Friday, March 6, 2026

All Saints Church to host free Youth Self-Care Day on Saturday

All Saints Church will hold a free Youth Self-Care Day on Saturday, March 7, offering haircuts, beauty services, therapy dogs, books, quilts and snacks for youth ages 10 to 18, according to information provided by the church. The event is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Regas House at 132 N. Euclid Ave., across from Pasadena City Hall.

The program is organized by the church’s Children, Youth & Families Ministry under Director Amanda Baughman and is part of All Saints’ 2026 Lenten Offerings. Church materials describe the gathering as a relaxed, drop-in event intended to give young people “a gentle space to pause, breathe, and find a little joy.”

• Haircuts, styling, manicures and makeup provided by Paul Mitchell The School – Pasadena
• Beauty, art and paint activities from Jazzy Jam for Empowerment, a Pasadena-based nonprofit
• A quiet room with therapy dogs
• Cookies from Diddy Riese
• Handmade quilts and pillowcases,

Friday, March 6, 2026

Democratic Angst and Gerrymandering Threaten California’s Political Reforms

By Dan Walters, CALMATTERS

Turmoil within the California Democratic Party over this year’s election for governor and  fallout from the party’s naked grab of congressional seats could have long-term effects, undoing two important political reforms — the top-two primary system and redistricting by an independent commission.

The turmoil is over having nine Democratic candidates for governor, creating the possibility that two Republicans could finish one-two in the June 2 primary, thus resulting in a GOP governor being elected in November.

A recent Public Policy Institute of California poll of voters found that Republicans Steve Hilton (14%) and Chad Bianco (12%) are 1st and 3rd in support, with Katie Porter (13%) the leading Democrat, followed by Eric Swalwell (11%) and Tom Steyer (10%). The other six Democrats are all 5% or less.

Filing for the primary ballot closes this week, and Rusty Hicks, the Democratic state chairman, is publicly pleading for lower tier Democrats to drop out and thus reduce chances of a 1-2 GOP finish.

Friday, March 6, 2026

Boys & Girls Club of Pasadena Adopts New Mission, Three-Year Plan Shaped by Eaton Fire

The 89-year-old youth organization replaces decades-old mission language and sets four strategic priorities through 2028

The Boys & Girls Club of Pasadena has adopted a new three-year strategic plan and rewritten its mission statement for the first time in decades, changes the organization says were shaped by the January 2025 Eaton Fire that disrupted its planning process and reshaped its direction.

The plan, titled “Future Ready: Boys & Girls Club of Pasadena 2025-2028 Strategic Plan,” replaces the organization’s longtime mission focus on “kids who need us most” with broader language committing to all youth. The new mission statement reads: “BGCP provides youth and teens with the environment, relationships, and opportunities that equip them to build essential skills to learn, lead, and succeed.” The Club’s Board of Directors adopted the plan in late 2025, according to a statement from the organization.

The 18-month planning process began in 2024 and was interrupted when the Eaton Fire struck in January 2025, according to the press release.

Friday, March 6, 2026

Largest Gift in LA Conservancy History Funds Altadena Heritage Project

The Los Angeles Conservancy announced Thursday it has received a $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, the largest single gift in the nonprofit’s history, to expand a community-driven effort documenting Altadena’s cultural heritage following the devastating Eaton Fire.

The funding, awarded through the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities in Place program, will support expansion of the Conservancy’s Altadena Cultural Asset Mapping project, which aims to identify and document the community’s cultural landmarks, traditions and stories as part of long-term recovery efforts, according to officials.

“Altadena’s recovery is about more than rebuilding structures — it’s about honoring the lives, memories, people and cultural heritage that make this community what it is,” Adrian Scott Fine, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy, said in a statement.

The three-year grant will fund expansion of the mapping effort, a full- time project manager and a community regranting program aimed at supporting local storytelling and cultural preservation projects, officials said.

A total of $550,000 will be redistributed to Altadena-based organizations to support oral histories,

Thursday, March 5, 2026

Altadena Homeowners Sue Farmers Insurance, Testing Firm Over Eaton Fire Smoke Claims

Class-action lawsuit alleges hygiene company conducted substandard contamination assessments that let the insurer underpay for cleanup

Two Altadena property owners have filed a class-action lawsuit accusing Farmers Insurance and the environmental testing firm it hired of conducting shoddy smoke-damage assessments after the Eaton Fire, then using those findings to avoid paying for proper cleanup of toxic contamination.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, targets Fire Insurance Exchange, a Farmers Insurance entity, and Hygiene Technologies International, a Torrance-based industrial hygiene firm. It is one of at least two cases — including another involving a Pasadena duplex — that take the novel approach of suing both the insurer and the third-party testing company over how post-fire contamination was evaluated, according to a Law.com report on the litigation.

“Farmers Insurance and HygieneTech’s failure to uphold their obligations under the policy is not just a matter of negligence, it’s a case of deliberate bad faith practices that have caused real harm to our clients,”

Thursday, March 5, 2026

One Man, 250 Million Seeds: The First Poppies Bloom in Altadena’s Burn Scar

By THERESE EDU

René Amy spent months sowing California poppies across more than 750 fire-damaged properties, largely alone and at his own expense — and the flowers are now emerging

The first California poppy René Amy can claim as a direct result of his Great Altadena Poppy Project bloomed about a week ago. It opened on the lot where his own home once stood, before the Eaton Fire took it.

The first flower, from 250 million seeds.

Amy, the founder of The Great Altadena Poppy Project, said he spent months sowing a quarter-billion California poppy seeds across more than 750 fire-damaged properties in the Eaton Fire burn scar — an effort he executed largely alone, largely at his own expense, using a portable hand-crank seed spreader on each property.

His project has no office and no staff. Whether those seeds produce anything close to a quarter-billion blooms depends on rain and conditions he cannot control. But more flowers have opened since that first one,

Thursday, March 5, 2026

Who Pays for AI’s Power? California Watchdog Urges New Data Center Rules

By Alejandro Lazo, CALMATTERS

If you’re worried about data centers and AI inflating your electricity bill, you’re not alone.

A California watchdog released a report Tuesday urging policymakers to act fast on the state’s fast-growing data-center industry – before soaring electricity demand from artificial intelligence lands on the bills of ordinary households.

“The costs that data centers impose on the electrical grid should be paid by the centers themselves, not by average California families already struggling with high utility bills,” said Pedro Nava, chair of the Little Hoover commission, the independent bipartisan body that produced the report.

The commission outlined more than a dozen recommendations for managing the industry’s impact on the power grid, electricity prices and the state’s climate goals.

The report lands at a critical moment as lawmakers in Sacramento prepare another round of proposals aimed at regulating the rapidly expanding industry.

Similar efforts last year — including proposals to require more transparency about energy use and to shield ratepayers from the cost of grid upgrades — stalled in the Legislature after opposition from the tech industry and business groups.

Thursday, March 5, 2026

California’s Next Insurance Commissioner Will Have ‘Brutal’ Balancing Act

By Levi Sumagaysay, CALMATTERS

In November, Californians will vote for “the second-hardest job in the state behind the governor.”

That’s according to someone who has held the job twice: John Garamendi, who was the state’s first elected insurance commissioner in the 1990s and served again in the early 2000s. Garamendi, now a U.S. congressman, said the commissioner job is “complex, hard, detailed work.”

“There is no other task in any office in the state of California, except the governor, that has such significant power and the necessity to use the power to regulate the industry,” Garamendi said.

Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara is nearing the end of his second four-year term. In the past seven years, California experienced the biggest and most destructive wildfires in its history, which were a factor in insurance companies canceling homeowner policies or refusing to write new ones. With the insurance market out of whack, Lara last year put in place new regulations that include provisions insurers have long sought.

Thursday, March 5, 2026

Guest Opinion | Nahshon Dion: Keep Hope Alive — Especially Now

In 1995, when Jesse Jackson visited John Muir High School, I was 17.

Several months earlier, my mom and I had relocated from our apartment in Pasadena and from Rodney Glen King’s previous apartment on Sunset Avenue, behind King’s mom, to my grandparents’ home on Neldome Street in Altadena. The move placed me in new hallways with new faces at Muir. I was proud to be a Stang and follow in the footsteps of several family members. I worked in the student canteen during lunch, eager to be independent, stepping into young adulthood as America fractured.

The shadow of the beating of Rodney King still lingered over Los Angeles. The grainy video of King being struck repeatedly by LAPD officers had shaken the nation; just as King felt the blows, so did our community. Jackson called it “a brutal, savage beating that shocks the conscience of the nation.” Even as a teenager, I understood something painful, undeniably wrong, and wicked had been exposed.

When three of the officers were acquitted in 1992,

Thursday, March 5, 2026

Pasadena Unified Opens Community Survey on School Closures as District Faces $30 Million Deficit

The 15-question form, part of a consolidation process heading toward a June board vote, asks respondents to weigh closures

The Pasadena Unified School District on Tuesday opened a community survey asking parents, staff and residents how open they are to consolidating or closing schools, the latest step in a process that could result in the Board of Education voting to shutter campuses on June 25.

The survey, sent by Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco on March 3, arrives less than a week after the board unanimously voted to approve preliminary layoff notices affecting 161.35 full-time equivalent certificated positions and scores of classified positions — and amid a fiscal crisis driven by years of declining enrollment and a structural budget deficit exceeding $30 million.

“As we plan for the district’s long-term future, your voice is essential,” Blanco wrote in a message accompanying the survey. “The decisions ahead involve balancing programs, facilities, and financial sustainability to best serve our students.”

The survey can be accessed by clicking here.