Friday, August 14, 2026

Sources: Recall Petitions Against Two Pasadena Unified Trustees Cleared for Signature Gathering

Los Angeles County election officials have cleared petitions seeking the recall of two Pasadena Unified School District board members, giving organizers until Dec. 11 to gather signatures that could force a special election, sources familiar with the situation said.

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk approved both petitions Aug. 13, the sources indicated. One targets Board of Education President Tina Fredericks, who represents Trustee Area 6. The other targets Trustee Scott Harden of Trustee Area 4. Proponents have 120 days to circulate them.

Approval clears the petitions to circulate. It does not place either recall on a ballot. Organizers must collect valid signatures from a share of the registered voters within each trustee area, and the county must verify them. If a petition falls short by Dec. 11, it expires and no election is held.

Neither trustee is up for re-election this year, so recall is the only way to remove either from office before their term ends, said G. Warren Bleeker, the Pasadena Unified parent whose public records requests produced the documents at the center of the recall campaigns.

Two other board members named in similar allegations, Kimberly Kenne and Dr. Yarma Velázquez, hold seats that are up in the Nov. 3 general election and are not subject to recall under state law, Bleeker said. Velázquez is not seeking re-election.

Fredericks responded Thursday by issuing an open letter to district residents that put the cost of a recall election in sharp focus.

A District 6 recall election would cost the district an estimated $981,000 to $1.06 million, Fredericks wrote, citing figures printed in the petition. A second recall election (against Harden) would cost an estimated $857,000 to $928,000, she wrote, bringing the combined total to nearly $2 million.

Any added burden on a shrinking district budget could require further teacher and staff layoffs, Fredericks wrote, and she urged constituents to “fight against this recall effort that will cost the district 20 jobs.” Signing the petition means endorsing “baseless and unfounded accusations” while committing taxpayer money to a process that harms schools, she wrote.

Bleeker rejected the layoff claim. Fredericks is suggesting without evidence that a recall election could cost teachers their jobs, and that is untrue, he said in written responses to questions.

Instead, Bleeker argued that the cost runs the other way. The trustees’ actions are driving families out of the district and taking money out of classrooms now, Bleeker said, and the instability created by repeated school closure proposals could cost the district millions in lost revenue.

Dawn Dennison, who served Fredericks with a notice of intent to recall at the board’s May 28 meeting, pressed the same argument during public comment at the board’s Aug. 13 meeting. Dennison said the board president was invoking the loss of 20 district jobs to argue against the recall.

“It won’t cost anything if she resigns,” Dennison said. “It’ll save us all a million dollars.” She said Fredericks should not be able to “take 20 people down” over conduct Dennison described as illegal.

No court has yet been asked to determine whether any Brown Act violation occurred. Under Brown Act procedures, because the board rescinded the original board resolution regarding closure, and voluntarily agreed to cease and desist from engaging the acts that were alleged to be Brown Act violations, no Brown Act lawsuit could be filed.

Fredericks has called the accusations against her baseless and unfounded.

Scott Harden told Pasadena Now “the allegations against me are unproven and simply untrue.”

The recall campaigns grew out of records Bleeker obtained in spring 2026. In response to a series of California Public Records Act requests, the district produced hundreds of internal emails and text messages among Fredericks, Harden, Kenne and Velázquez. Bleeker contends the exchanges show the four deliberated privately about a school closure resolution and had a premeditated plan to close schools while publicly saying otherwise, which he says violates the Brown Act’s ban on serial communications among board members.

Bleeker also contends the four voted to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a consultant billed as independent, and that Fredericks, Harden and Velázquez had pre-selected the firm. The board later rejected the consultant’s findings, he said.

The school campus consolidation effort has since stalled. The Superintendent’s School Consolidation Advisory Committee, made up of community members, rejected all proposed school closures in May.

Thursday night’s school board meeting focused on a “transformation resolution,” the mission of which is essentially to close schools, resulted in the tabling of almost every item.

Organizers now face the Dec. 11 deadline. If either petition gathers enough valid signatures, the recall measures would appear on the ballot in 2027 to let voters decide whether to recall each official.

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office did not immediately respond to a request for further information.