Thursday, May 1, 2025

Seniors Rally for Safety Improvements at Altadena Apartment Complex, Recount Harrowing Eaton Fire Evacuation

Residents claim they were left without assistance during the emergency, now live in unsafe conditions, and seek accountability from management

Elderly residents of the Mirador Apartments in West Altadena held a rally Tuesday to voice concerns about their evacuation experience during the recent Eaton Fire, claiming they were left without proper assistance.

Several seniors at the gathering alleged they were forced to navigate the evacuation without functioning elevators or accessibility features when the building lost power during the fire, reportedly leaving them trapped on upper floors in complete darkness engulfed in thick smoke.

Niobe Recasens, 87, a Mirador resident, described her evacuation attempt during the rally.

“I fell down the stairs and hit between my shoulder blades and the pain was so severe. I thought I broke my spine,” Recasens said. “People were running by and screaming and I kept saying, ‘Don’t leave me, don’t leave me!'”

According to residents, some called emergency services as the fire approached but were told that West Altadena wasn’t in a mandatory evacuation zone and would have to wait for assistance.

Thursday, May 1, 2025

Guest Opinion | Suzanne York: It’s Time to Trade in Our Cynicism and Get Back to Work

By SUZANNE YORK

We live in a time when cynicism feels like a reasonable response. It’s easy to believe that nothing will change—that climate summits are just photo ops, that politicians will always chase donors over justice, that the powerful will never stop chasing more. But every once in a while, a voice cuts through the noise with uncommon clarity and moral courage. For me, Pope Francis has been that voice.

Since he became pope, Pope Francis has pushed the Catholic Church—and the world—to reckon with the brokenness of our systems. His 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’, still reads like a revelation. In it, he dares to say what too many leaders won’t: that we are failing both the planet and each other, and that the climate crisis is not just about science or economics—it is about morality. We cannot destroy creation and ignore the poor and then claim righteousness. We are all responsible.

But Francis didn’t stop with the environment.

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

SoCal Edison Commits to Undergrounding 63 Circuit Miles in Altadena

Power company’s “build back better” initiative aims to improve infrastructure resilience following devastating Eaton fire

Southern California Edison announced plans to underground 40 circuit miles of power lines in Altadena’s high wildfire risk areas and an additional 23 circuit miles outside those zones. The announcement came during the Altadena Community Meeting held on Monday, April 28, part of ongoing recovery efforts following the Eaton fire.

“We just announced that we will be undergrounding 40 circuit miles in Altadena in a high wildfire area, an additional 23 miles of circuit miles outside of the high wildfire area,” said David Ford, a Southern California Edison representative at the meeting.

The undergrounding project is still in the design phase and moving toward implementation. Ford acknowledged the timeline for completion would be extensive due to the massive spread of the fire throughout the community.

“We’re still a long ways out from actually completing that project. It’s going to take a while to complete.

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

When California Politicians Ignore Policy Risks, Failure and Scandal Often Result

By Dan Walters, CALMATTERS

California’s governors and legislators have a very bad habit of enacting major programs and projects without fully exploring their downside risks.

The most spectacular example occurred in 1996, when a Republican governor, Pete Wilson, and a Democrat-controlled Legislature decided to overhaul California’s electric power industry.

The legislation was hammered out in lengthy and secret negotiations that participants dubbed the “Steve Peace death march” for the state senator who ramrodded the effort. It was enacted with only cursory public input.

As a 2003 autopsy of the ensuing disaster chronicled, “The act was hailed as a historic reform that would reward consumers with lower prices, reinvigorate California’s then-flagging economy, and provide a model for other states. Six years later, the reforms lay in ruins, overwhelmed by electricity shortages and skyrocketing prices for wholesale power. The utilities were pushed to the brink of insolvency and are only slowly regaining their financial footing. The state became the buyer of last resort,

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

LA County Workers to Wrap Up 48-Hour Strike Tonight

CITY NEWS SERVICE

Tens of thousands of Los Angeles County workers will wrap up a 48-hour work stoppage Wednesday evening, remaining off the job for another day following a massive rally in downtown L.A. that snarled traffic and saw 14 arrests.

More than 55,000 members of Service Employees International Union Local 721 — including public works employees, public and mental health professionals, social workers and parks and recreation personnel — went on strike at 7 p.m. Monday, accusing the county of failing to fairly negotiate a new contract, an accusation the county denies.

On Tuesday morning, the union bused members from various work sites to a rally that began outside the Hall of Administration at 500 W. Temple St. “to send the Board of Supervisors a powerful message: We won’t back down!” The Board of Supervisors was meeting inside the building Tuesday morning.

Union members, most wearing purple shirts and many waving signs, marched on Temple Street, which was closed to traffic in the area to accommodate the action.

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

County Approves Ordinance Mandating Fire Debris Removal

STAFF REPORT

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance on Tuesday mandating the cleanup of fire debris and ash on properties belonging to owners who opted out of the Army Corps of Engineers debris removal program and have not hired a licensed contractor to perform the work.

One hundred percent of property owners in Altadena have turned in the required Right of Entry (ROE) forms. The form is required if property owners are allowing the army to clean their property.

However, some property owners used the form to notify the County that they would have the work done themselves. A Fire Debris Removal Permit is required in those cases, and those residents are required to pay the removal costs.

The removal work must be completed by June 30.

About 10% of impacted property owners in Altadena and the Palisades opted out of the two-phased program.

“There are some property owners who either never decided on how to have their property cleared or who opted out but have not made any effort to have their property cleared,”

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Altadena Library to Host Second Land Trust Forum for Community Development

Panel of experts to share experiences on community land acquisition in ongoing series

The Altadena Library will host “The Value of the Land Part 2″ on Tuesday, April 29 from 5:30-8 p.m., continuing a community conversation about land trusts with practitioners from across Los Angeles.

The event aims to explore the complex journey of acquiring land for community ownership as part of the “Let’s Talk, Let’s Listen” Community Series organized by local organizations including Pasadenans Organizing for Progress, Pasadena Community Job Center, and Clergy Community Coalition.

“The goal of this community land trust is really to acquire and preserve some of the affordability,” said Paul Yelder, a panelist and resident of Crenshaw District and former executive director of Boston’s Dudley Neighbors Incorporated, when speaking about community land trusts in a 2022 article about housing justice in Los Angeles.

The panel will feature four experts actively involved in community land trust work: Oscar Monge (Interim Executive Director of T.R.U.S.T.

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Altadena Rebuilding Begins on Palm Street

By EDDIE RIVERA, with CITY NEWS SERVICE

Altadena resident breaks ground on her new home after Eaton Fire

Nearly four months after the devastating Eaton Fire swept through the hills of Altadena reducing entire neighborhoods to ash, Margot Steuber stood on her cleared lot on Palm Street Monday morning to mark a hopeful milestone: the groundbreaking of what may be the first home to begin reconstruction in the burn zone.

She stood on the cleared ground as bulldozers idled in the background, and then, alongside LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, friends, neighbors, and FEMA representatives, she cut the ribbon on her new future.

“The journey was painful,” Steuber said, recalling the night of the fire. “My friend Mark and I made it through that terrible night, checking in every half hour. He helped me pack my car. The next morning, he was the one who told me: everything on Palm had burned.”

Steuber lived in a modest home on West Palm Street for 18 years in an area known by locals as “Janes Village”

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Caltech Scientists to Discuss Post-Fire Air Quality in Online Event

Researchers to share data on pollution levels and health impacts following 2025 Los Angeles wildfires

Caltech in Pasadena will host an online discussion about air quality and health concerns following the recent Los Angeles fires.

The free webinar, “Conversations After the Fires: Air Quality and Health,” will take place Friday, May 2, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Scientists from Caltech, JPL and other institutions will share findings from their research on air pollution after the 2025 Los Angeles fires. These researchers began collecting and analyzing data immediately when the fires broke out.

Caltech graduate student Haroula Baliaka, who leads two air quality monitoring networks, will join the panel discussion. She studies elevated particulate levels in Los Angeles despite decades of air quality regulations.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Sina Hasheminassab will participate, bringing expertise from his work with NASA’s Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols satellite mission.

The event also features Lea Hildebrandt Ruiz, associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin,

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

LA County to Consider Ordinance Mandating Fire Debris Removal

By ANUSHA SHANKAR, City News Service

The county Board of Supervisors Tuesday will consider approving an ordinance to allow for fire debris cleanup at properties where owners failed to opt in for the government-sponsored program and have not hired a licensed contractor to perform the work.

Property owners impacted by the January wildfires were given the chance to opt in for a free U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fire debris removal program by filing “Right of Entry” forms, which were due on April 15.

Residents who opted out of the program or failed to submit the ROE forms before the deadline must hire private contractors to perform the work after obtaining a Fire Debris Removal Permit from the county. Those residents are then responsible for paying the removal costs. The removal work must be completed by June 30.

Approximately 10% of property owners impacted by the fires opted out of the free debris-removal program, according to a motion by Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Kathryn Barger.