Wednesday, July 22, 2026

Nineteen Months After Eaton Fire, County’s Altadena Parks Have Received Zero FEMA Dollars

County officials gave the Town Council a detailed accounting of a park recovery they now put above $240 million — paid for so far almost entirely by $64 million in private donations and grants

Nineteen months after the Eaton Fire, Los Angeles County’s Altadena parks have received no money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency toward a recovery officials now estimate will cost more than $240 million, county Parks and Recreation leaders told the Altadena Town Council on Tuesday.

But $64 million in donations and grants have flowed in for the parks’ recovery  — every dollar raised has come from philanthropy, grants and other non-federal funding sources, Parks Director Norma García-González and Deputy Director Chester Kano said.

The department received no additional staff or resources for the recovery, and a small amount of insurance money has served only as seed funding, Kano said.

“We have zero FEMA dollars,” Kano told the council, echoing García-González, who said the park system had absorbed more than $200 million in impact.

García-González said the county has rebuilt three of the six parks in the Altadena system and is fundraising for the remaining three.

Kano identified Loma Alta Park and Altadena Triangle Park as already reopened, with Charles White Park the next in line; a groundbreaking there is planned for September.

García-González said the county has stretched its money through volunteer labor and donated services. At Loma Alta Park, she said, roughly $3.4 million in funding was augmented by close to $5 million in donated “soft costs,” including work by more than 2,000 volunteers who planted trees and painted.

The county Board of Supervisors approved $700,000 for Altadena Trails on Tuesday morning, Kano said, drawn from a Climate Equity Action Fund allocation backed by Supervisor Barger. The department is still seeking $8 million for trail work.

Barger’s office also secured $1.4 million in ongoing funding for Charles White Park, Kano said.

A golf course that may not fully return

The Altadena Golf Course would probably never have the money to be restored to its prior condition, García-González said.

The county has hired outside legal counsel to contest its insurance settlement and will rebuild only to the scale of whatever it recovers, she said. The clubhouse was destroyed, officials said, leaving the site without restrooms, offices or a sewer connection.

The county’s most promising prospect for federal money is a single application. Kano called the rebuilding of Farnsworth Park’s Davies Building the department’s “most promising” FEMA application, citing a third-party estimate of $48 million; a companion office building is estimated at $10 million.

At an earlier meeting the county had shared only a combined $63 million figure for the site, Kano said. FEMA “doesn’t want to fund everything,” he said, and the county does not yet know the outcome. Officials gave no timeline for a decision.

Town Council Chair Nic Arnzen called the absence of federal aid “unconscionable” and “historic.”

“I’m just continually sickened by it,” he said, noting the town had waited a year and a half.

Corporate partners advance where FEMA has not

Two projects are moving forward with corporate partners. The Los Angeles Dodgers plan a November groundbreaking for Dodger Dreamfields at Farnsworth Park, with the fields, electrical service and irrigation hoped to converge by spring 2027, Kano said.

A statement from Ian White, son of park namesake Charles White, read into the record, credited a partnership with Disney Imagineering and García-González’s leadership for the Charles White Park project.

The LA County Parks Foundation is raising money for the recovery through a dedicated Altadena account, and donors may earmark gifts to a specific park, García-González said. She said contributions have arrived from across the country, including Indiana, Minnesota and Wyoming.

“We’re still fundraising,” García-González said.

(Altadena Now could not immediately locate verifiable contact information for the Los Angeles County Parks Foundation.)