Tag: gate

Imaginarium opens for 2025 season Wednesday after earlier confusion, organizers say

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The Imaginarium holiday light show at Cal Expo opened on Wednesday following a delay and confusing announcements. The status of Imaginarium’s Utopia, billed as Northern California’s largest holiday light festival, was thrown into confusion Wednesday when a spokesperson for the event said a social media post announcing the opening after earlier delays was premature. “Several new electrical panels have been installed and are currently pending inspection,” Darla Givens told KCRA 3 two hours after Imaginarium Sacramento posted on Facebook about its reopening plans. “Once those panels are fully inspected and approved, Imaginarium will receive the green light to open. Until that process is complete, Imaginarium will remain closed.”(Previous coverage in the video above.)That process was since completed. Givens confirmed a second Facebook post that said “Cal Expo is definitely opening tonight” at 5 p.m. “The Imaginarium team has been working non-stop to install the new electrical panels,” she said. “Because this year’s footprint is three times larger than previous years, the process required extensive coordination and additional time to ensure every section of the experience is powered reliably.”Imaginarium was originally set to begin holding light shows on Friday, Nov. 21. But the opening day was called off abruptly within an hour of gates being set to open. Givens cited “unforeseen circumstances” at the time and said Saturday the delay was due to damaged electrical panels that needed to be replaced. During the closure, tickets appear to have continued being sold online. Organizers said that ticket holders could email them at imagine@imaginarium360.com to reschedule postponed dates. But some people said on Facebook they had trouble connecting with event organizers. Imaginarium aims to transform the fairgrounds into a glowing wonderland powered by more than 15 million lights. The event previously faced an opening day delay in 2023 because of severe weather. This year’s edition debuts an expanded footprint and a new entrance at Cal Expo’s Main Gate at Exposition and Heritage, which was supposed to streamline access for the season’s crowds. KCRA 3 got a tour of the attraction on Friday morning. Visitors can stroll through illuminated tunnels, step into mirror rooms, glide across a covered ice rink, snap photos with Santa, and cap the night with carnival rides and festive food and drink along Food Court Row near the waterpark.Organizers say Utopia aims to be a “perfect holiday escape,” where families and couples can make new traditions in a setting designed for dazzling photos and spirited nights out. Imaginarium traces its roots to the team behind the first U.S. Chinese Lantern Festival at Great America in 2011. The concept evolved into Global Winter Wonderland, which opened at Cal Expo in 2014, and later into Imaginarium, which organizers say is the largest holiday light festival in the country. The brand now spans multiple locations across California and Arizona.Learn more about tickets here. See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

The Imaginarium holiday light show at Cal Expo opened on Wednesday following a delay and confusing announcements.

The status of Imaginarium’s Utopia, billed as Northern California’s largest holiday light festival, was thrown into confusion Wednesday when a spokesperson for the event said a social media post announcing the opening after earlier delays was premature.

“Several new electrical panels have been installed and are currently pending inspection,” Darla Givens told KCRA 3 two hours after Imaginarium Sacramento posted on Facebook about its reopening plans. “Once those panels are fully inspected and approved, Imaginarium will receive the green light to open. Until that process is complete, Imaginarium will remain closed.”

(Previous coverage in the video above.)

That process was since completed. Givens confirmed a second Facebook post that said “Cal Expo is definitely opening tonight” at 5 p.m.

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“The Imaginarium team has been working non-stop to install the new electrical panels,” she said. “Because this year’s footprint is three times larger than previous years, the process required extensive coordination and additional time to ensure every section of the experience is powered reliably.”

Imaginarium was originally set to begin holding light shows on Friday, Nov. 21. But the opening day was called off abruptly within an hour of gates being set to open.

Givens cited “unforeseen circumstances” at the time and said Saturday the delay was due to damaged electrical panels that needed to be replaced.

During the closure, tickets appear to have continued being sold online. Organizers said that ticket holders could email them at imagine@imaginarium360.com to reschedule postponed dates. But some people said on Facebook they had trouble connecting with event organizers.

Imaginarium aims to transform the fairgrounds into a glowing wonderland powered by more than 15 million lights.

The event previously faced an opening day delay in 2023 because of severe weather.

This year’s edition debuts an expanded footprint and a new entrance at Cal Expo’s Main Gate at Exposition and Heritage, which was supposed to streamline access for the season’s crowds. KCRA 3 got a tour of the attraction on Friday morning.

Visitors can stroll through illuminated tunnels, step into mirror rooms, glide across a covered ice rink, snap photos with Santa, and cap the night with carnival rides and festive food and drink along Food Court Row near the waterpark.

Organizers say Utopia aims to be a “perfect holiday escape,” where families and couples can make new traditions in a setting designed for dazzling photos and spirited nights out.

Imaginarium traces its roots to the team behind the first U.S. Chinese Lantern Festival at Great America in 2011.

The concept evolved into Global Winter Wonderland, which opened at Cal Expo in 2014, and later into Imaginarium, which organizers say is the largest holiday light festival in the country.

The brand now spans multiple locations across California and Arizona.

Learn more about tickets here.

See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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November 26, 2025
How one road and an Israeli settlement could end dreams for this Palestinian city

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EZARIYA, West Bank — Hanging by the desk of the mayor of Bethany — Ezariya, in Arabic — is a blown-up aerial photo from 1938 showing this Palestinian town on Jerusalem’s edge how it once was:

Before the Israeli separation wall severed its access to Jerusalem to the west, before the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim settlement took root nearby, and before a new wall that will soon block it from the east and effectively rend the occupied West Bank in two.

Mayor Khalil Abu Al-Rish stared at the photo one recent morning, a cigarette in one hand and a glum look on his face, then pointed with his other hand out his office window at Ezariya’s bustling main thoroughfare, the primary artery connecting north West Bank cities like Ramallah to Bethlehem and Hebron in the south.

“There are 55,000 living in this town. This road alone has 60 cars passing through it every minute, according to our research. The [Israeli] plan now is to shut it down,” he said.

“Do that, and there’s no Palestinian state.”

“The plan” Abu Al-Rish was referring to is East One or E1, the long-deferred Israeli project that aims to build 3,400 new settlement homes over a 3,000-acre area in the mountains stretching out from East Jerusalem to Maale Adumim.

A billboard announcing new Israeli settlement housing units availability in the West Bank as Israel presses ahead with its expansion plans for the E1 area.

It’s another in a series of moves Israel has taken over the last two years to further the possible annexation of the West Bank, which Palestinians consider a part of their future state and which Israel snatched from Jordan in 1967; its occupation is considered illegal by international law. President Trump said annexation is a red line he will not allow Israel to cross, but he also has not discouraged Israel from expanding settlements in the region.

E1 would cut any Palestinian link to East Jerusalem — where Palestinians hope to make their capital — and torpedo any chance of a contiguous Palestinian state.

The Palestinian Bedouin community of Jabal Al-Baba, or Pope Hill, is under threat of forced displacement by Israeli settlement expansion plans for the E1 area. Seen in the background is the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim.

This week, ultranationalist ministers in the Israeli parliament gave preliminary approval to a bill granting Israel authority to annex the West Bank — a largely symbolic move that appears to have been an attempt to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu has long called for the annexation of the West Bank, but has demurred from doing so for fear of angering Israel’s main patron in the U.S.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance kneels over the Unction Stone, believed to be the place where Christ’s body was laid down after being removed from the crucifix and prepared for burial, as he tours the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem on Thursday.

(Nathan Howard, Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Vice President JD Vance, who visited Israel this week, on Thursday said of the vote that if it is “political stunt, then it is a very stupid political stunt.”

“I personally take some insult to it,” Vance said. “The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel.”

But Israel has taken plenty of steps aimed at making annexation a de facto scenario that may soon turn irreversible. It has restricted movement by erecting 288 gates on entrances and exits of Palestinians towns and villages, adding to what the U.N. says are 849 “movement obstacles,” even as settlements have increased in number and size, further penning Palestinians into islands of territory they have little chance of leaving.

One such gate, a yellow metal barrier on the road that Israeli soldiers lock and then leave, appeared this month at Ezariya’s eastern entrance, said Abu Al-Rish.

“We watched them install it one night. It’s not like they talk to us or ask us for permission,” he said, a wan smile on his face.

Businesses and homes near the gate were issued demolition orders to make way for a separation barrier, the Israeli-built barricade composed of 26-foot-high cement walls resembling rows of piano keys slicing through so many parts of the West Bank.

One of the affected owners, 50-year-old Omar Abu Saho, who runs a toy store, said he received a legal notification Oct. 4. The deadline for leaving the area had passed, he said, but no one has come to enforce it for now. But the order certainly hasn’t helped business.

“Look around you, the place is empty. And I’m not getting more inventory. If I sell anything, that’s it,” he said.

A Palestinian carries eggs at the entrance to the West Bank town Ezariya, where Israel has placed a security gate.

Abu Saho had already been forced to move here with his two sons and five daughters from the West Bank city of Jenin.
Though Jenin is about 100 miles from the Gaza Strip, when Israel launched its campaign on the enclave after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, the city was nevertheless the focus of sustained Israeli military operations, forcing many merchants like Abu Saho to close up shop.

“We couldn’t continue there, so I came here. Now it seems I’ll have to move again. You follow your business,” he said. “The Israelis destroyed me for three or four times. But every time I continue. And besides, I like to work. If I despair, I won’t live.”

Omar Hassan Abu Ghali, 51, who co-owns a car wash on Ezariya’s main road with his family, was less sanguine. The night he saw the gate installed, he said, felt like his “life was ending.”

“You put a wall here, this area goes bye-bye. There’s nothing any more,” he said, staring at cars making their way through the gate, which at that moment was open.

“The Israelis want to shut down my livelihood, for me and my kids. What am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Where am I supposed to go?”

Tourism to the area has all but withered away, said Hussein Hamad, the caretaker of the archaeological pilgrimage site in Ezariya thought to be the site of Lazarus’ tomb.

Palestinians gather in a marketplace for used goods in the West Bank town of Ezariya.

“October is supposed to our best month. I’d get 20 to 25 groups a week. How many do you see around you now?” he said, waving his hand around the seemingly abandoned area. A nearby shop owner looked expectantly at two people visiting the tomb, but turned back and locked up the shop when she discovered they were reporters, then walked away.

As part of the E1 project, Israel intends to build a Palestinian-only bypass — euphemistically called the “Fabric of Life Road” or “Sovereignty Road” — through parts of Ezariya that it says would solve the problem of movement between parts of the West Bank, without allowing Palestinian traffic near Maale Adumim.

But critics, including Peace Now, an Israeli advocacy group that promotes a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, dismissed the bypass in a statement when the project was first approved in March as an “apartheid road” that “serves no purpose in improving Palestinian transportation.”

“Instead, it is solely aimed at facilitating the annexation of a vast area,” Peace Now said. The group noted the irony that the road wouldn’t be funded by Israeli taxpayers, but would use customs revenues Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority but which it frequently withholds.

The Palestinian Bedouin community, foreground, of Jabal Al-Baba, or Pope Hill.

The bypass road would also chomp off more of Ezariya’s territory, a significant portion of which has already been expropriated by Israel, said Abu Al-Rish. That would prevent the town from the expansion it desperately needs to house the growing population. He added that if the roadworks go ahead, Ezariya’s role as a top Palestinian commercial hub would end.

“We have more than 1,000 businesses here. What you see in front of you is the longest commercial street in all the West Bank,” he said.

“It’s just inconceivable to me that this will go away.”

It’s not the first time Israel has tried to bring E1 into being. First proposed in 1994 under Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (a year after he signed the Oslo Accords that were to bring about a Palestinian state), E1 stalled before concerted international opposition, including from traditional allies of Israel, which feared the project’s impact on the West Bank.

As recently as two years ago, Abu Al-Rish said, U.S. officials would reassure him the plan wasn’t going through. Even now, European nations have remained against E1 and condemned the Israeli government when it approved the plan in August. The Trump administration took a different tack.

“We will not tell Israel what to do. We will not interfere,” said U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, an avid supporter of Israel and settlements, in an interview with Galatz radio in August.

Israel has so far constructed approximately 160 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, housing some 700,000 Jews alongside 3.3 million Palestinians.

Israel argues E1 is a necessity to link Maale Adumim to Jerusalem both for the purposes of urban planning and security. But for their part, Israeli politicians are clear on E1’s effect.

Children from the Palestinian Bedouin community of Jabal Al-Baba gather in a circle with their teacher.

“The Palestinian state is being erased from the table not by slogans but by deeds,” said Bezalel Smotrich, the ultranationalist finance minister in Netanyahu’s government, after the August approval. He framed the decision as a response to a raft of countries recognizing the state of Palestine.

“Every settlement, every neighborhood, every housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea,” he said.

Ever since the E1 project was on the books, Atallah Mazaraa, a Bedouin who lives near Ezariya in an area called Pope Hill — or Jabal Al-Baba, so named because it was gifted to the pope when the area was under Jordanian control — has kept up a grinding legal fight to keep his community in place.

Sitting in a pre-fabricated hut that doubles as an office from where he runs his legal campaign, Mazaraa reminisced about the time when his flock of sheep and goats could roam and graze where Maale Adumim now stands. Then the spring from where they drank was commandeered for the settlement’s use, even as the thousands of square miles open to his livestock shrank with every passing year.

“Every day they try to take more and more. You just don’t have stability,” he said.

For Mazaraa, international recognition means nothing.

“We Palestinians know if you go from Nablus to Jericho, there’s no state. What, I want a passport, a piece of paper that says I have a state, when every 200 yards there’s a checkpoint?” he said.

“All we want the Israelis to do is leave us alone,” he said. “But they’ve taken away so much of the West Bank.”

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Nabih Bulos

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October 24, 2025
California labor leader charged over blocking ICE agents sees felony cut to misdemeanor

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Federal authorities are now pursuing a misdemeanor charge against David Huerta, president of Service Employees International Union California, who was arrested during the first day of a series of immigration raids that swept the region.

Prosecutors originally brought a felony charge of conspiracy to impede an officer against Huerta, accusing him of obstructing federal authorities from serving a search warrant at a Los Angeles workplace and arresting dozens of undocumented immigrants on June 6.

On Friday, court filings show federal prosecutors filed a lesser charge against Huerta of “obstruction resistance or opposition of a federal officer,” which carries a punishment of up to a year in federal prison. The felony he was charged with previously could have put him behind bars for up to six years.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles declined to comment.

In a statement, Huerta’s attorneys, Abbe David Lowell and Marilyn Bednarski, said they would “seek the speediest trial to vindicate David.” The lawyers said that “in the four months that have passed since David’s arrest, it has become even clearer there were no grounds for charging him and certainly none for the way he was treated.”

“It’s clear that David Huerta is being singled out not for anything he did but for who he is — a life-long workers’ advocate who has been an outspoken critic of its immigration policies. These charges are a clear attempt to silence a leading voice who dared to challenge a cruel, politically driven campaign of fear,” the statement read.

The labor union previously stated that Huerta was detained “while exercising his First Amendment right to observe and document law enforcement activity.” Huerta is one of more than 60 people charged federally in the Central District of California tied to immigration protests and enforcement actions.

Two recent misdemeanor trials against protesters charged with assaulting a federal officer both ended in acquittals. Some protesters have taken plea deals.

In a statement Friday, Huerta said he is “being targeted for exercising my constitutional rights for standing up against an administration that has declared open war on working families, immigrants, and basic human dignity.”

“The baseless charges brought against me are not just about me, they are meant to intimidate anyone who dares to speak out, organize, or demand justice. I will not be silenced,” he said.

Huerta was held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles for days, prompting thousands of union members, activists and supporters to rally for his release. California Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla also sent a letter to the Homeland Security and Justice departments demanding a review of Huerta’s arrest.

A judge ordered Huerta released in June on a $50,000 bond.

The case against Huerta centers on a June 6 workplace immigration raid at Ambiance Apparel. According to the original criminal complaint filed, Huerta arrived at the site around noon Friday, joining several other protesters.

Huerta and other protesters “appeared to be communicating with each other in a concerted effort to disrupt the law enforcement operations,” a federal agent wrote in the complaint.

The agent wrote that Huerta was yelling at and taunting officers and later sat cross-legged in front of a vehicle gate to the location where law enforcement authorities were serving a search warrant.

Huerta also “at various times stood up and paced in front of the gate, effectively preventing law enforcement vehicles from entering or exiting the premises through the gate to execute the search warrant,” the agent wrote in the affidavit.

The agent wrote that they told Huerta that if he kept blocking the Ambiance gate, he would be arrested.

According to the complaint, as a white law enforcement van tried to get through the gate, Huerta stood in its path.

Because Huerta “was being uncooperative, the officer put his hands on HUERTA in an attempt to move him out of the path of the vehicle.”

“I saw HUERTA push back, and in response, the officer pushed HUERTA to the ground,” the agent wrote. “The officer and I then handcuffed HUERTA and arrested him.”

According to a statement from SEIU-United Service Workers West, SEIU California State Council, and the Service Employees International Union, “Huerta was thrown to the ground, tackled, pepper sprayed, and detained by federal agents while exercising his constitutional rights at an ICE raid in Los Angeles.” Video of his arrest went viral.

“Despite David’s harsh treatment at the hands of law enforcement, he is now facing an unjust charge,” the statement read. “This administration has turned the military against our own people, terrorizing entire communities, and even detaining U.S. citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights to speak out.”

Acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, posted a photo on the social media site X of Huerta, hands behind his back, after the arrest.

“Let me be clear: I don’t care who you are — if you impede federal agents, you will be arrested and prosecuted,” Essayli wrote. “No one has the right to assault, obstruct, or interfere with federal authorities carrying out their duties.”

In an interview with Sacramento TV news oulet KCRA last month, Essayli referred to Huerta as Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “buddy” and said he “deliberately obstructed a search warrant.”

While speaking with reporters in June, Schiff said Huerta was “exercising his lawful right to be present and observe these immigration raids.”

“It’s obviously a very traumatic thing, and now that it looks like the Justice Department wants to try and make an example out of him, it’s all the more traumatic,” Schiff said. “But this is part of the Trump playbook. They selectively use the Justice Department to go after their adversaries. It’s what they do.”

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Brittny Mejia

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October 17, 2025
Commentary: L.A. parks get low marks, but opening schoolyards could improve grades

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As report cards go, it was one you hoped the dog would eat before anyone saw it.

In a recent ranking of parks in the nation’s 100 most populous cities, Los Angeles surrendered its spot at No. 88.

And dropped to No. 90.

That’s ridiculous in a city known for its year-round get-outdoors climate.

“It’s not a good look,” a city repairman told me while fixing a sprinkler at Griffith Park Recreation Center, where the historic swimming pool is an empty tank, out of service since 2020.

Steve Lopez

Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.

With the city about to host World Cup soccer matches next year, and just three years out from hosting the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, the repairman had a thought:

“This would be a good time to boost the parks,” he said.

No kidding. But that would mean jumping over a set of hurdles higher than any you’ll find in an Olympic event.

The Trust for Public Land’s annual rankings for municipal parks are based on acreage, investment, amenities, access and equity. Washington, D.C., is No. 1, Irvine No. 2 and San Francisco No. 6. Other California cities ranked higher than L.A. are San Diego (22), Sacramento (32), Fremont (38), San Jose (41), Oakland (44), Long Beach (56), Santa Clarita (63), Santa Ana (79), Stockton (80), Riverside and Anaheim (tied at 81), and Chula Vista (84).

Jimmy Kim, general manager of the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, says staffing has plummeted from 2,400 to about 1,200.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

A synopsis by the trust, which released its latest findings in May, said Los Angeles “has one of the most challenged big-city park systems in America.” Five years ago, according to the report, the city was in the middle of the pack at 49th, only to sink steadily into a gopher hole. “The cause? A century of disinvestment.”

Jimmy Kim, general manager of the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, told me that since he first worked in the department as a lifeguard in the ’90s, staffing has plummeted from 2,400 to about 1,200, making it harder to maintain aging, deteriorating facilities.

Several pools were in no shape to open this summer. Outside the Griffith Park pool, which is slated to replaced in the next couple of years, the children of two families played in the sandbox. It was 90 degrees, and the parents said they’d be in the water if the pool were in operation. I stepped into the men’s bathroom, near the tennis courts, only to find yellow caution tape stretched across a toilet stall.

“A lot of our rec centers are very old, so our pools and park resources all need some level of renovation or replacement,” said Kim, who conceded it’s a constant struggle to keep up. “We do try to stay on top of it as best we can, but it’s almost like whackamole.”

Money is a problem. A big problem.

The current tab for deferred maintenance?

How about $2 billion, give or take.

Kim said a needs assessment is under way, to prioritize projects and make the most efficient use of limited resources.

A person playing basketball at the Eagle Rock Recreation Center.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Joe Halper, a former Recreation and Parks board member, has been flagging these challenges for me since I began talking to him in January about losing his home in the January Palisades fire. Halper, 95, has been more interested in talking about his lifelong passion — public parks — than his own losses.

About 40% of the city’s population doesn’t live within a half-mile walk of a park or open space, Halper said. That’s a key metric in the trust’s ratings. As Halper notes, “The lack of opportunity for physical exercise has been associated with the high-level of diabetes and obesity,” especially in low-income communities of color.

But as disappointing as the park shortage is, there’s a readily available, tragically underutilized resource that Halper has been promoting in his role as a member of the non-profit L.A. Parks Foundation.

Open the gates of locked schools — on weekends and school breaks — and make those public assets available for recreational activities.

This is not a new idea. I first heard former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley make that pitch on the presidential campaign trail 25 years ago, when he was talking about how it makes no sense to lock the doors to school libraries and gymnasiums at 3 p.m. every day and all day on weekends. Community School Parks exist in New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Oregon, as well as the ones in L.A.

Other cities have done it, and Los Angeles has begun its own initiative. Ten LAUSD sites are already operating as Community School Parks on weekends, and this week, there was some good news about the possibility of adding more to the mix.

After years of negotiations to address liability and access issues, beginning with an initiative under former Mayor Eric Garcetti and a motion in 2023 by City Councilmember Nithya Raman, the L.A. Unified School District Board voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a Joint powers agreement with the city.

Given budget constraints, Raman told me, “opening up existing resources is a much lower cost option for providing parks.”

“Ten is great,” school board member Nick Melvoin said at Tuesday’s meeting, “but 1,000 is where we need to get to.” He said he’d like to see two or three school gates unlocked “in the next few weeks and 20 or 30 by the end of the calendar year.”

“Any public space, in my mind, that is closed to the public, is a tragedy,” he added.

Not that the several hundred LAUSD schools have the greatest recreational facilities. The district has its own aging infrastructure problem, with a multi-billion-dollar backlog of deferred maintenance tab, according to Melvoin. There’s also a blacktop problem, as in, too much of it, and not enough greenery and shade (although some redesign projects are in the works).

Hikers enjoy Runyon Canyon Park near the north entrance on Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills.

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times; Photo illustration by Jade Cuevas / Los Angeles Times)

Halper was concerned that the joint powers agreement appeared to prohibit use of gyms and other indoor spaces, which would limit some organized sports. But at the school board meeting, where board members Melvoin and Kelly Gonez raised the same issues, a district staffer said the doors can be opened on a school by school basis if enough resources are available.

That’s the biggest challenge going forward. The district intends to open and lock school gates on weekends, and the city will provide staff to cover the grounds. But there’s no dedicated funding source, and Kim said the city will look to the community for help.

“I think the key is philanthropic and partner support,” he said.

Here’s where the city needs to leverage its hosting of the 2028 Olympics. The games will cost billions and generate billions, and L.A.’s kids shouldn’t be stuck with shabby recreational facilities while the elite athletes of the world compete at first-rate, dressed up facilities.

Kim said there’s already been a substantial benefit, with 1 million L.A. kids having participated in city recreation and parks athletic programs through a $160 million commitment from the International Olympic Committee and LA28, the local organizing body of the Games.

That’s a good start. Now let’s see a commitment to financial help in unlocking school gates. From the IOC and LA28, the Dodgers, the Rams, the Chargers, the Lakers, the Clippers, the Kings, the Galaxy, Angel City FC, LAFC, the Sparks.

“For all the money being spent, the public needs to see a lasting benefit from the Olympics, and I think it can be done,” said L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn, whose district includes San Pedro, where the Peck Park pool has been closed for several years.

The county has had its own challenges with parks, and Hahn said her efforts to extend swim season have been frustrating.

“It never made sense to me that pools closed in mid-August when some of our hottest days are in late summer and early fall,” she said.

As for the Community School Parks, I’m going to keep score, checking on how many are opened and how long it takes. Raman said with some fanfare, neighborhood involvement and the programming of activities, she thinks the new Community School Parks can thrive.

Melvoin said that’s an admirable strategy, but first things first.

“Let’s open the gates,” he said.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

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Steve Lopez

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August 29, 2025
14 great games to try if you loved Baldur’s Gate 3

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Baldur’s Gate 3 is an incredible role-playing game experience, a gift for RPG fans and a wonderful introduction to the genre for newcomers. It’s got everything a good RPG needs: memorable characters, exciting, strategic battles, and a textured world to get lost in as your party goes questing across the map. It’s a showcase for just how good RPGs are when they really connect, and fortunately for us, there’s plenty more where that came from.

So, in the event that Baldur’s Gate 3 has inspired you to explore the genre further, here’s a list of games that similarly nail the RPG experience in ways that will leave you itching to get back to the character you’ve created — provided, of course, you didn’t immediately roll a new one to take into Baldur’s Gate 3 all over again.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Image: Intelligent Systems, Koei Tecmo Games/Nintendo

Where to play: Nintendo Switch

If your favorite parts of Baldur’s Gate 3 were the turn-based combat, the character interactions, and the branching narratives, then Fire Emblem: Three Houses might scratch that itch. The actual gameplay itself doesn’t have a lot of story-defining choices, since you pick a set path in the first moments of the game. But that choice does grant three completely different ways the game can play out (and a fourth secret one), as well as variations in which characters come along with you and survive till the end. There’s also a lot of options for character interaction built into the game mechanics. Not only do you, the player, build a rapport with the characters, it’s literally part of the game to pair characters off in different interactions so they can build their bonds outside the battlefield and support each other while in combat. And yes, that means romances. So. Many. Romances. —Petrana Radulovic

Divinity: Original Sin 2

Image: Larian Studios

Where to play: Windows PC, Mac, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch

Larian Studios’ previous game is a natural next step for Baldur’s Gate 3 fans, as it’s about as close as you can possibly get to “more of the same” without waiting for a sequel. There’ll be some adjustment — as it’s not a D&D adaptation, the rules are different and combat here has a different set of quirks you’ll have to learn to navigate — but the transition is surprisingly seamless. Most importantly, Original Sin 2 has what Baldur’s Gate 3 nails in spades: a rock-solid focus on character and permissive design that encourages you to come up with oddball solutions and surrounds you with a cast of characters you’ll think of fondly. Shoutout to the homie, The Red Prince. —Joshua Rivera

Pillars of Eternity

Image: Obsidian Entertainment/Paradox Interactive

Where to play: Windows, Mac, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch

One of the first big attempts at a throwback to the Baldur’s Gate franchise is still one of the best. Pillars of Eternity tells a sprawling tale with a great hook — children are suddenly being born without souls — as a mystery meant to draw you into its strange fantasy world and characters. A little more old-school in its design, but with the option to crank down the difficulty if story is why you’re here, Pillars of Eternity’s biggest strength is in its elegant narrative, in which the answer posed by every quest intersects with at least two other equally interesting quests. It’s easy to lose an evening navigating the game’s tangled web of short stories, but what a tremendously satisfying way to get lost. —JR

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire

Image: Obsidian Entertainment/Versus Evil

Where to play: Windows, Mac, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One

If there’s one thing I enjoy more than Pillars of Eternity, it’s Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. Whereas the first game took place in an atmospheric if derivative take on a classic fantasy continent, Deadfire puts you in control of a customizable ship on the high seas. Along with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Spiritfarer, and the recent Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, Deadfire is proof that archipelagos make for perfect video game worlds: As you build your party of travelers, you’ll encounter vastly different factions, cultures, and ways of life, both linked and separated by the waves between them. Exploring the world of Deadfire feels at once like a singular journey and a collection of potent short stories, all connected by vivid writing and myriad chances to role-play. —Mike Mahardy

Wasteland 3

Image: inXile Entertainment

Where to play: Windows, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

If you can stomach the hyper-goofiness of its post-apocalyptic storytelling, Wasteland 3 stands among the best that the CRPG genre has to offer. Its script and character writing leave a lot to be desired, but in terms of structure, Wasteland 3 is as open as they come: You pursue three major quest lines across a ruined Colorado, all the while building up your headquarters and recruiting a massive party of survivors. If inventory management and improving your team composition are your favorite aspects of CRPGs, Wasteland 3 is a dream. And while there are compelling story beats strewn throughout, it’s the mechanics and systems that make inXile’s 2020 release sing. —Mike Mahardy

Marvel’s Midnight Suns

Image: Firaxis/2K Games

Where to play: Windows, Mac, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One

After a dozen or so hours investing in your party in Baldur’s Gate 3, they start to feel like superheroes. Battles hinge on incredible (and very fun) stunts that can excite the storyteller in you narrating the whole fight. Marvel’s Midnight Suns is entirely built around that feeling, a strategy game where winning a battle largely depends on you figuring out the most dramatic move possible every turn. It’s also got a character creator for your original protagonist and lots of fun RPG-style conversations between said fights too, so the social butterflies among us won’t feel left out. Just don’t come looking for romance, which unfortunately is not part of the experience. —JR

Planescape: Torment

Image: Black Isle Studios/Interplay Productions

Where to play: Windows, Mac, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, iOS, Android

Going back to the original Baldur’s Gate games is a very different experience from Baldur’s Gate 3, as they come from an entirely different era in game design that may or may not speak to you in the same way. In spite of its similarity to those older games, Planescape: Torment, a sister title to the OG Baldur’s Gate games, is worth giving a shot. In it you play The Nameless One, a man with no memories in search of his identity and the reason he can’t seem to die. Taking place in Dungeons & Dragons’ Planescape setting — a sort of interdimensional halfway point in the multiverse, where anything could be a door to Someplace Else — Planescape: Torment is among the most bizarre, existential, and contemplative RPGs ever made. It’s a game where combat barely matters (seriously, just play on easy and put all your stats in Wisdom and Charisma), but deciding who The Nameless One becomes as he learns more about himself is everything. —JR

Torment: Tides of Numenera

Image: InXile Entertainment

Where to play: Windows, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Maybe you tried Planescape: Torment and found it too clunky. Or maybe you loved it and want more. In the way that Pillars of Eternity was a spiritual successor to the original Baldur’s Gate games, Torment: Tides of Numenera is a new attempt to recapture the magic of Planescape: Torment with more modern sensibilities. In this game, you play as the Last Castoff, a sort of rejected avatar for a being known as the Changing God, who has achieved immortality by hopscotching across bodies like yours. What’s up with that? What else has this Changing God done, and who else have they left in their wake? Tides of Numenera retains the focus of its inspiration, emphasizing role-play over combat, using the mystery of an immortal being and an indelible science fantasy setting to probe at troubled characters and ask big, sweeping questions about fate and existence. —JR

Dragon Age (all of ’em)

Image: BioWare/Electronic Arts

Where to play: Windows, Mac (for earlier entries), PlayStation 4 (Dragon Age: Inquisition), PlayStation 3, Xbox One (Dragon Age: Inquisition), Xbox 360

For over a decade, the RPG void left between Baldur’s Gate 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 was filled by Dragon Age. Beginning with 2009’s Dragon Age: Origins, the Dragon Age games mixed dark fantasy with bright, snappy characters to create one of the most beloved fantasy RPGs in recent memory. Each game has a slightly different flavor — Origins is the closest to the “classic” RPG feel, where combat strategy is just as important as role-playing through an epic plot, while Dragon Age 2 focuses more on straightforward action and smaller character drama, and Dragon Age: Inquisition splits the difference with the most modern design of the three. Play all or one, in any order you choose. Each has its strengths, and all of them have at least one character destined to become your favorite. —JR

Disco Elysium

Image: ZA/UM

Where to play: Windows, Mac, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S

If you appreciate how a game will throw your best-laid plans out the window with one failed dice roll, then Disco Elysium is the obvious follow-up to Baldur’s Gate 3. Not only do your choices have the same level of impact, but both games embrace creative problem solving in the way only a good role-playing game can. Disco Elysium lets you talk your way out of (but usually into) trouble in some mind-bending ways. Although it’s a more modern setting than Baldur’s Gate 3, both games relish their moments of bleakness. Paladin-type role-players may struggle with the inner demons of Disco Elysium’s amnesiac main character, but he’s the hero for those who revel in messy choices. —Chelsea Stark

Shadowrun: Dragonfall

Image: Harebrained Schemes

Where to play: Windows, Mac, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android

Yeah, fantasy is cool and all, but what if you want a Baldur’s Gate 3-style adventure in a sick Blade Runner-ass setting? Shadowrun: Dragonfall is your answer. A relatively short and self-contained RPG set in Shadowrun’s totally rad, magic-but-also-cyberpunk universe, you play as a shadowrunner (a mercenary, but cooler) hired to join a crew for one big score. It goes sideways of course, and once you escape the chaos, there’s only one question on your mind: Who set you up and why? Perfect for anyone who wants to trade swords and spells for guns and cyberdecks (and also spells). What’s more, if you love it, there are two more games widely available (and optimized for consoles): Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun: Hong Kong. —JR

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Image: BioWare/LucasArts

Where to play: Windows, Mac, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android

Another big appeal of RPGs is getting the chance to traipse around a very familiar setting and seeing what trouble you can get into. In Baldur’s Gate 3, that’s the Forgotten Realms of Dungeons & Dragons. But let’s say you wanted to do that in Star Wars — lucky for you, there’s Knights of the Old Republic. Made by BioWare, the folks behind Dragon Age, KOTOR (that’s what the cool kids call it) is set thousands of years before the prequel trilogy, at a time when both the Jedi and Sith were numerous and at war. This setting gives KOTOR a flavor that’s impossible to find in modern Star Wars, as one of the premier RPG developers was given free reign to define its own corner of the universe and infuse it with all the charm of its acclaimed role-playing games — and a killer mystery to boot. —JR

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Joshua Rivera

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February 1, 2024