Friday, June 12, 2026

Facing a Brown Act Lawsuit Deadline, School Board Takes No Action to Rescind Controversial Resolution

Trustees voted 4-3 to release a public statement on open-meeting allegations and terminated their school-closure consultant — but took no action to rescind the resolution an attorney has demanded they repeal by June 14 to avoid a lawsuit

Three days before a deadline to rescind a contested school-consolidation resolution or face litigation, the Pasadena Unified School District’s governing board divided 4-3 on a narrower question: whether to say anything publicly about the open-meeting allegations at all.

The vote was taken behind closed doors and announced when the board returned to public session on Thursday, June 11. It authorized the release of “a media statement regarding allegations of Brown Act violations by a community member,” the board’s presiding officer said. But it did not address the demand at the center of the dispute — that the board repeal the resolution that set the district’s school-closure process in motion.

The allegations concern California’s open-meeting law, the Ralph M. Brown Act, and they have been pressed by Warren Bleeker, an attorney, recall advocate and district parent who reportedly sent the board a May 15 letter alleging Brown Act violations.

A June 9 letter warned that litigation would follow if the board did not rescind Resolution 2852 by June 14.

That framing matched the agenda itself, which placed the closed session under the state’s “anticipated litigation” provision and described the item as the board’s response to a “Request to Cure and Correct Under the Brown Act” — the statutory step that precedes a Brown Act suit.

At issue is Resolution 2852, which the board passed in late 2025, setting “optimal” school sizes and giving the superintendent authority to begin analyzing potential consolidations.

The resolution was approved 4-3, with four trustees voting in favor. Those four — Board President Tina Fredericks, Trustee Scott Harden, Trustee Kimberly Kenne and Vice President Yarma Velázquez — are the same trustees accused of coordinating to secure the votes.

Opponents  allege the four ytstees communicated through emails, text messages and undisclosed meetings ahead of the December 11 vote, and warn that potential legal action would include subpoenas for phone records, written discovery and videotaped depositions of the four trustees.

Fredericks has rejected that account of what actually occurred. She told Pasadena Now in a written statement that her actions amounted to lawful due diligence on a difficult policy question driven by the district’s declining enrollment, half-empty campuses and a $30 million to $35 million budget gap, characterizing her pre-contract conversations with a consultant as the kind of information-gathering the public should expect of elected officials.

What the board did on June 11 was narrower than what has been demanded.

On its consent agenda, the board voted to terminate, without cause, its agreement with Total School Solutions, the firm hired in January under a contract valued at more than $230,000 to study closures.

But it took no action to rescind Resolution 2852 — the step the letters require. The district’s published agenda contained no such item.

By the time the board moved against the contract, the consolidation push had already collapsed. The 33-member School Consolidation Advisory Committee voted in May not to recommend any of the closure scenarios it had been asked to evaluate, and, as several speakers noted Thursday, the board rejected the consultant’s report 6-1 on May 28.

Killing the contract ended the study. It did not repeal the resolution that authorized it — and that resolution is what Bleeker’s letters target.

In the same closed session, the board rated Superintendent Dr. Elizabeth Blanco’s performance “satisfactory” by a 6-1 vote. The juxtaposition is notable, but the allegations are not directed at the superintendent. By the critics’ own telling, the trustees moved to keep their involvement “secret from Dr. Blanco,” and Fredericks has said Blanco identified the consultant independently.

Public comment split along the lines that have defined the months-long fight.

One resident, urging the board to “cure and correct,” told trustees the district “is facing litigation for alleged Brown Act violations” — though, as of the meeting, the matter remained a pre-suit demand rather than a filed case.

Peter Dreier, a former Pasadena Educational Foundation board member who teaches urban policy at Occidental College, took the other side, commending the superintendent and warning the board against “burying our head in the sands” on declining enrollment and underused campuses.

The board president’s conduct drew direct criticism. A Marshall parent who identified himself as Jeff told trustees that Fredericks, in emails and opinion pieces, had criticized Marshall and Blair parents as “emotional.”

“Of course, I’m emotional,” he said. “You’re trying to shut down the school that is the center of my kid’s social life.” Another speaker pointed to “ongoing controversy surrounding the board president.”

The friction is not abstract: Fredericks and Harden — whose seats are not on the 2026 ballot — face a recall effort, while Kenne and Velázquez face re-election.

The contents of the statement the board authorized June 11 were not disclosed at the meeting.

With the June 14 rescission deadline passing days after the board declined to act on it, the next pressure point is June 25, when trustees are scheduled to adopt the district’s 2026-27 Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) and annual budget.