Lake Avenue in Altadena, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. [Eddie Rivera / Pasadena Now]

Unless the agency acts, about 109 program positions will be eliminated and more than 1,500 survivors will lose their case manager, the Eaton Fire Collaborative said. Providers, survivors and elected officials plan to press the case at a news conference in Altadena on Thursday.

California asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for $26 million to run the Disaster Case Management Program, the collaborative said in its release. The agency approved $13 million and has paid $3 million so far. The $10 million balance, which the California Department of Social Services says it can no longer front, is what is forcing the shutdown, according to the coalition, which said the closure would come short of FEMA’s standard 24-month operating period for disaster case management.

The Disaster Case Management Program is a FEMA-funded program that provides case management and long-term recovery support to survivors of the Eaton and Palisades wildfires, according to Los Angeles County. The collaborative said it was established under Presidential Major Disaster Declaration DR-4856, is administered by the state social services department and is delivered by Catholic Charities of California, CORE, the Little Tokyo Service Center and Jewish Family Services LA, working with the county’s long-term recovery groups. The state lists DR-4856 among its active disaster case management programs and directs survivors to (833) 775-3267.

The coalition said there are 1,397 open cases and roughly 700 survivors on a wait list, including 1,027 active cases from the Eaton Fire and 339 from the Palisades Fire. Referrals through the program have unlocked more than $100 million in direct assistance since January 2025, the release said, and if the program lapses those cases would move to community organizations the coalition described as already overextended.

Advocates are asking FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to release the remaining $10 million and to approve a pending state request for roughly $6 million more, the collaborative said. A group of providers, recovery groups and community partners also sent a letter to members of Congress on Tuesday urging them to press the agency, according to the release.

Rep. Judy Chu said in the release that taking away case managers while survivors are still struggling to recover is “indefensible,” and that she would keep pushing until Eaton Fire survivors have the federal resources they need to rebuild.

“Survivors should not have to fight their way through recovery alone,” Ann Lee, chief executive and co-founder of CORE, said in the release.

The coalition cited survivor data showing that two in three fire survivors remain displaced nearly 20 months after the fires, including 85 percent of those who lost their homes entirely. “The fire ended. The need didn’t,” advocates said in the release.

The collaborative also tied the case to Washington state, which it said is seeking a federal major disaster declaration for its 2026 wildfires and has been given until Sept. 29 to apply — one day before the California program is set to end.

Federal support for Eaton Fire survivors has been extended before. In June, FEMA approved California’s request to extend Individuals and Households Program housing assistance for eligible homeowners through July 9, 2027, and for eligible renters through Oct. 9, 2026.

Southern California Grantmakers closes a two-part seminar with a site visit to the CORE Response Hub on Lake Avenue

Philanthropic funders and cross-sector partners come to Altadena on Wednesday, Sept. 9, for a walkthrough of completed rebuilds led by volunteer rebuild groups and developers.

The seminar runs from 10 a.m. to noon and opens with a site visit to the Hub, the Altadena recovery center run by CORE Response, the Community Organized Relief Effort.

The seminar is free but open only to funders and cross-sector partners in philanthropy, according to the event listing published by Southern California Grantmakers.

It is the second of a two-part seminar. Southern California Grantmakers, which convenes the series, says the session will map Altadena’s recovery ecosystem across case management, planning, environmental remediation, permitting, construction, workforce development and community ownership.

The organization says the seminar is grounded in the principle that housing is a fundamental right and is intended to align funders, disaster case managers and community partners around a shared understanding of the Altadena rebuild following the January 2025 wildfires. A finalized agenda and logistics will be shared closer to the date, the organization says.

The listing names CORE Response, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, the California Fire Foundation, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, the Satterberg Foundation and UniHealth Foundation as partners in the series.

The Hub, at 2333 Lake Ave., Suite 2A, opened in late October 2025 and serves residents affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires. As of Sept. 8, CORE Response lists public hours Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday public hours begin an hour into the seminar.

CORE Response brings technical experts to the Hub to help residents with permitting requirements, insurance and legal questions, and contractor vetting, according to the organization.

Wednesday, Sept. 9, 10 a.m. to noon. The Hub, 2333 Lake Ave., Suite 2A, Altadena. For more call (213) 680-8866 or visit https://socalgrantmakers.org/events/event-calendar/fire-recovery-and-rebuilding-seminar-part-2. Cost: Free; attendance limited to funders and cross-sector partners in philanthropy.

Tina Fredericks’ suit to block a recall petition returns to Los Angeles Superior Court on Oct. 13 after an amended filing was served just one court day before the hearing

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge on Tuesday postponed a scheduling hearing in the lawsuit Pasadena Unified School District Board President Tina Fredericks filed to stop a recall petition against her, moving the matter to Oct. 13.

The delay leaves Fredericks’ request that the court bar Los Angeles County election officials from allowing the petition to circulate unresolved for another five weeks. 

The Committee to Protect PUSD Schools, which is organizing the recall, said after the hearing that it would continue to organize, speak and circulate petitions.

Fredericks filed the lawsuit July 2, naming the county registrar-recorder and 124 unidentified “Doe” defendants. The lawsuit sought to stop circulation of the recall petition and ultimately have it declared invalid.

Fredericks is acting as her own lawyer.

An amended filing was served on the registrar-recorder Sept. 4, the Friday before the Labor Day weekend and four days before the scheduled court proceeding. The amendment removed the 124 unnamed defendants from the case.

The figure matched the number of District 6 residents who signed the notice of intention to circulate the recall petition, according to the original filing, thus leading recall proponents to conclude Fredericks intended to include each of them in her suit.  

Fredericks told Pasadena Now that she never intended to sue the recall organizers and they had been identified in the original filing by error.

The committee argued that removing the unnamed defendants did not alter the purpose of the original lawsuit.

“The fact that the ‘Does’ have now been removed does not change what the original filing sought to accomplish: to halt the recall process through a legal challenge,” the committee statement said.

Recall organizers said they would continue collecting signatures and campaigning to place the issue before voters while the lawsuit proceeds.

“Recall proponents have the right to organize, speak, circulate petitions and ask voters to decide whether an elected official should remain in office,” the committee said. “The question should ultimately be decided by the voters, not by the person facing the recall and not by an effort to stop the electoral process before voters have their say.”

The Oct. 13 conference is a scheduling proceeding, not a trial. Judges use trial-setting conferences to determine whether a case is ready for the trial calendar and to work out the structure of any future trial, including whether it would be heard by a jury or by the judge. Testimony on the merits is not normally taken.

Under state elections law, the school board — not voters — would appoint replacements for any trustee removed by recall

If two school board members up for recall are removed from office, the people will not have a vote in their replacement.

Local residents are currently circulating petitions to place a ballot measure on the ballot that could allow local residents to recall Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) School Board President Tina Fredericks and Trustee Scott Harden.

The pair is accused by some parents of violating the Brown Act with two other trustees, Kim Kenne and Yarma Velázquez, in a discussion regarding school closures.

Kenne is seeking reelection and Velázquez has announced she will not seek reelection.

Neither Kenne nor Velázquez are subjects of recall movements.

If Fredericks and Harden are removed by recall, the board will appoint their replacements.

“There shall not be an election for a successor in a recall of a local officer pursuant to Chapter 3 of Division 11 of the Elections Code,” according to the Secretary of State. “If a majority of the votes on a recall proposal for a local officer are ‘Yes’, the officer is removed and the office shall be vacant until it is filled according to law, provided that the officer who was the subject of the recall election shall not be appointed to fill the vacancy in that office.”

The school board last used the appointment process in 2015, when Tyron Hampton vacated his seat on the school board to seek a seat on the City Council.

As part of that process, nine people were interviewed by the board before the board appointed Adrienne Mullen.

The appointment process has been controversial in recent years. Local residents complained about the City Council’s appointment when the City Council twice appointed Justin Jones to complete terms won by John Kennedy, after Kennedy died.

Residents complained that there should have been a special election to fill the seat.

Jones has now twice won the seat by election.

The City Council appointment process was later changed by the voters.

The network says no neutral decisionmaker has been provided to hear its request to join the state’s enforcement case

A Altadena-based network of Eaton and Palisades fire survivors said Tuesday it has sued Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara to keep the state’s case against State Farm from being settled before survivors are heard.

Every Fire Survivor’s Network says its petition asks a court to order the California Department of Insurance to provide a neutral decisionmaker to hear the group’s request to join the enforcement case, and to bar the department and State Farm from settling, dismissing or narrowing that case until the request is decided.

The group says it is not asking the court to rule on whether State Farm broke the law, or to grant the intervention itself. 

The underlying case is the department’s own. On May 4, the department filed an Accusation and Order to Show Cause against State Farm General Insurance Company, the first step toward a public hearing before an administrative law judge. Department examiners reviewed a sample of 220 claims and found 398 violations of state law in 114 of them, citing slow and inadequate investigations, missed statutory deadlines for accepting, denying and paying claims, misclassified testing costs, misrepresented policy provisions and inadequate communication, according to the department.

The filing adds 34 further violations drawn from consumer complaints. Penalties may reach $5,000 per violation, or $10,000 for willful violations, and the department has asked to suspend State Farm’s certificate of authority for up to a year. The matter is File No. OSC-2026-00001.

State Farm has rejected the department’s account. Responding to the May filing, the company said it rejects any suggestion that it “engaged in a general practice of mishandling” or intentionally underpaid wildfire claims, and said it would respond through the process.

The survivors’ group petitioned the department on June 16 for full party status, seeking the right to conduct discovery, present evidence, cross-examine witnesses and take part in settlement talks. 

Nearly three months on, the group says, no decisionmaker has been provided to hear the petition while the enforcement case moves ahead. It says the department has served State Farm with charges and discovery, that State Farm has responded, that the department describes the two sides as in “early discovery,” and that the group is informed and believes the department and State Farm are privately negotiating a possible settlement.

“Survivors should not have to fight our own insurance regulator,” Joy Chen, the group’s executive director, said in the announcement.

“They should have their petition to participate decided by a neutral decisionmaker,” Pamela Pressley, senior staff attorney at Consumer Watchdog, said in the same announcement.

The group says it holds firsthand accounts from more than 1,600 State Farm policyholders describing the same practices the department found in its sample, evidence it says goes to the question State Farm disputes: whether the violations were isolated or a general business practice. It is represented by Singleton Schreiber and Consumer Watchdog.

Based in Pasadena, the network says it represents more than 10,000 survivors and allies of the two fires. State Farm policyholders filed approximately 11,300 residential claims from the Los Angeles wildfires, according to the department’s claims tracker.

Los Angeles County opened a separate front on Aug. 31, suing State Farm over its handling of Eaton and Palisades claims under the state’s unfair competition and false advertising laws and seeking restitution for policyholders, according to County Counsel Dawyn Harrison. The County Counsel’s investigation drew on information from the survivors’ network and other community organizations.

Cell phone images of the first moments after the Eaton Fire ignited on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, on the mountainside opposite Midwick Drive’s terminus at N. Altadena Drive in Altadena. [Jennifer Errico]

The press conference is set for 4 p.m. at the Hall of Justice, 211 W. Temple St. in Los Angeles, organizers said. It follows the Aug. 4 release of county fire investigators’ reports identifying an out-of-service Edison tower as the cause of the January 2025 blaze that devastated Altadena, and comes while the District Attorney’s own review of the evidence yet remains open.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department’s Arson Fire Investigation Unit conducted that investigation jointly with CAL FIRE. After 18 months of review, working alongside retained electrical and metallurgical experts, investigators concluded that the cause of the fire was electrical arcing events on the out-of-service Edison tower. They placed the origin on the dry receptive fuel bed below the utility’s transmission towers on the spur ridge above the Eaton Wash.

The fire started Jan. 7, 2025, took the lives of 19 people, and destroyed or damaged more than 9,000 homes and businesses.

“I recognize that no report or investigation into the Eaton Fire can ease the deep pain and tragedy our residents have endured,” Fire Chief Anthony C. Marrone said when the reports were released. “While the cause has been determined, our focus remains on assisting our residents to rebuild their homes and livelihoods, and ensuring lessons learned drive meaningful and impactful change in memory of the 19 lives lost.”

Portions of both reports were withheld because the District Attorney’s Office has an ongoing review of the evidence from the fire, the Fire Department said.

That review surfaced publicly in February 2026, when Edison disclosed in its annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and on an investor call the same week, that prosecutors were examining whether the utility should face criminal charges. The company said in the filing that it was “not aware of any basis for felony liability with regards to the Eaton Fire.”

Speakers Wednesday are expected to include talk show host James Farr, host of Conversation Live: Altadena Forward with James Farr on KBLA Talk 1580, along with community members and the families of Keith Porter and Christopher DeAndre Mitchell, organizers said.

“We’re asking the district attorney to apply the law where the facts take him,” Farr said in the announcement. “Nineteen people are dead. Investigators have told us what caused the fire. Now the question is accountability.”

The group said it also intends to ask Hochman’s office to examine how charitable funds distributed through nonprofit and community-based organizations involved in the fire recovery have been used, organizers said.

“Accountability doesn’t stop with the utility,” Farr said. “It also means following the money and asking hard questions about the nonprofit and community-based organizations entrusted with helping this community recover.”

A criminal case against a utility over a California wildfire would not be the first. Pacific Gas & Electric pleaded guilty in 2020 to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter and one felony count of unlawfully starting a fire, stemming from the 2018 Camp Fire, organizers said.

The Porter and Mitchell families are expected to raise separate demands at the same event. Organizers said they will deliver a petition signed by nearly 17,000 people asking Hochman to file charges against Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Brian Palacios in connection with Porter’s killing on New Year’s Eve. Mitchell’s family will call for prosecutorial action in his case, organizers said.

Under the California Public Utilities Code, Edison is required to maintain and operate its electrical lines and equipment in a manner that would minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire posed by them.

Metrolink fares for one-way tickets and its SoCal Day Pass will increase beginning Oct. 5, marking the regional rail system’s first fare increase in 13 years.

One-way ticket prices will increase by an average of 14%, while the SoCal Day Pass will cost $19 on weekdays and $12 on weekends and holidays, according to Metrolink.

Nearly 80% of one-way ticket purchases will increase by no more than $1, while less than 1% will increase by more than $2, officials said.

The Metrolink Board of Directors approved the fare adjustments in June. Agency officials cited rising operating and maintenance costs, reduced post-pandemic ridership and declining state and federal funding.

“Metrolink has worked hard to keep fares affordable while the cost of operating and maintaining our regional rail system has continued to rise,” Metrolink CEO Darren Kettle said. “These pricing adjustments are one step in a broader effort we are taking to responsibly address those pressures and support Metrolink’s long-term financial sustainability, while preserving a simpler fare structure and the valuable discounts that make our service more accessible to riders across Southern California.”

Prices for the 5-Day Flex Pass and monthly passes will also change based on Metrolink’s pricing model, which factors one-way fares into their cost. Some riders could see lower prices while others will see small increases, according to the agency.

Metrolink has operated under a simplified fare structure since July 2025, when it introduced products including the SoCal Day Pass and LA Zone Day Pass, officials said. The board voted in June to make the structure permanent.

Discounts will continue for students, youths, seniors, riders with disabilities, veterans and active-duty military members, Medicare recipients and low-income customers.

More information is available at metrolinktrains.com/fare-change-2026.

Altadena’s library service runs out of two buildings, a mobile van and an off-site notary desk this Thursday, Sept. 10, with the district’s Main Library at 600 E. Mariposa St. closed for renovation as of Feb. 1.

The Bob Lucas Memorial Library and Literacy Center at 2659 Lincoln Ave. is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., the latest closing of any Altadena Library District building as of Sept. 8. Its direct number is (626) 798-8338. The branch reopened in August 2025 after a 16-month renovation that expanded it by about 1,000 square feet and added a children’s area and a literacy center. The Altadena Library at Loma Alta Park, 3330 N. Lincoln Ave., is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The district opened that site in May 2025 in the park’s Social Hall, a unit of the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation system.

Three of the six programs on the district’s Thursday calendar run out of Bob Lucas. Baby Storytime and Play is set for 9:30 to 10:15 a.m. in the Bob Lucas Children’s Room. The district describes it as books, songs and rhymes that encourage development and bonding, followed by a 20-minute playtime, for children from birth to walking. English as a second language classes follow from 10:30 a.m. to noon in the Literacy Center and are open to adults 18 and older. The district describes the classes as aimed at basic English fluency and holds them Mondays through Thursdays. The Heartthrob Hangouts Book Club meets from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in the Literacy Center for a discussion of “Heart the Lover” by Lily King.

The district also sends its Curiosity Connection Volume 2 mobile library out on Thursdays. On Sept. 10 it stops at Webster’s Community Pharmacy, 2333 Lake Ave., from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and at Prime Pizza, 1900 Allen Ave., from 2:30 to 5 p.m. Residents can browse books, sign up for a library card and ask about upcoming programs. The district publishes each week’s stops on its own calendar.

Notary service is free, but it is not offered at either library building on Thursdays. On Thursday, Sept. 10, the district’s notary works from 3 to 5:30 p.m. at the Eaton Fire Collaboratory, 540 W. Woodbury Road. Notary service returns to Bob Lucas on Wednesdays from 3 to 5:30 p.m. The district recommends an appointment but accepts walk-ins, at (626) 798-0833, extension 118.

The Altadena Library District is a separate agency from the Pasadena Public Library, with its own card, its own catalog and its own board of trustees. The district does not accept returns of items borrowed from Pasadena libraries. Its calendar and branch hours are at https://www.altadenalibrary.org/, and its main number is (626) 798-0833.

Thursday, Sept. 10. Baby Storytime and Play, 9:30 to 10:15 a.m.; English as a second language classes, 10:30 a.m. to noon; Heartthrob Hangouts Book Club, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Bob Lucas Memorial Library and Literacy Center, 2659 Lincoln Ave., Altadena. For more call (626) 798-8338 or visit https://www.altadenalibrary.org/. Tickets: No admission charge is listed for these programs; the district states there are no fees for its English as a second language classes.

Lift International Church, the Altadena congregation that lost its building in the Eaton Fire, plans to gather funders, gap-assistance grants and legal help in Pasadena on Sunday for households whose rebuilds have not started.

Organizers said four funding entities are expected on site to work with at least 200 underinsured homeowners, and that more than 160 families supported by the church during the past 19 months have been invited. Recent assessments put the number of parcels without rebuilding applications on file at approximately 2,222, organizers said.

The initiative, called Come Back Home, is built to clear financial, administrative and technical obstacles to rebuilding, organizers said. Partners will also launch a centralized platform connecting survivors with state and municipal resources and grants.

The event offers disaster recovery funding allocated for more than 100 residences, gap assistance grants, legal filing deadline advisories and consultations, pro bono referrals through the Altadena CDC’s ALLY platform, and recovery updates from the Altadena Coalition of Neighborhood Associations, organizers said. Partners include Samaritan’s Purse, Hope Crisis Response Network, Mennonite Disaster Service, HPP Cares and San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity.

A separate press conference will address coalition recovery and advocacy. Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network, is scheduled to highlight legislative achievements protecting wildfire survivors, including utility accountability, organizers said. Coalition representatives will state a neutral position on Senate Bill 492, which died without a vote on the session’s final day.

Pastor Anthony McFarland, who lost his Altadena Drive home in the fire, will co-host.

If you go: the Come Back Home press conference and community gathering takes place Sunday, September 13, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 1757 N. Lake Ave., Pasadena. Complimentary refreshments will be served. For more, call LIFT International at (626) 797-6056 or visit liftaltadena.org.

In a functioning school district, administration brings the board clear recommendations — supported by data, cost analysis and alternatives. The board questions them, weighs them and decides.

That is how governance is supposed to work.

Thursday night showed what happens when it doesn’t.

For roughly two hours, the Pasadena Unified Board of Education debated and line-edited a draft definition of “district transformation” — striking language, moving provisions and arguing over what belonged in the document.

No vote was taken. No date was set for one.

Yet Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco told the board the process is already “outlined in a resolution that the majority of the board passed” and can proceed alongside district goals through 2030.

If so, the obvious question is: Why did the board spend two hours defining it?

The problem was not simply that trustees disagreed. The problem was that they were left to work out basic questions of scope, process and direction in public, in real time.

The board was left to build the framework

Facilitator Natalia Guerra told a student board member she was not aware of a deadline for completing the definition. No one on the dais could provide one.

That matters.

Administration should bring the board a framework clear enough to evaluate. The board can then approve it, amend it or reject it. It should not have to construct the framework itself, line by line, during a public meeting.

Thursday’s discussion made that painfully clear.

The proposed five-to-10-year horizon disappeared. A reference to Assembly Bill 1912 — the law behind the equity metrics the board adopted for consolidation decisions — was removed while consolidation remained in the document in several places.

A trustee’s addition concerning consolidation was not read back during the final review, leaving its status unclear.

And after two hours, the board still had no final definition and no date for a vote.

That is more than a disagreement over wording. It is evidence of a process that was not sufficiently developed before it reached the dais.

Chaos is a leadership problem

When there is no clear framework, trustees can begin arguing not only about decisions, but about one another.

Thursday provided a glimpse of that dynamic when Trustee Jennifer Hall Lee said she would “not be pushed anymore by four people on this board.”

That moment matters—not because one trustee is the problem, but because it shows how quickly the discussion can shift from What should the district do? to Who is pushing whom?

That is when governance can turn into politics.

One trustee becomes associated with a proposal. Another becomes associated with opposing it. The public picks sides. Emails become evidence of intent rather than context. Personalities begin to overshadow the questions taxpayers actually need answered:

Who developed the recommendation? What data supports it? What alternatives were considered? What will it cost? What problem does it solve? And who is responsible for the recommendation?

Those questions should come before politics.

Instead, the public is left watching trustees debate while the underlying substance remains unsettled.

It is easy to look at that and conclude that the board is dysfunctional.

Maybe that is the wrong conclusion.

Maybe what Thursday demonstrated is what happens when leadership does not give an elected board enough direction to govern effectively.

The board’s job is to hold administration accountable — not to build the administration’s work product from scratch in real time.

And that distinction matters.

PUSD is facing consequential decisions about enrollment, finances and potentially school consolidation. Those decisions require more than carefully crafted language. They require evidence, analysis, alternatives and a clear recommendation.

Taxpayers should not have to watch the board spend two hours figuring out what the process is before the real work can even begin.

Public discussion and amendment are part of the board’s job. Transparency matters. But transparency should not mean watching elected officials spend two hours redlining and wordsmithing the basic definition of a process that could ultimately determine which schools remain open.

When the stakes are this high, the public deserves a different kind of transparency: clear recommendations, the data behind them, the costs, the alternatives considered, and an explanation of what problem each proposed action is meant to solve.

The board should be debating those choices — not trying to figure out what the process is supposed to mean.

So the question coming out of Thursday night is not simply whether the board is dysfunctional.

It is this:

What exactly was leadership asking the board to accomplish — and why wasn’t that framework ready before the meeting began?

Because what looked like two hours of transparency may have been something else entirely: a board left to improvise because leadership hadn’t given it something ready to decide.