Friday, April 25, 2025

Union-Made Documentary on January’s Wildfires Available on YouTube and Website

By CITY NEWS SERVICE and EDDIE RIVERA, Pasadena Now

A documentary on the Eaton and Palisades fires from the perspective of firefighters and law enforcement, spotlighting never-before-seen footage, is available on YouTube Friday and at https://www.lacofirstresponders.com/.

Representatives from the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, Los Angeles County Firefighters local 1014, and the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Association held a press conference at Triangle Park in Altadena Thursday to announce the release of “Resilience: The Untold Stories of LA County First Responders,” which was produced by unions representing Los Angeles County Fire Department firefighters, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies and county lifeguards.

“People in the county of Los Angeles see what we do for them on sunny days, but this footage, this story, shows a different side of our work that the public rarely sees,” said Greg Crum, president of the Los Angeles County Lifeguard Association.

The nearly 35-minute documentary combines footage from body-worn cameras,

Friday, April 25, 2025

Former Pasadena High Coach Takes Helm at Scandal-Plagued Narbonne Football Program

Doug Bledsoe returns to City Section roots as Narbonne faces three-year postseason ban

Former Pasadena High School football coach Doug Bledsoe has accepted the challenging position of head coach at Narbonne High School, which was recently banned from postseason play for three years following rules violations, City News Service reported.

Narbonne High School’s football team has been barred from CIF City Section postseason play until 2028 and forced to forfeit its 2024 City Section Open Division championship after an investigation revealed the program violated City Section and Los Angeles Unified School District bylaws, according to CNS.

The entire Narbonne athletic department was placed on probation from Wednesday through 2028 after the CIF City Section investigation found that the school had violated two bylaws: providing inaccurate information about student-athletes and making contact with potential student-athletes before they enrolled.

The violations involved seven ineligible players participating in 14 football games in 2024, including the City Section Open Division championship game where Narbonne defeated San Pedro 75-31,

Friday, April 25, 2025

Metro Board Approves Survey To Improve Transit For Riders With Developmental Disabilities

Motion calls for community input to enhance transportation services by November 2025

The Los Angeles Metro Board of Directors has approved a motion to gather community input on how to improve transportation services for people with autism and other developmental disabilities.

The initiative, authored by Director Holly J. Mitchell and co-authored by Directors Katy Yaroslavsky, Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker, James Butts, Tim Sandoval, and Imelda Padilla, aims to identify short and long-term solutions and the respective funding required to make Metro’s system more accessible and responsive to the needs of neurodiverse riders.

“It’s important that we co-create the survey with trusted community organizations who work closely with our neurodiverse communities to ensure we capture feedback that reflects lived experiences and leads to meaningful improvements on our transit system,” said Holly J. Mitchell, Metro Board Director and Los Angeles County Supervisor, Second District.

The survey will be developed in partnership with key stakeholder groups that directly represent and help serve residents with autism and other developmental disabilities,

Friday, April 25, 2025

County Officials Outline Rebuilding Support and Permit Process at Altadena Community Meeting

By ANDRÈ COLEMAN, Managing Editor

With more than 300 rebuilding applications already submitted following the devastating Eaton Fire, Los Angeles County officials on Monday reassured Altadena residents that resources are in place to streamline the recovery and rebuilding process.

Amy Bodak, Director of Regional Planning, and Kira Barnett, Assistant Deputy Director with the Department of Public Works, co-chaired a special task force presentation during a community meeting on Monday.

The pair emphasized that County agencies are committed to supporting residents at every stage of the rebuilding journey.

The County has developed a single streamlined permit application process.

Under that process, all of the required documents can be submitted at once. Each of the permitting departments will review the documents.

The Department of Regional Planning will conduct a zoning review of the application first, and zoning will ultimately confirm what can be built on the property.

Once property owners receive clearance and have full building plans,

Thursday, April 24, 2025

LA County Students Receive 300 Chromebooks as Part of Google and YouTube’s $15 Million Wildfire Recovery Initiative

By EDDIE RIVERA

Tech firms also support coding classes and workshop

“Even in the most difficult times, with the power of community — which is the power of us — we will not just rebuild, we will rise,” Pasadena Unified School District Board President Jennifer Hall Lee said Wednesday morning, as she addressed a crowd of students gathered at Pasadena High School.

The occasion was the donation of 300 new Google Chromebooks to students across LA impacted by January’s devastating wildfires — part of a broader $15 million education-focused recovery package from Google and YouTube to help rebuild communities across Los Angeles County.

According to a Google spokesperson, $3 million in education-related funding included the Chromebooks, as well as a back-to-school matching campaign through donorschoose.org, designed to ensure teachers in wildfire-affected schools have the essential resources and supplies to rebuild their classrooms.

The donation, facilitated in partnership with the Los Angeles Education Foundation,

Thursday, April 24, 2025

All Altadena Land Owners Impacted by Eaton Fire Have Turned in Right of Entry Forms

By ANDRÈ COLEMAN, Managing Editor

Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said at a meeting on Tuesday that every property owner in Altadena impacted by the Eaton Fire has filled out the required Right of Entry forms.

“All property owners have now notified the county of their removal plans,” Barger said at Monday’s meeting. “This is a significant milestone that reflects the commitment and the determination of the Altadena community to rebuild and begin to move forward.”

According to the County’s website, of the 12,048 parcels eligible for cleanup by the Army Corps of Engineers, 10,445 have opted in for cleanup.

Homeowners were required to submit the forms even if they were not using the army to clean up wildfire debris on their property.

The final day to register was April 15. Pasadena Now reported earlier this month that the Army Corps of Engineers would clear debris left behind by property owners that did not fill out the forms.

Thursday, April 24, 2025

County Supervisors to Vote on $4 Billion Settlement, Urgent Fire Debris Removal

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will consider a historic $4 billion (plus administrative costs) settlement for childhood sexual abuse claims and take action on urgent fire debris removal measures during their public hearing meeting Tuesday, April 29, at 9:30 a.m. in Board Hearing Room 381B at Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration.

The settlement recommendation, listed as item 11 on the agenda, would resolve approximately 6,800 cases alleging childhood sexual abuse against several County departments, including Probation, Children and Family Services, Parks and Recreation, Health Services, Sheriff’s and Fire departments.

A recommendation submitted by Supervisors Lindsey P. Horvath (Third District) and Kathryn Barger (Chair, Fifth District) seeks adoption of an urgency ordinance to address uncleared fire properties. The Board is asked to “Find that, as reflected in the County Health Officer’s order, dated January 15, 2025, as subsequently amended, uncontained fire ash and debris on residential properties impacted by the January 2025 Fires constitutes a present health hazard, which requires speedy nuisance abatement to address this emergency situation.”

Thursday, April 24, 2025

Silver Jubilee Brunch To Raise Funds for Troop 1 Scouts Affected by Eaton Fire

Will pay tribute to women supporting Eagle Scouts

The twenty-fifth annual Silver Jubilee Women of Eagle Scouts Brunch, themed “Wind Under Their Wings,” will celebrate the mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and aunts who have guided young men and women on their road to earning the rank of Eagle Scout. The event will take place on Saturday, May 17, 2025, at a private location in Pasadena, with a portion of proceeds benefiting scouts in Troop 1 affected by the recent Eaton Fire.

“The committee welcomes the community to attend and honor the Women Behind the Eagle Scouts,” said the organizing committee, led by Co-Chairs Vicki Elliott of San Marino and Suko Gutoh of Glendale.

The celebration will begin with a hosted reception at 10:30 a.m., where local Boy Scouts will greet guests. The brunch and program will follow at 11:15 a.m., featuring Scouts from troops throughout the San Gabriel Valley leading the pledge of allegiance. The event will conclude at 1:30 p.m.

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Given Its Failures, Can California Manage A Transition To A Carbon-Free Future?

By Dan Walters, CALMATTERS

It’s become painfully obvious in recent years that California officialdom lacks the ability to plan and deliver major projects.

While examples abound, the state’s woebegone bullet train project, its tortuous efforts to implement information technology and the financial and managerial meltdown of its unemployment insurance program are among the most egregious.

Given that sorry record, why should we believe the state’s plans to completely overhaul California’s economy by eliminating hydrocarbon-based energy will be any more successful?

Over the next 20 years, California wants to replace nearly 30 million gasoline and diesel-powered cars and light trucks with those using batteries or hydrogen. Simultaneously California is supposed to wean itself from natural-gas-fired electric power generation and increase power output, to recharge many millions of car batteries and service houses and commercial buildings that will no longer use gas.

The mileposts on the road to a carbon-free California are beginning to appear,

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

In Polarized Times, Pasadena Literary Festival Turns to Books That Build Character

Southern California’s diverse literary festival offers healing through literature amid political division and wildfire recovery

As the Pasadena community navigates the aftermath of November’s divisive presidential election and recovers from recent wildfires, LitFest in the Dena returns May 2-3 with a timely theme: “Books That Teach Us About Character,” bringing together 150 authors to explore how literature shapes moral values and community resilience.

The free two-day event, held at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, represents a deliberate response to current political tensions and community challenges.

“We decided to put integrity at the forefront of our event because it’s something that is on everyone’s mind,” said Natalie Lydick, Project Development at Light Bringer Project, the nonprofit organization that presents the festival.

This year’s venue change from Mountain View Mausoleum to Pasadena Presbyterian Church was necessitated by ongoing fire recovery efforts in the region. The festival will feature special programming addressing the wildfires, including panels on “Poetry as Memory and Collective Processing”