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.

Thursday, March 5, 2026

Nineteen Pasadena Venues Open Free Friday for ArtNight’s Asian Arts Showcase

The biannual citywide cultural open house features Japanese basketry, taiko drumming, and a pan-Asian mythology exhibition among its broadest lineup

Nineteen cultural institutions across Pasadena will swing open their doors Friday evening for ArtNight Pasadena, offering four hours of free admission to an eclectic program that threads Japanese bamboo art, taiko drumming, and pan-Asian mythology through a lineup spanning jazz, student exhibitions, and community mural-making.

The spring 2026 edition of the city’s signature biannual open house, scheduled for March 13 from 6 to 10 p.m., connects museums, galleries, and neighborhood arts centers on four free shuttle routes. Several of this season’s exhibitions anchor the evening’s prominent Asian arts programming — an emphasis the City of Pasadena’s press release frames around the Year of the Horse celebration.

At the Gamble House, visitors will walk through “From Strand to Sculpture: Contemporary Japanese Basketry,” an exhibition of bamboo art on loan from the collections of Carl and Marilynn Thoma and the Thoma Foundation.

Thursday, March 5, 2026

Economic Uncertainty Deepens as Iran Conflict and Tariffs Pressure Housing

By EDDIE RIVERA

Rising mortgage rates and geopolitical tensions cloud outlook for California real estate

Renewed geopolitical tensions involving Iran, along with persistent and confusing tariff-related issues, all from the current administration, are injecting fresh volatility into financial markets and threatening to slow the U.S. economy, economists say—developments already rippling through the housing sector as mortgage rates climb again.

Mortgage rates have moved back above 6% in early March after briefly dipping below that level in late February, a shift tied to rising Treasury yields, as investors look at inflation risks linked to both global energy markets and trade policy. That movement has now interrupted a modest improvement in housing affordability earlier this year.

“The housing market remains extremely sensitive to mortgage-rate swings,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors. “Even a small increase in rates can sideline potential buyers, particularly in high-cost states like California.”

The rate volatility arrives as financial markets digest the potential economic consequences of a widening Middle East conflict.

Wednesday, March 4, 2026

Leadership Pasadena Cohort Collects Recipes Lost in the Eaton Fire for Community Cookbook

The 2026 class invites residents to submit dishes and reflections for a printed volume honoring the area’s food culture

A group of community leaders enrolled in Leadership Pasadena’s 2026 program is asking Eaton Fire survivors to share recipes and short personal stories for a community cookbook that the cohort plans to print and distribute for free to contributors.

The project is one of the community impact efforts undertaken by this year’s Leadership Pasadena cohort, a class of local professionals who complete civic service projects as part of the six-month leadership program. The cohort is inviting residents to submit a meaningful dish along with a brief reflection about what the recipe represents, according to the group.

Among the losses during the Eaton Fire were personal belongings that no insurance check can replace — including handwritten recipe cards, annotated cookbooks and the culinary records families had built over generations.

The cohort says many neighbors lost those recipe collections in the fire. The organizers say the cookbook project is intended to rebuild a shared record of the region’s food traditions while giving contributors a way to tell their own stories through the dishes they prepare.

Wednesday, March 4, 2026

Four Men Accused of Looting Altadena Home During Eaton Fire Face Pretrial Hearing

Defendants charged with stealing property, including an Emmy Award, from an evacuated residence are due in Pasadena Courthouse on Wednesday

Four men charged with burglarizing an evacuated Altadena home during the Eaton Fire are scheduled to appear Wednesday for a pretrial hearing at Pasadena Courthouse, nearly 14 months after the alleged crime.

Roy Sims, Ryan Sims, Naquan Dewey Reddix, and Pierie Obannon face one count each of first-degree residential burglary in Case 25PDCF00019, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. The hearing is set for 8:30 a.m. in Department B of the Pasadena Courthouse, 300 E. Walnut St.

Prosecutors allege the four men entered a home in Altadena at approximately 5 p.m. on January 8, 2025, while the area was under mandatory evacuation during the Eaton Fire, and stole property, including an Emmy Award belonging to the resident. The Emmy Award was later recovered by law enforcement.

The defendants were arrested on January 8, 2025, and charged two days later.