Thursday, August 6, 2026

Judge Bars City From Halting PUSD Tree and Soil Removal at Nine Campuses, Portions of Ed Center

City argued for the first time that the district’s exemption resolution is “invalid on its face”

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge on Wednesday barred the city of Pasadena from halting Pasadena Unified School District’s removal of trees and fire-contaminated soil at nine campuses and portions of the Education Center, a day after the city argued in a court filing that the school board resolution the district used to exempt itself from local tree rules is “invalid on its face.”

The preliminary injunction issued by Judge Joseph Lipner prohibits the city, its agents and anyone acting in concert with them from issuing stop-work orders against the district’s ongoing tree and soil removal and remediation project at the nine schools, or from attempting to enforce Pasadena’s tree protection ordinance there, pending trial in the case.

The order also bars enforcement at portions of the district’s Education Center at 351 S. Hudson Ave. — but only at areas the judge circled and initialed in an exhibit to the order, identified as Exhibit A.

Lipner heard argument Wednesday morning in Department 833 at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, took the matter under submission and issued his ruling later that day in chambers. The minute order in the case, No. 26STCP02735, summarizes the injunction but does not set out the court’s reasoning, which is contained in a separately signed order filed the same date.

The ruling essentially reverses the outcome of a hearing 12 days earlier. On July 24, Lipner denied the district’s request for a temporary restraining order, finding no irreparable harm in light of positions the city had taken. That order quoted the city’s statement that after the district passed Resolution 2896, “the City is no longer enforcing the stop work orders for classroom facilities exempted from the City’s zoning ordinance subject to the Board adopted Resolution 2896.”

Lipner set a hearing on what he called the “only live issue” — whether the Education Center is a classroom facility under Government Code Section 53094.

Wednesday’s injunction reaches well beyond that single question, covering nine campuses in addition to the one site the court had identified for the hearing.

In its opposition filed Aug. 4, the city argued the resolution “exempting its properties from the City’s zoning ordinances is invalid on its face because it is not limited to classroom facilities,” and separately that it is invalid as applied to the removal of trees at the Education Center.

State law allows a school district’s governing board to declare local zoning ordinances inapplicable to a proposed use of district property, but bars such action when the proposed use is for nonclassroom facilities.

Thursday morning, Pasadena chief communications officer Lisa Derdera said “the City has not contested PUSD’s right to exempt classroom facilities from local zoning ordinances such as the tree protection ordinance, and the primary issue before the court was whether some properties are classroom uses for the purposes of PUSD’s resolution.”

The city’s brief argued that the areas where trees were to be removed are landscaped setbacks along street frontages and asphalted parking areas in a fire lane along the property line, and that the district identified no classes or educational activities occurring there. Special education assessments, internships and language assessments will take place in Buildings A, C, D and possibly B in the coming school year, the city wrote, but the proposed work is not work on those buildings.

“To be eligible for exemption, the sites and uses must themselves be classroom facilities. They are not,” the filing states.

The city also argued the balance of harms favored leaving the trees standing, writing that removed trees cannot be revived or replanted in kind and that restoring mature trees can only be done over generations.

The district objected the same day the city filed.

In a filing signed by attorney Wendy H. Wiles, the district called the city’s conduct “shocking behavior” that “completely prejudices the District,” which had limited its own brief to the Education Center as the court directed.

“The City looked this Court in the face and represented that a temporary restraining order was unnecessary and moot because the City was not enforcing its stop work orders,” the objection states. “The City acknowledged that they were not enforcing the stop work orders because the District adopted its Resolution 2896. Now they claim the Resolution is invalid on its face.”

The district said it was “truly disappointed by the City’s egregious gamesmanship” and asked the court to disregard five of the city’s arguments, including the facial challenge. The minute order does not indicate how the court ruled on the objection.

The nine campuses covered are Blair High School, Cleveland Elementary School, Field Elementary School, Jefferson Elementary School, John Muir High School, Longfellow Elementary School, Octavia E. Butler Magnet DL STEAM Middle School, San Rafael Elementary School and Washington Elementary STEM Magnet School. The Jefferson site was identified in the district’s petition as the Jefferson Children’s and Teens’ Center. The order does not mention Franklin Elementary School, which was among 11 sites named in that petition.

The district must post a $1,000 bond within 10 days. A trial setting conference is scheduled for Oct. 30 in Department 833. No trial date has been set. The injunction is preliminary and decides nothing about the underlying dispute over whether the district is exempt from the city’s tree ordinance.

“ The City of Pasadena is disappointed with the court’s ruling,” city chef communications officer Lisa Derderian said early Thursday. “While this is not a final ruling on the merits, the court’s order permits PUSD to remove trees and prohibits the City from enforcing the tree protection ordinance on nine campuses and most of the Education Center pending trial.”

A district spokesperson said the injunction became necessary because the city reversed its position after the court declined to grant temporary relief.

“Enforcement of the stop-work notices prevented the District from completing remediation, leaving impacted areas unfinished and jeopardizing students’ access to safe outdoor space when the new school year begins,” the spokesperson said in a statement to Pasadena Now. “Put plainly, the City was asking to stop the District from making its schools safe and usable for children.”

The district also disputed suggestions it had not been in contact with the city. “Claims that the City has not heard from the District are simply untrue,” the district’s statement said.

The dispute grows out of the January 2025 Eaton Fire. District officials say roughly 8,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil must come out of 11 campuses before the 2026-27 school year starts, work the district says requires removing and replacing nearly 200 trees.