Friday, August 7, 2026

State Ties $11.8 Million Grant to Hearing on Pasadena Unified Enrollment Decline, Closures

The Pasadena Unified School District will receive about $11.8 million in one-time state money that requires the district to hold a public hearing on how it will address declining enrollment, including school closures and consolidations, the district’s chief business officer told the Board of Education on Thursday.

The disclosure came in the district’s 45-day budget revision, an update to the adopted budget that districts must make available for public review within 45 days of the governor signing the annual Budget Act.

Two conditions attach to the money.

The first requires districts in declining enrollment, or projected to be within five years, to hold a public hearing on plans to address the impact, including school closures or consolidation. Pasadena Unified falls within that category, Arik Avanesyans said. The law does not specify when the hearing must occur.

The second condition bars districts from charging employees fees for professional services, including induction and professional development costs. The district is awaiting a frequently asked questions document from the state to determine whether that applies only to programs a district operates or also to outside programs employees enroll in,

Friday, August 7, 2026

Band-Aid, Not A Cure: Federal Colorado River Plan Leaves States Guessing Every Two Years

By Rachel Becker, CALMATTERS

Dire water conditions, missed deadlines and uncertainty on the Colorado River are complicating critical water decisions in California.

No single state, water agency or federal official has shown the power, or the will, to break the deadlock among Colorado River basin states over how to share the dwindling supplies.

Years of fraught negotiations have failed to yield consensus even as major reservoir storage plummets to record lows — ratcheting up the tensions, and the stakes, for the states’ negotiators.

Now, key agreements for managing the river are expiring at the end of this year. These include agreements reached in 2007 that lasted nearly two decades, which took fewer than three years to craft.

This round of talks has already taken longer — and, so far, produced nothing so durable.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the federal steward for the river under the Department of the Interior, last week released a 10-year framework that establishes rough parameters for managing the river,

Friday, August 7, 2026

City Fire Crews Deploy to Wildfires Burning in Three States

Local personnel are working two of the West’s most destructive current incidents under a mutual aid pact signed in 1950

Pasadena firefighters have spent the past several weeks working wildfires in three states, including two of the most destructive incidents burning in the West, as the region moves into the heart of its fire season.

Pasadena Fire Department personnel have been assigned to major incidents across California, Oregon and Washington, according to Fire Chief Chad Augustin. Water Tender 34 spent four days on the Summit Incident, and a fire engineer served seven days on the Biscar Incident as a fireline paramedic. A captain worked the Fox Incident as a medical unit leader before being reassigned to the Old Trails Fire in Spokane. A firefighter deployed to the Grasshopper Incident as a comp claim unit leader, and another was sent to the Gann Incident in Calaveras County.

Those last two assignments put Pasadena crews on fires that have destroyed hundreds of buildings.

Friday, August 7, 2026

A Road Comedy Once Titled ‘Route 66′ Reaches Colorado Boulevard

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis made their last film together in 1956; the Norton Simon shows it Saturday in a four-film series marking the highway’s centennial

The 1956 road comedy screening at the Norton Simon Museum on Saturday, August 8, was very nearly called Route 66.

It reached theaters as Hollywood or Bust, but Route 66 was its working title, according to Turner Classic Movies. The picture is the second of four in On Route 66, a series the museum scheduled across August to mark the highway’s 100th year. The screenings happen at 411 West Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, the street that carries Route 66 through the city, according to Visit Pasadena, the city’s convention and visitors bureau.

Frank Tashlin directed. Dean Martin plays Steve Wiley, a gambler on the run from a debt, and Jerry Lewis plays Malcolm Smith, a film fanatic trying to meet the actress Anita Ekberg. They drive to California with Smith’s Great Dane,

Friday, August 7, 2026

Head in the Clouds Trades Its Weekend at Brookside for a Single Saturday

KATSEYE tops an 11-act bill on August 8, in a fiscal year when the Rose Bowl expects eight music festival dates in the Arroyo

Head in the Clouds took two days off the Brookside golf course last year and drew more than 75,000 people, according to published reports. This Saturday it takes one.

Head in the Clouds: LA 2026, the music and arts festival produced by 88rising and Goldenvoice, returns to Brookside at the Rose Bowl on Saturday, August 8, in a one-day format, with KATSEYE headlining a bill of Asian and Asian-diaspora artists. For Pasadena, the arithmetic of that day is set by ordinance. Under Chapter 3.32 of the Municipal Code, the Arroyo Seco Public Lands Ordinance, each festival day counts as one “displacement event” — any gathering of 20,000 or more, large enough that parking for it pushes ordinary recreation out of the Central Arroyo.

The city permits 25 such events in a fiscal year without additional City Council findings.

Thursday, August 6, 2026

County Health Alerts Will Reach Altadena Doctors Through an AI Search Tool

Los Angeles County is routing its guidance into a clinical platform that NBC News reports nearly two-thirds of U.S. physicians use; Pasadena maintains a separate health jurisdiction

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health will begin surfacing county health alerts and links to local public health resources for physicians who use OpenEvidence, an AI-powered clinical decision support platform, under a collaboration the department and the company announced July 23.

Under the arrangement, when a physician in Los Angeles County Public Health Dept.’s jurisdiction searches the platform on selected public health topics, OpenEvidence will display county messages linking to local resources and alerts on reportable diseases, outbreaks and other time-sensitive public health issues, according to the announcement, which the two parties distributed as a press release.

In Altadena and Sierra Madre, the county department is the controlling local health authority — the agency that issues disease alerts and receives reportable-condition notices from clinicians.

Pasadena is somewhat different; although it is located in LA County,

Thursday, August 6, 2026

Pasadena Unified Enrollment Decline Will Continue, Consultant Report Says

Pasadena Unified School District’s TK-12 enrollment, including charter schools, has fallen 38% from its 2000 peak, driven by declining birth rates.

The District’s non-charter enrollment is down 44% since 2000, according to an enrollment forecast progress report from demographic consultant NDC to be presented to the Pasadea Board of Education Thursday night.

The report also found a high private-school share and few students in recently constructed housing, and noted the District loses students as they progress through the grades because families leave the area.

The elementary grades have absorbed the sharpest drop. Elementary enrollment plummeted 49%, from 12,199 students in 1999 to 6,173 in 2025. Kindergarten enrollment fell 56%, from 2,062 students in 1996 to 914 in 2025.

High schools have not yet experienced the full decline, according to the report. High school enrollment dropped 35%, from 6,414 students in 2004 to 4,193 in 2025.

NDC listed future housing scenarios, Eaton Fire recovery scenarios, and resulting enrollment forecasts as next steps.

Thursday, August 6, 2026

Local Lawmaker Convenes Assembly’s First California–Armenia Committee

Armenia’s consul general in Los Angeles delivered remarks at Wednesday’s opening hearing in Sacramento

Armenians have been opening businesses in Pasadena since about 1900 (possibly earlier.) On Wednesday afternoon, a Pasadena lawmaker convened the California State Assembly’s first committee devoted to the state’s ties with Armenia.

The Select Committee on California and Armenia Mutual Trade, Art, and Cultural Exchange held its inaugural hearing at 1:30 p.m. in Room 444 of the State Capitol, chaired by Assemblymember John Harabedian, a Democrat whose 41st District takes in Pasadena and the unincorporated community of Altadena.

Anna Avetisyan, Consul General of the Republic of Armenia in Los Angeles, delivered remarks underscoring the importance of strengthening the partnership between California and Armenia and highlighting the opportunities the committee can help create, Harabedian’s office said in a press release issued the same day.

The agenda announced for the session set two panels, one on California–Armenia international relations and trade and a second on economic and business insights.

Thursday, August 6, 2026

Pasadena School Board to Hear Post-Eaton Fire Enrollment Forecast, Budget Revision on Thursday

Board also faces eight closed-session litigation matters and a consent agenda heavy with rebuild contracts

The Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education meets Thursday to receive a demographic report that weighs the continuing effects of the Eaton Fire on future enrollment projections, along with a revision to the district’s 2026-27 budget reflecting changes in state funding.

The board convenes at 5 p.m. for public comment on closed-session items and recesses to closed session at 5:15 p.m. The open meeting is called to order at 6:30 p.m. in the Elbie J. Hickambottom Board Room #236 at 351 S. Hudson Ave., beginning with the Pledge of Allegiance. All times listed on the agenda are approximate.

The first of two presentations is a preliminary demographic report. The board will receive an update on the district’s enrollment forecast covering demographic and enrollment trends, birth rates, student mobility, housing development and transfer patterns, as well as the ongoing impacts of the Eaton Fire on future enrollment projections,

Thursday, August 6, 2026

Guest Opinion | Calmatters’ Dan Walters: California’s Catch-22: Who Should Pay When Utilities’ Power Lines Cause Wildfires?

By Dan Walters, CALMATTERS

The timing could not have been better — or worse.

The findings from a long-awaited investigation into the origins of a deadly Southern California wildfire were released Tuesday, pinning it on an electrical arc from a Southern California Edison transmission tower.

Simultaneously, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration was asking legislators to limit the financial liability of SoCal Edison and other investor-owned utilities when their equipment ignites wildfires, which have become an inescapable fact of Californians’ lives.

The report dealt with the Eaton Fire, one of several that swept through the Los Angeles area in January 2025, driven by hot winter winds known as Santa Anas. Once ignited, it quickly engulfed communities in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, particularly Altadena, charring more than 14,000 acres, destroying more than 9,000 homes and other buildings and claiming at least 19 lives. It took firefighters 24 days to fully extinguish it.

“After 18 months of thorough review of all evidence,