Sunday, August 30, 2026

California Lawmakers Strike Wildfire Deal That Leaves Out Most of Newsom’s Big Demands

By Jeanne Kuang and Levi Sumagaysay, CALMATTERS

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday backed off his proposal to reduce costs for electrical utilities after their equipment sparks wildfires, agreeing instead to a narrower deal after homeowners, insurers and fire survivors argued his original plan would have shifted those costs onto them.

Instead, Newsom and Senate and Assembly leaders agreed on a narrower package of wildfire policies, including prohibiting private equity groups from investing in wildfire claims and denying utility CEO bonuses in the years their companies cause fatal fires.

The deal is a victory for lawmakers who refused to reduce damages to victims and shift costs away from utilities. Opponents included insurance companies, consumer advocates and survivors of the January 2025 Eaton Fire caused by Southern California Edison equipment that killed 19 people in Altadena.

Under the agreement announced Saturday, the state would create a “fast-pay” program for survivors’ property loss, pain and suffering in the wake of a utility-caused fire.

Saturday, August 29, 2026

Eaton Fire Survivors Await Sacramento Deal as Newsom’s Subrogation Push Falters

Legislative leaders have refused the governor’s terms on insurance recovery from utilities, and the session ends Monday with no published bill text

Gov. Gavin Newsom and Senate Democrats entered the final weekend of the legislative session without an agreement on wildfire liability, after the governor’s push to eliminate insurance subrogation collapsed in a late-Thursday-night closed-door meeting.

The stakes are local in Altadena and Pasadena, where state and Los Angeles fire investigators found that Southern California Edison’s equipment — a decades-old decommissioned transmission tower — was responsible for igniting the blaze.

Subrogation is the legal right of insurance companies that pay homeowners’ claims after a utility-caused fire to recoup a portion of those costs, typically 40 to 60%, from the responsible utility.

Newsom’s stymied package sought to limit or eliminate it as part of a broader effort to reduce the liability of California’s three investor-owned utilities: Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

Saturday, August 29, 2026

Pasadena-Based Immigrant Rights Group Among Organizers of ‘La Defensa del Pueblo’ Summit

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network, headquartered on South Arroyo Parkway, is one of four groups announcing a Sept. 6 summit. State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, D-Pasadena, is among the scheduled speakers.

National Day Laborer Organizing Network, or NDLON, which is headquartered in Pasadena, is one of four organizations announcing a Sept. 6 summit in response to what organizers call the Trump administration’s attacks on grassroots groups.

Organizers plan to announce details of the summit Tuesday, Sept. in Los Angeles, according to the core host, Ventura County Defensa. The other organizations hosting the summit are 50501 SoCal and United Teachers Los Angeles.

NDLON is a national nonprofit network that organizes and advocates for day laborers, other migrant workers and low-wage workers, and it lists staff positions at the Pasadena Community Job Center. Its work includes worker-center development, wage-theft and workplace-rights campaigns, leadership training, and advocacy on labor, civil and immigrant-rights issues.

VC Defensa, a volunteer-based immigrant rights organization in Ventura County,

Friday, August 28, 2026

Reducing Drug Penalties Likely Increased Homelessness In California, New Report Says

By Marisa Kendall, CALMATTERS

When Californians voted to reduce drug penalties in 2014, it likely had the unintended consequence of also increasing homelessness in the state, according to a new report.

The report, released Thursday by the Public Policy Institute of California, set out to measure the long-term effects of Proposition 47 – a 2014 ballot measure that lowered some drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. It found that while the measure succeeded in reducing prison overcrowding as intended, it also appears to have contributed to an increase in people living on the street, a rise in overdoses and a drop in the number of people getting drug treatment.

The PPIC researchers determined Prop. 47 likely led to an estimated increase in street homelessness of about 10% between 2015 and 2019. The study suggests the measure increased drug use (as measured by overdose deaths and hospitalizations) by between 7% and 8%. The researchers also found evidence that Prop.

Friday, August 28, 2026

Rose Bowl Game Tickets Go on Sale Wednesday

The Pasadena Tournament of Roses opens its public ticket sale for the 113th Rose Bowl Game at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

Tickets are sold online through Ticketmaster, with a maximum of four per person.

Individual seats start at $202.90 including fees.

The game will match one of the four highest-seeded teams against the winner of a first-round game and will kick off at either 1 p.m. or 5 p.m., the association said in a news release Thursday announcing the sale.

The association also renewed its partnership with On Location as the official hospitality and corporate travel package provider. Each package includes a Rose Bowl Game ticket, and buyers can add reserved Rose Parade seats, pre-game hospitality at what the association calls the Official Rose Bowl Hospitality Village and meet-and-greets with NCAA legends, the association said.

A separate sale reserved for Pasadena residents will open later in the year, the association said.

The game follows the 138th Rose Parade on Friday,

Friday, August 28, 2026

Rutberg Gallery Extends Pasadena Art-History Survey Through September

Jack Rutberg Fine Arts has extended “Pasadena: L.A.’s Art Legacy,” its survey of the city’s part in the rise of the Los Angeles art scene, through Wednesday, Sept. 30, a month past the Saturday closing date the gallery originally had set.

The gallery announced that publication of the exhibition’s catalogue, “A Hidden Story Revealed – Pasadena: L.A.’s Art Legacy,” prompted the extension, adding 32 days. The catalogue runs 176 pages, with 78 illustrations, essays and an eight-page graphic timeline, the gallery said. Printed copies will be available in the coming days, and a digital preview is posted online.

The exhibition, which opened June 7, gathers 70 paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures by nearly 60 artists, from the gallery’s holdings and all for sale, the gallery said. Each work carries a label noting its provenance and the year a museum presented the artist.

Among them are Hans Burkhardt’s 1948 oil “Pasadena Bridge,” depicting the Colorado Street Bridge, and Fantin-Latour’s recently rediscovered 1887 oil “Bouquet of Flowers,”

Friday, August 28, 2026

Safety Gear and Bottled Water Headed to Altadena’s Rebuild Workers Saturday

Community members will gather at a Pasadena day labor center at 8 a.m. before continuing the action in Altadena, organizers say

Community members and immigrant worker advocates plan to gather at a Pasadena day labor center Saturday morning to bring water and protective equipment to immigrant workers rebuilding Altadena, in what organizers describe as the continuation of a human chain of solidarity with them.

The action will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, at the Pasadena Community Job Center, 500 N. Lake Ave., and continues in Altadena, according to an announcement from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Participants will distribute water and personal protective equipment and create what the network calls a space of solidarity, music and support. Los Jornaleros del Norte, a band whose members are largely current and former day laborers, is listed among the participants, along with immigrant workers rebuilding Altadena, community members and allies, and immigrant worker advocates.

“As Altadena continues to rebuild, immigrant workers are doing essential work to restore homes and communities,”

Friday, August 28, 2026

Getty Curator to Examine Degas Monotypes at Norton Simon Saturday

A curator from the J. Paul Getty Museum will examine Edgar Degas’s experiments in monotype at the Norton Simon Museum on Saturday, in a free hourlong talk built around the Pasadena museum’s own holdings in the medium.

“The Artist at Play: Degas and Monotype,” by Danielle Canter, assistant curator in the Getty’s Department of Drawings, runs from 5 to 6 p.m. in the museum’s theater. The Norton Simon holds more than 100 works by Degas, a group the museum calls the second-largest assembled by a single collector, after the Havemeyer collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Monotype yields a single impression. Degas encountered it in the 1870s, and it let him blur the boundaries between mediums as he worked with ink, paint and pastel, the museum says. He had come to it as a draftsman, trained under a disciple of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, whose advice, the museum recounts, was: “Draw lines, young man. Many lines.”

The museum’s Degas monotypes include “Squall in the Mountains”

Thursday, August 27, 2026

Supervisors to Take Up Eaton Fire Fraud Crackdown, Altadena Recovery Items Tuesday

Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday will consider ordering a countywide task force to curb contractor fraud and scams targeting Eaton Fire survivors, an effort the motion would fold into the Altadena One-Stop Permitting Center, part of an agenda of 96 numbered items carrying several decisions with direct consequences for the unincorporated community.

The motion, submitted by Supervisor Kathryn Barger, whose 5th District includes Altadena, would instruct the director of the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs to build upon and strengthen existing county consumer protection and wildfire recovery efforts, in collaboration with the district attorney, County Counsel, the director of the Department of Public Works and other relevant county departments, and in consultation with outside partners such as the state Contractors State License Board. The task force would be convened within 30 days.

Within 45 days, the department, working with the Office of Countywide Communications, would implement an expanded consumer awareness campaign delivering centralized information through the Recovery LA website at https://recovery.lacounty.gov and developing materials on verifying contractor licenses,

Thursday, August 27, 2026

PUSD Board to Consider 30% Shade Goal for Student Areas Thursday

The Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education will consider a resolution Thursday, Aug. 27, that would set a goal of covering 30% of the outdoor areas designated for student learning, play and circulation with mature tree canopy by 2035.

Resolution No. 2901 would establish a “long range goal” to preserve the district’s existing canopy and work toward 30% through phased implementation. It carries no appropriation. District school sites range between 8% and 15% coverage, according to a 2023 California Schoolyard Tree Canopy Equity study cited in the resolution, which also cites research that canopy reduces urban heat, improves air quality and supports student concentration and academic performance.

Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco or a designee would have six months to present a draft implementation plan and 12 months to bring a detailed plan to the seven-member board.

Pasadena Unified manages approximately 5,000 trees. Recent budget reductions have cut grounds staffing by approximately 50%, “affecting the District’s ability to maintain its existing tree inventory and any additional trees planted under this Resolution,”