Monday, July 20, 2026

School Board Races Continue to Take Shape

By ANDRÈ COLEMAN, Managing Editor

Two more prospective candidates have pulled nomination papers to run for the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) Board of Education.

Incumbent Michelle Richardson Bailey pulled papers to seek re-election to her District 3 seat, where she is expected to face Veronica Elias. Dennis McNamara also pulled papers to run for the District 7 seat being vacated by Yarma Velázquez.

The district uses a plurality voting system, meaning the candidate who receives the most votes wins the seat, even if they receive less than 50% of the vote. This year, voters will elect representatives in Districts 1, 3, 5 and 7.

In District 1, incumbent Kim Kenne will defend her seat against Felita Kealing. In District 5, incumbent Patrice Marshall McKenzie is currently running unopposed.

Candidates who have been issued nomination papers are not officially on the ballot until they complete the filing process, including gathering the required voter signatures and qualifying with the City Clerk.

Monday, July 20, 2026

Forecasters: The Heat is On, All Week

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE

An unrelenting heatwave is expected to grip Pasadena beginning Wednesday, with temperatures climbing into the upper 90s and possibly triple digits, according to the National Weather Service.

Forecasters said the warming trend will accelerate through the week, with highs reaching 91 degrees today, dipping slightly to 87 degrees Tuesday, then rising to 92 degrees Wednesday. By Thursday, temperatures are expected to hit 96 degrees, with similar readings continuing through the weekend.

Today’s conditions include mostly sunny skies and calm winds shifting to the south-southwest at 5 mph in the afternoon. Tonight will be partly cloudy with a low near 64 degrees.

The heatwave is being driven by a strong high-pressure system, which will suppress the marine layer and limit cooling. Overnight lows will remain well above normal, offering little relief from daytime heat.

No precipitation is forecast for Pasadena this week. Winds will remain light, generally calm in the mornings and shifting southwest at 5 mph during afternoons.

Monday, July 20, 2026

County Supervisors to Take Up $1 Million Altadena Soil Remediation Program

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will take up a proposal to establish a $1 million Altadena Soil Remediation Program, funded from the County’s Climate Equity Account and carried out through the Los Angeles County Development Authority (LACDA), according to the July 21 meeting agenda.

The action would commit County money and a delivery mechanism to soil remediation work in Altadena: the Board would establish the program, cap County funding at $1 million from the Climate Equity Account — an amount that, under the agenda, includes any contingency and LACDA administrative costs to implement and administer the program — and name LACDA as the County’s agent to carry out the remediation projects.

LACDA’s executive director would deliver the projects using a Board-approved Job Order Contract, would be authorized to issue a work order authorization in excess of $330,000, and would approve and accept the completed projects on the County’s behalf.

LACDA would report to the County’s Chief Sustainability Office and Chief Executive Office every six months,

Sunday, July 19, 2026

Altadena Town Council to Take Up Park Recovery at Tuesday Meeting

The Altadena Town Council on Tuesday will hear a county-led update on the recovery of the community’s fire-damaged parks, headlined by the director of the Los Angeles County parks department on the state of Eaton Canyon and other sites still shuttered more than a year after the Eaton Fire.

The parks update anchors a July 21 agenda that also asks the council to vote on a letter supporting Eaton Fire trail restoration, and it offers Altadena residents a concrete gauge of how quickly public spaces central to the community’s recovery might reopen.

The special presentation is led by Norma E. García-González, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation, joined by Chester Kano, the department’s deputy director of planning and development. A public comment period is set aside for the presentation.

Several of the sites at issue remain closed. The Eaton Fire tore through Eaton Canyon, and debris flows that February and March reshaped its terrain, burying or erasing trails.

Sunday, July 19, 2026

Fire Survivors Convene Online to Weigh Two Competing Cleanup Bills

A Monday town hall breaks down Assembly Bills 1642 and 1795 as both advance through the Legislature

More than a year and a half after the Eaton Fire devastated Altadena, the question of whether smoke-damaged homes are truly safe to live in remains unsettled — and on Monday evening, the Eaton Fire Survivors Network will host a virtual town hall to explain what two bills moving through Sacramento would do about it.

Both measures were introduced in response to the January 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires, and survivors say the two are often confused for each other. The session, the network says, is meant to help residents tell them apart and learn how to weigh in with lawmakers as the bills advance.

Assembly Bill 1642, the Wildfire Environmental Safety and Testing Act, is authored by Assemblymember John Harabedian. It would direct the state Department of Toxic Substances Control to adopt regulations by July 1, 2027 setting science-based standards for investigating, testing and removing wildfire contaminants — such as lead and asbestos — from homes,

Sunday, July 19, 2026

Altadena Residents Aim for a Say in the Future of North Lake Avenue

A virtual Altadena Steadfast workshop gathers community input on public and open spaces along the fire-scarred corridor

As Altadena rebuilds, one of the topics which continues to rebound is ‘what should its public spaces become?’ On Tuesday evening, Altadena Steadfast will host a virtual workshop inviting residents to weigh in on the future of the community’s parks, plazas and open spaces, with this session focused on the North Lake Avenue area.

According to Altadena Steadfast’s announcement of the event, the online workshop repeats a recent in-person session and is offered virtually to reach residents who could not attend. The group says the session is open to residents and that registration is required.

The effort builds on months of community-driven design work. It began in earnest with an October open house at the Loma Alta Park gym, followed by a series of workshops led by design professionals, through which the group says it has gathered residents’ ideas about how the unincorporated community might reshape its shared spaces as it recovers from the January 2025 Eaton Fire.

Sunday, July 19, 2026

Altadena Recovery Radio Show Adds On-Air Therapist to Address Eaton Fire’s Mental-Health Toll

A weekly radio program that has chronicled Altadena’s recovery from the Eaton Fire is expanding its coverage into the disaster’s mental-health aftermath, launching a recurring on-air segment that invites survivors to call in with questions about trauma.

The segment, “Ask the Therapist,” is part of “Conversation Live: Altadena Rising” with James Farr on KBLA Talk 1580, and features licensed marriage and family therapist Dr. Eshele Williams, Psy.D., according to the program. It reflects a shift in emphasis a year and a half after a fire that killed 19 people — the deadliest in modern Los Angeles County history — from the mechanics of rebuilding toward the longer-running emotional strain on the people doing it.

Farr said the segment grew out of a question a caller raised during a recent live broadcast.

“I realized we had spent the last 18 months documenting the 19 souls who perished in the Eaton Fire, the emergency response, debris removal, insurance claims, rebuilding permits, lawsuits, and public policy.

Sunday, July 19, 2026

Taste the World, One Scoop at a Time

No passport, no problem. It’s the third Sunday in July — which means it’s International Ice Cream Day, and the only line you’ll be waiting in involves sprinkles. Kidspace Children’s Museum has done the reasonable thing and turned Brookside Park into a global scoop shop.

Enter Scooper Bowl Sunday — billed as the sweetest championship of the summer, and timed to the World Cup finals for anyone keeping score. Nine ice cream makers set up shop under the Arroyo sun, and the passport stamps are edible: Thai gelato from Kanomwaan, Filipino churn from Perla’s, paletas from La Michoacana, Ululani’s Hawaiian shave ice, and Persian scoops from Mashti Malone’s. There’s Bloomfield Creamery’s all-American pull, Sure Good’s soft-serve truck, Koolfi Company’s Pakistani churn, and Sub-Zero’s liquid-nitrogen theatrics — vapor, chill, and all. Samples are free while supplies last, which is museum-speak for getting there before the toddlers do.

The whole thing folds into regular admission, so the 40-plus hands-on exhibits are yours too — a fair trade for parents who’d like the sugar rush to have somewhere to go.

Sunday, July 19, 2026

Free Dental Van Parks at Jefferson Branch Library Through Summer

Young & Healthy and USC dentists offer screenings, cleanings and sealants for Pasadena children ages 5 to 18, by appointment.

A mobile dental clinic has set up outside the Jefferson Branch Library in Pasadena, offering free care to children and teenagers through early August in a summer push the nonprofit Young & Healthy has mounted against a stubborn barrier to learning: untreated tooth decay, which the organization notes is a leading cause of school absences.

Through August 7, licensed dental professionals and students from the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry at the University of Southern California provide screenings, cleanings and sealants for young people ages 5 to 18. The clinic operates from a dental van parked at the library, part of a partnership among Young & Healthy, USC and the Pasadena Public Library.

For Young & Healthy, which has worked for more than three decades to connect low-income Pasadena-area children with medical, dental and mental health care, the timing carries added weight.

Saturday, July 18, 2026

Altadena’s Own Carmen Bradford Headlines POPS Rat Pack Night at the Arboretum

A Grammy-winning jazz vocalist who grew up nearby anchors the July 25 program of Sinatra-era standards

The Pasadena POPS will present an evening of Rat Pack–era standards at the Los Angeles County Arboretum on July 25, with an Altadena-raised Grammy winner among the three vocalists fronting the orchestra.

Carmen Bradford headlines “A Toast to the Rat Pack” alongside Sinatra interpreter Steve Lippia and crooner Todd Murray, in a program of songs made famous by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Ella Fitzgerald. Bradford grew up in Altadena and, according to the Pasadena Symphony Association, won a 2024 Grammy Award as a featured vocalist on “Basie Swings the Blues” with the Count Basie Orchestra.

The concert is the third of five in the POPS’ 2026 Rusnak Summer Concert Series, which runs through August 29. Resident Pops Conductor Larry Blank leads the orchestra. It is the organization’s first season without Michael Feinstein leading the POPS; Feinstein became Principal Pops Conductor Emeritus in September 2025, according to the association.