Friday, July 24, 2026

Judge Denies PUSD Bid For Injunction to Block Pasadena Tree Ordinance Enforcement

By ANDRÈ COLEMAN, Managing Editor

Judge issues ruling after City says it will not enforce tree ordinance at district classroom facilities

On Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joseph Lipner denied the school district’s request for an injunction that would have stopped the City from enforcing its tree protection ordinance while a lawsuit proceeds.

In his ruling Lipner said he denied the request for a temporary restraining order on the basis that there is no irreparable harm to the school district in light of positions taken by the City.

The ruling states the City said it will not be enforcing the tree ordinance at “classroom facilities.”

“Specifically, the City has stated that, after the Petitioner 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.”

The district filed its petition last week seeking a writ of mandate,

Friday, July 24, 2026

PUSD Seeks Court Order to Halt Tree Permit Enforcement at Fire-Damaged Campuses

By ANDRÈ COLEMAN, Managing Editor

The already contentious relationship between the city and the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) continues to worsen.

The PUSD has filed a lawsuit against the city, asking a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to block the city from enforcing its tree protection ordinance at campuses undergoing Eaton Fire soil remediation.

In the lawsuit, lawyers for the PUSD argue the district is immune from local zoning regulations and that the city’s actions are jeopardizing the reopening of schools.

PUSD wants to cut down nearly 200 trees on campuses across the city. District officials claim the trees must be cut down in order to remove approximately 8,000 cubic yards of fire-contaminated soil from 11 campuses before the start of the 2026-27 school year, and claim it can do so without permission from city officials.

The city claims the district must comply with its tree ordinance.

“The city does not believe the petition is appropriate at this time and declines to comment further on this pending litigation,”

Friday, July 24, 2026

H&R Block to Pay $515,000 to Settle LA County Claims It Shared Tax Data Without Consent

A restitution fund reaches eligible Pasadena and Altadena filers who used the company’s online preparation tools

The income figures, education credit claims, and health savings account details that Los Angeles County residents typed into H&R Block’s online tax software were, the County alleges, quietly passed to outside advertising companies through tracking code embedded in the company’s website.

H&R Block has now agreed to a pre-litigation settlement with the County of Los Angeles that bars the practice and sets aside a $367,540 fund to repay certain customers, according to a statement from the County. The deal resolves consumer protection claims against HRB Digital LLC and HRB Tax Group, Inc.

The settlement covers consumers across the county, extending to those in Pasadena and Altadena.

The County said the case grew out of H&R Block’s disclosure of confidential taxpayer information made without customers’ consent — to third-party advertisers through tracking devices such as Meta pixels placed on the company’s site.

The fund is limited to a specific group.

Friday, July 24, 2026

Homelessness – Slightly Down in Pasadena – Rises in LA County, City

CITY NEWS SERVICE

Pasadena, which reported its count in June, showed a slight decrease in homeless numbers

Following two straight years of decreases, homelessness increased by 3.4% in the city of Los Angeles this year, with the number of unsheltered individuals jumping by 7.9%, according to reports published Thursday, with Mayor Karen Bass blaming federal government service cuts for the rise.

Fox11 and the Los Angeles Times both reported the increases in homelessness, citing sources familiar with figures from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which is scheduled to officially release the numbers on Friday.

Sources, who asked the outlets to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to discuss the data, told the outlets that homelessness increased by 1.2% across the county’s Continuum of Care, which includes most cities.

Pasadena’s 2026 Point-in-Time Homeless Count, released earlier on June 22, went the other way. Volunteers counted 577 people on the night of Jan. 21,

Friday, July 24, 2026

California Can’t Replant Its Forests Fast Enough To Keep Up With Wildfires

By Rachel Becker, CALMATTERS

A windowless warehouse on the outskirts of Davis shelters pieces of California’s forests.

Icy air swirls and fogs around 42,000 pounds of seeds — the past and the future of these trees, frozen in cardboard boxes. It smells like the woods on a snowy day.

“This is like the mothership of forestry in California right here,” said Stewart McMorrow, staff chief for wildfire resilience at Cal Fire, standing outside the heavy metal door of the state seed bank at Cal Fire’s Lewis A. Moran Reforestation Center in Davis.

Private landowners especially rely on these seeds — some now more than a half-century old — to reforest property destroyed by wildfire.

At the pace California is burning, it’s nowhere near enough.

Climate change and more than a century of overzealous fire suppression are now fueling wildfires so severe that they’re wiping out the very forests that need fire to thrive — leaving iconic landscapes at risk of turning into brush and scrub,

Friday, July 24, 2026

First Responders Honored at Eaton Fire Relief Day at Jackie Robinson Field

Eighteen months after a fire that killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 structures, rebuilding permits have been issued for a fraction of what was lost

Pasadena and Los Angeles firefighters, police officers and emergency personnel who worked through the Eaton Fire were recognized Saturday, July 18, at Dena Day: Pass It Forward, an event at Jackie Robinson Memorial Field that the City of Pasadena said the San Gabriel Valley YMCA hosted for residents still recovering from the disaster.

The free event ran from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the field in Brookside Park. An event announcement described the day as hosted by the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles in partnership with the C.J. Stroud Foundation and the Young 9 Foundation, the mental health nonprofit founded by Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young.

Each department received a football signed by National Football League quarterbacks C.J. Stroud and Bryce Young, who spent time engaging with families and taking part in the day’s festivities,

Friday, July 24, 2026

When the Eaton Fire Struck, Zo Williams Was Looking for His Family. Now He Returns to Altadena’s Story

A KBLA host who spoke on air during the search for missing relatives rejoins the station’s recovery program to weigh what the disaster did to relationships

In the first days after the Eaton Fire, Zo Williams was not the seasoned relationship host his listeners knew. He was a family member, checking shelters and scanning lists of names, desperately looking for relatives he could not reach.

On Saturday, July 25, 2026, he returns to KBLA Talk 1580 this time as a guest on “Conversation Live: Altadena Rising” with James Farr, the station’s weekly program tracking the recovery of Altadena’s historically Black community after the January 2025 wildfire. Eaton Fire damage fell hardest on West Altadena, long a stronghold of Black homeownership, where whole blocks of family-owned homes were lost.

Williams first spoke about the fire on a special three-hour edition of KBLA’s morning program “First Things First” with Dominique DiPrima. The broadcast aired on January 15, 2025 eight days after the fire from just a few blocks away and outside the fire zone,

Friday, July 24, 2026

Food Access LA Launches Online EBT Ordering

CITY NEWS SERVICE

CalFresh recipients throughout Los Angeles County Friday have a new way to purchase fresh produce, with Food Access LA offering online Electronic Benefits Transfer payments for its farmers’ market delivery program.

The nonprofit said the expansion allows CalFresh recipients to use their existing benefits to order seasonal produce boxes sourced from local and regional farms through its Farmers’ Market Delivery program.

According to the organization, the online EBT purchasing option is intended to reduce barriers to accessing fresh food by eliminating transportation challenges, expanding payment options and making farmers’ market produce more convenient for households throughout Los Angeles County.

Food Access LA is an organization focused on expanding access to healthy food.

“Healthy food is not a luxury. Families deserve both access to high- quality produce, as well as meaningful choices about what they put on their plates,” Executive Director Jennifer Grissom said in a statement. “Online EBT purchasing modernizes our food-access infrastructure, while connecting more households with fresh,

Thursday, July 23, 2026

For Altadena’s Fire Survivors, a Monrovia Town Hall on the Case Against Edison

Former Pasadena mayor Chris Holden and attorney Doug Boxer will field questions Thursday about who can sue Southern California Edison over the Eaton Fire

Altadena residents still sorting through what the Eaton Fire took from them can bring their questions about suing Southern California Edison to a Monrovia church on Thursday evening. 

The session, billed as an Eaton Fire town hall, is being hosted by LA Fire Justice, a Pasadena-based coalition of attorneys and advocates that formed after the January 2025 fire to represent survivors. According to the group’s announcement, the evening will cover who is eligible to join a lawsuit against Edison, Edison’s own wildfire compensation program, and a detailed analysis of how the fire began. The organization’s website also lists an explanation of its contingency-fee arrangement and an update on legal strategy among the topics. 

For the foothill communities in the room, the subject is close to home. The Eaton Fire started on the evening of Jan. 7, 2025, in Eaton Canyon and was pushed by Santa Ana winds into Altadena,

Thursday, July 23, 2026

McNamara Hopes to Win School Board District 7 Seat

By ANDRÈ COLEMAN, Managing Editor

Dennis J. McNamara, a longtime Pasadena Unified School District volunteer and chair of the district’s school bond oversight committee, has pulled papers for the District 7 seat on the PUSD Board of Education.

McNamara is seeking the seat currently held by Yarma Velázquez, who previously announced she will not seek reelection.

District 7 stretches from the Linda Vista neighborhood in west Pasadena to Madison Heights.

“I am grateful for Yarma’s service and her deep commitment to the students, families and the entire PUSD community,” McNamara said in a statement. “I especially appreciate her focus on academic achievement — a commitment I will continue if elected.”

McNamara said the district faces significant challenges but pointed to what he described as its strong academic foundation, including its dual-language immersion programs, International Baccalaureate curriculum and partnership with Pasadena City College.

“Our dual-language immersion programs, International Baccalaureate curriculum and strong partnership with Pasadena City College are outstanding assets,”