Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Altadena Outpaces Palisades on Early Recovery Markers, New L.A. County Report Finds

Pasadena Transit ridership runs above pre-fire baseline as 17-month update tracks reoccupation, displacement and a projected $73.6 million annual hit to local spending

Los Angeles County released its third quarterly economic update on the 2025 wildfire recovery on Monday, finding that the Eaton Fire area is showing earlier signs of return than Pacific Palisades on several measures, even as only a fraction of a percent of destroyed homes have been rebuilt and displacement assistance runs out for thousands of survivors.

The report, “Los Angeles Wildfires: An Economic Update #3,” was produced by the LA County Department of Economic Opportunity and the LAEDC’s Institute for Applied Economics. It is the third installment in a quarterly series tracking the Eaton and Palisades fires, which began January 7, 2025.

According to the report, 26.7 percent of destroyed structures across both fire areas have received rebuild permits — a pace on par with the fastest-recovering wildfires nationally, including the Tubbs and Marshall fires. But only 0.47 percent have completed reconstruction and received occupancy approval.

Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Mobile Recreation Van Brings Sports and Play to Altadena Children as Local Parks Remain Under Repair

A Super Bowl LVI legacy program rolls into the Bob Lucas Memorial Library, where dozens of kids spent the first day of summer break with games, music and an Olympic mascot

Dozens of Altadena children spent the first weekday of summer break Friday at the Bob Lucas Memorial Library & Literacy Center, where a mobile recreation program brought sports equipment, lawn games, music and an appearance by Sam the Olympic Eagle — the official mascot of the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics.

The free June 5, 2026, event was a stop by Park on the Move, a Super Bowl LVI legacy program operated in partnership by the Los Angeles Super Bowl LVI Host Committee, the County of Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Play Equity Fund. The program has concentrated recent activities in Altadena while the community’s parks remain under repair following the January 2025 Eaton Fire, which destroyed more than 9,400 structures and killed 19 people in and around the foothill community north of Pasadena.

Tuesday, June 9, 2026

City to Require Sheriff’s Deputies at City Events to Follow Its Policies, Including Immigration Limits

The council added the contract condition June 8 to a $15.5 million, five-year supplemental law enforcement agreement with Los Angeles County.

[Updated]  Pasadena will require Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies hired for city events to follow Pasadena’s policies, including its immigration policies, under a contract condition the council added June 8.

The condition was attached to a routine consent-calendar item authorizing the city to spend up to $15.5 million over five years on supplemental law enforcement from the County of Los Angeles, provided through the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department — $5 million for major events and $10.5 million for New Year’s activities, covering July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2031. The council approved the consent calendar, with the added language, without objection.

Councilmember Tyron Hampton pulled the item for separate discussion and pressed his colleagues to write the city’s values into the agreement, arguing it “doesn’t hurt to put that in writing” with any agency the city contracts with.

Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Wall Street Rates L.A. County Highly Even as Settlement Costs and Funding Cuts Mount

Based on a story by City News Service

Los Angeles County earned top-tier credit ratings on its next round of borrowing even as it faces a nearly $5 billion legal liability and cuts to federal and state funding — an endorsement that county officials said Monday would let it borrow at lower interest rates and save millions of dollars.

Fitch Ratings assigned the county its top grade of triple-A, while Moody’s gave an Aa1, its second-highest long-term mark, according to the Los Angeles County Treasurer and Tax Collector. Officials said they expect a comparably strong rating from S&P Global Ratings later this summer.

The grades apply to the county’s $700 million in 2026-27 Tax and Revenue Anticipation Notes, Series A, scheduled for issuance on July 1. Such notes, like bonds, help governments finance infrastructure and other long-term investments and manage cash flow for day-to-day public services.

Government credit ratings function much like consumer credit scores. Strong investment-grade marks let the county draw a wider pool of investors and sell debt at lower interest rates,

Tuesday, June 9, 2026

PUSD Board Faces Budget — and Looming Consolidation Decision — at Thursday Meeting

Pasadena Unified’s June 11 regular meeting tees up the district’s $30-35 million in reductions ahead of a scheduled June 25 vote on school closures

The Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education holds its next regular meeting on Thursday, June 11, with the open session set to begin at 7 p.m. The district’s budget — the central, painful conversation that has dominated PUSD’s calendar for nearly a year — is on the agenda.

The district faces a $30 million to $35 million budget shortfall for the 2026-27 school year and a potential deficit approaching $71 million by 2027-28. The crisis is the product of several converging pressures: a structural deficit, rising operational costs, the expiration of one-time COVID-19 relief funds, and the unbudgeted costs associated with the Eaton Fire, which damaged or destroyed five PUSD campuses in Altadena. Underlying everything is a 23.4 percent decline in student enrollment over the past decade, from 17,267 students in 2014-15 to 13,228 in the current school year.

Monday, June 8, 2026

Pasadena Court Weighs Trump Administration’s Bid to Revive Dismissed California Voter-Data Suit

Arguments were heard mid-May. Three federal judges have yet to issue rulings

On a morning in May, three federal appeals judges in a Pasadena courtroom pressed a Justice Department lawyer on a single question: whether the Trump administration can compel California to surrender the personal data of its approximately 23 million registered voters.

The argument, heard May 19 at the Ninth Circuit’s Richard H. Chambers Courthouse on South Grand Avenue, put Pasadena at the center of a national fight over who controls Americans’ voter information.

The case, United States v. Weber, is part of what the administration describes as an effort to police state voter rolls — and what a federal judge has called an “unprecedented and illegal” attempt to gather the sensitive data of millions of Americans in a centralized federal database. No ruling has yet issued.

The dispute began in 2025, when the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division started demanding that states turn over their complete voter registration lists,

Monday, June 8, 2026

Pasadena Teachers Union Issues Statement Opposing School Board Recalls

On Sunday, June 7, the United Teachers of Pasadena released an unsolicited statement regarding current recall efforts underway against at least two trustees of the Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education.

The statement comes after a tumultuous period during which controversial emails between board members were released publicly and a high-stakes board meeting resulted in the board rejection of a key planning document for proposed school consolidations.

In its statement, the teachers union says it opposes current recall efforts.

There are two active recall campaigns targeting PUSD board members. Both — one aimed at board president Tina Fredericks and the other at district 4 trustee Scott Harden — are in the early organizational phases. Notices of intent to recall were physically served to Fredericks and Harden during the May 28 school board meeting. Neither petition has yet been certified by the Los Angeles County Registrar for ballot placement.

“As educators,” the union statement said, “we value stability because students learn best when districts and schools are focused on teaching and learning,

Monday, June 8, 2026

Federal Court Battle and Act of Congress Set Stage for Pasadena Council’s $6.6 Million Homeless-Grant Vote Monday

Fifteen federal homeless-services grants worth $6,639,358 — funding that survived a contested HUD policy reversal only after two federal lawsuits, a preliminary injunction, a First Circuit affirmance and an act of Congress — come before the Pasadena City Council for local authorization on Monday.

The agenda report from the Department of Housing asks the Council to authorize the City Manager to enter into 15 one-year agreements with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the 2025 Continuum of Care grants, and to pre-authorize five future amendments adding the amount of annual funding awarded by HUD and extending each term by one year.

Approval, the report states, would “provide permanent housing and supportive services to individuals and families experiencing and who have previously experienced homelessness in Pasadena.”

The funds support permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, coordinated entry, system planning and administration, and the Homeless Management Information System database. The City’s Department of Housing is the Collaborative Applicant and Lead Agency for the Pasadena Continuum of Care,

Sunday, June 7, 2026

Altadena Community Center Reopens as Full Service Hub After Eaton Fire Recovery

By EDDIE RIVERA

Supervisor Kathryn Barger addresses the crowd gathered at the Altadena Community Center’s re-opening. [Photo credit: Brian Feinzimer/LA County]

Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger joined residents, community partners and the county’s Department of Consumer and Business Affairs at the Altadena Community Center on Saturday to celebrate the reopening of a facility that was damaged in the Eaton Fire just days after the department assumed operations there in January 2025.

The “New Beginnings” open house, a milestone in DCBA’s yearlong 50th anniversary celebration, drew community members who toured the renovated facility, met with county departments and local organizations, received health screenings and weighed in on future programming, according to a county press release.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger greets a resource table representative inside the community room at the Altadena Community Center. [Photo credit: Brian Feinzimer/LA County]

The event drew dozens of residents still navigating recovery from the fire. Barger and Carbajal each delivered brief remarks,

Saturday, June 6, 2026

LA County Asks All 88 Cities to Join “Pledge for Shared Prosperity”

Los Angeles County is asking all 88 of its cities to sign a new “Pledge for Shared Prosperity,” an anti-poverty initiative that commits local governments to help connect residents with cash aid, tax credits and benefit programs as eligibility rules tighten.

The pledge sets concrete targets: enrolling 10,000 more families in CalWORKs (California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids), the state’s main cash-assistance program; increasing the money families receive through the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit by 10 percent; and keeping residents enrolled in the food-assistance program CalFresh and in Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid coverage.

Cities that sign on will receive outreach resources, an implementation guide and access to the County’s newly launched State of Poverty Dashboard to track results. Some may also qualify for microgrants to fund outreach with community health workers and grassroots organizations.

The initiative comes as federal and state benefit rules tighten. Since June 1, 2026, about 260,000 Los Angeles County CalFresh recipients have been subject to new work requirements.