysis of current events,” one student wrote in their nomination of Golob for professor of the year in 2024.

“His teaching style is innovative and interactive, incorporating real-world examples and current media to make complex concepts accessible and engaging,” another student wrote.

“His method of teaching is probably the most effective way I’ve ever seen anyone in all my years of school actually teach,” wrote a third.

Golob, who does not shy away from bringing identity and politics into the classroom, would tell you that to understand his effectiveness as an instructor you would have to understand his background and UCI’s.

UCI has a diverse student body. More than 25% of its student body identifies as Latino. At least half of all students receive financial aid. And, nearly 50% of this year’s graduates are first-generation college students.

A first-generation college graduate himself, Golob can relate to how daunting — and rewarding — it can be to navigate the UC system. He received his dual B.A. in rhetoric and interdisciplinary studies from UC Berkeley and his J.D. from the UCLA School of Law before receiving his M.A. and Ph.D. in communication from USC. Realizing that he preferred the mission of public education, he landed a job at UCI straight out of his graduate program in 2018. Now a tenured professor, he teaches legal communication, criminology, constitutional law and leadership classes. He also serves as an associate dean of UCI’s campuswide honors collegium, an undergraduate honors program.

“Students see me as someone on the other side of what they would like to do,” he said. “So I try to be really human about all the mistakes I made and show them it still worked out. It alleviates some of that anxiety they have when they act like, ‘I failed a final, I’m never going to make it.’”

Even after starting college, Golob did not envision himself in academia, he said. He figured he’d strike a career in law, but was privately ambivalent about that, too.

“I was the first in my family to go to law school,” he said. “I didn’t really know what it was like.”

It’s a struggle he sees reflected in many of his students — their projection that law is the right path for them, but their inability to meaningfully articulate why. “So many of our students say they want to be a lawyer or want to work in law enforcement, but when you really get down to it, they’re like, ‘I love ‘Suits’ or I want to study criminal law because of ‘How to Get Away with Murder.’”

After completing his doctorate, Golob wanted to stay in Southern California and he wanted to teach law to undergraduates. UCI’s School of Social Ecology would allow him to do both.

“Most law students know exactly what they want to do, and as a professor, I’d just be there as a means to an end. Versus undergrads, the experience can change their whole life perspective,” he said.

Rather than lecture on black letter law like a professor might in a law degree program, Golob said he prefers to teach law in “broad brushstrokes” in ways that he hopes students will find useful in life.

His courses aren’t limited by the Socratic method or other rote forms of instruction, he said. Rather, he encourages students to engage in all sorts of activities and assessments from small group discussions to podcasting to essay writing. He even modeled one online leadership course around a “Survivor”-esque island theme.

In class, he said he aims to “humanize” the law. Rather than having students memorize their Miranda rights, for example, he encourages them to explore the life of Ernesto Miranda and what his case means today in the larger context of policing in America.

In class, the millennial professor breaks up heavy conversations with lighthearted activities such as “New Music Fridays.”

Traditional legal scholars might bristle at the way his lectures on legal doctrine take detours into chats on Coachella headliners. They might not like that he wears polos and sneakers to work. But for Golob, popular music and culture are a means of expression and a route to student engagement.

“We build music into every one of my classes,” he said. “In my hate crimes class, we’ll listen to Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake it Off.’ Haters gonna hate, you know. Or, in my constitutional law class, we’ll listen to ‘Hamilton,’ things along those lines.”

It might sound teenybop, but Golob’s pedagogy has multigenerational appeal. He’s won separate professor of the year honors from graduate students, including those in his leadership seminar for mid-career law enforcement professionals.

In their reviews, students write the underlying reason for Golob’s appeal is not so much the music or even his dog, Bruce, but the way he builds trust in the classroom.

Whether he’s teaching 40 students or 250, 18-year-old freshmen or 18-year veterans of the district attorney’s office, Golob gives his students agency in their own instruction. Instead of handing out a typical syllabus, he works with his students to draft a “compassion contract” for each of his courses. It’s a set of ground rules the class as a whole agrees to before engaging in challenging legal conversations around sensitive political topics that could range from policing to abortion.

“At the outset of each class, we’ll lay out here’s how we’ll dialogue with each other. Here’s how we’ll treat one another when we come up against difficult, complicated topics that have different emotional responses,” he said.

Each class contract, he said, enables students to take risks in discussions and escape their “echo chambers” by sharing thoughtful perspectives on what can be polarizing topics.

“We’re not all here to be comfortable. We’re not here to have an echo chamber,” Golob said. “We use our classroom to be a microcosm for the real world. Class is not going to be your group of TikTok friends reinforcing your beliefs. We always ask ourselves how people beyond the classroom may be thinking about these issues, reminding ourselves even with the diversity of perspectives that we have within our classrooms that it’s not representative of reality in the world. We remind ourselves that there’s always more at stake than what’s happening in the classroom.”

When analyzing Supreme Court decisions, for instance, he asks students to consider how each judge might use their unique lived experiences to approach a decision. That could mean bringing race, gender and socioeconomics into the classroom. “I’m not saying identity is ever completely determinative of their perspective, but we’ll investigate and ask, ‘How could this potentially impact their decision-making?’” Golob said.

This naturally leads to challenging conversations about privilege and identity, and Golob recognizes these topics can quickly become touchy subjects in academia and politics. But, in his experience, addressing them head-on has been the best way to bring his students together.

“My students are an unparalleled bright spot during dark, divisive times in higher education,” Golob said in a statement accepting his award. “They motivate me to teach from a place of authenticity and receptivity. I’m honored that they find value in my courses, but what I learn from them is far richer; it could never be distilled into a lesson plan.”

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