[Eddie Rivera / Pasadena Now]

Supervisor Janice Hahn’s motion passed unanimously, but the new seat still needs approval from lawmakers in Sacramento

A Pasadena-based expert-witness firm says it has broadened a free consultation program to people recovering from last year’s Los Angeles wildfires.

ForensisGroup connects attorneys, insurers and other organizations with engineering and technical experts.

The firm said it traditionally offers one-hour consultations across all specialties to legal and institutional clients but extended the offer to wildfire survivors so locals could get technical guidance related to their recovery.

According to the firm, many of the technical questions tied to that kind of rebuilding — including structural integrity, fire damage, soil stability, environmental contamination, utility infrastructure, construction methods and insurance coverage only began to surface as reconstruction picked up pace.

In its statement, ForensisGroup said that construction disputes are frequently more complicated than they first appear and often require several engineering disciplines to determine what went wrong.

A claim that begins with a cracked foundation, water intrusion, structural movement, a code-compliance question or a material failure, the company said, can expand into an investigation drawing on structural, civil, geotechnical, mechanical, electrical or materials engineers, as well as architects, construction managers, building-code specialists and cost estimators.

The company also said construction problems often take months or years to become apparent, meaning litigation can require reconstructing events long after the original work was done. On that basis, it said, it urges attorneys to involve experts early during case evaluation rather than at discovery, mediation or trial preparation.

ForensisGroup describes itself as “The Expert of Experts.” It says it has maintained a network now spanning more than 3,000 areas of expertise, and has supported more than 20,000 clients in over 30,000 cases since it opened in 1991.

More information is available at https://www.forensisgroup.com/.

A restitution fund reaches eligible Pasadena and Altadena filers who used the company’s online preparation tools

The income figures, education credit claims, and health savings account details that Los Angeles County residents typed into H&R Block’s online tax software were, the County alleges, quietly passed to outside advertising companies through tracking code embedded in the company’s website.

H&R Block has now agreed to a pre-litigation settlement with the County of Los Angeles that bars the practice and sets aside a $367,540 fund to repay certain customers, according to a statement from the County. The deal resolves consumer protection claims against HRB Digital LLC and HRB Tax Group, Inc.

The settlement covers consumers across the county, extending to those in Pasadena and Altadena.

The County said the case grew out of H&R Block’s disclosure of confidential taxpayer information made without customers’ consent — to third-party advertisers through tracking devices such as Meta pixels placed on the company’s site.

The fund is limited to a specific group. According to the County, it covers customers who used H&R Block’s do-it-yourself online tax preparation website between November 16, 2019, and November 23, 2022, and who encountered certain screens tied to Education Credits or Health Savings Accounts while filing.

Any restitution money left unclaimed will go to the County’s Department of Consumer and Business Affairs.

In all, H&R Block will pay $515,000 in monetary relief, a figure the County said includes consumer restitution, civil penalties, and attorneys’ fees and costs. The settlement also imposes permanent injunctive relief barring the company from sharing taxpayer information and requiring it to comply with applicable consumer protection and privacy laws.

The agreement was reached by County Counsel Dawyn R. Harrison on behalf of the People of the State of California, the County said, and its benefits extend to consumers statewide. The County Counsel’s Affirmative Litigation and Consumer Protection Division investigated the alleged violations and negotiated the terms.

“Privacy is not a luxury. It is a fundamental consumer right,” said Los Angeles County Board Chair and First District Supervisor Hilda L. Solis in the County’s statement. “No company should profit from sensitive taxpayer information without a consumer’s informed consent.”

Rafael Carbajal, director of the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs, tied the case to the growing value of personal data.

“In an economy where personal data and consumer attention have become valuable commodities, protecting people’s privacy has never been more important,” he said in the statement.

Harrison said the outcome was meant to set an expectation for other companies. “My office is committed to protecting consumers and ensuring businesses comply with consumer protection laws,” she said. “This settlement sends a message to other businesses to safeguard consumers’ private information and take data privacy laws seriously.”

The department, known as DCBA, asks Los Angeles County residents including those in Pasadena and Altadena to report unfair, deceptive or illegal business practices by emailing dcba@dcba.lacounty.gov, filing a complaint at dcba.lacounty.gov, or calling 800?593?8222. The County said it has posted the fully executed stipulated settlement and the underlying complaint, People v. HRB Digital LLC et al., on its website.

A fireplace remains standing from a home that was burned down by the Eaton Fire in the Altadena and Pasadena area on Jan. 8, 2025. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

Many Californians have seen rising costs, less availability and are running into other issues with insurance — including delays and denials of their claims — in the past several years.

As climate change increases the risk of wildfires and other disasters, it’s important to know how insurance plays a role. The health of the insurance market affects the ability of individuals and communities to replace, rebuild and recover after a catastrophe.

Disasters aside, property insurance affects where people live, how neighborhoods are formed, whether people can drive to work, and more.

As the state’s residents prepare to vote for a new insurance commissioner in November, here’s a look at a few common myths about insurance in California.

MYTH: Only homeowners and wealthy people should care about the state’s insurance issues.

FACT: Almost everyone needs insurance, including landlords, renters and small business owners. Anyone who drives needs auto insurance.

About 44% of the state’s residents do not own their homes, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But their landlords have been dealing with increased insurance costs in the past several years, with some of them telling CalMatters that they have passed some of those costs along to renters.

The state does not require renters to buy their own insurance, although some landlords require tenants to get renters insurance. Consumer advocates recommend that renters have insurance in case they have to find an alternate place to live after a fire or other disaster.

Other providers of rental housing are also running into insurance-availability issues, which could affect housing supply.

A high-cost state like California needs all the affordable housing it can get. Affordable housing owners and operators say some insurance companies have moved away from offering insurance to commercial properties, including affordable housing units. Some of them have had to turn to “non-admitted” insurance companies, which are not licensed and regulated by the state — and not backed by the state if they go bankrupt. Some operators have had to tap their reserves to cover the increasing costs of insurance. They typically do not pass those costs along to renters because affordable-housing rules limit how much rent they can charge. Besides, they know their renters have limited incomes.

“If organizations have to come out of pocket to cover premiums, it’s just not sustainable,” said Erich Nakano, director of special projects for Little Tokyo Service Center, a Los Angeles community development group that owns more than 1,000 affordable housing units across different properties in the area.

Meanwhile, auto insurance premiums in California are among the highest in the nation. The insurance industry has said that’s due in part to growing disaster risks, as well as higher costs for replacing parts or repairing vehicles. Unlike housing or rentals — where people who don’t have a mortgage need not have insurance, and not all renters must buy coverage — everyone who wants to drive is legally required to have insurance.

MYTH: California’s insurance issues are all state lawmakers and regulators’ fault.

FACT: Many other states are dealing with higher insurance costs and availability problems. Climate change has sparked and worsened different kinds of natural disasters, such as hurricanes in Florida and tornadoes in Texas. 

California’s voter-approved insurance law, Proposition 103 from 1988, is often a scapegoat for people frustrated by the state’s insurance market problems. Insurance is overregulated and the state should just let the free markets reign, the law’s critics say.

But low-regulation states like Florida continue to have issues with insurance affordability; its average home insurance premiums are the most expensive in the United States, according to the Insurance Information Institute, an industry group. Meanwhile, because of Prop. 103 and its provision that the Insurance Department must approve rate increases, California’s home insurance premiums rank somewhere in the middle.

As for other problems, like glacial insurance-claim processing or claim denials, the state’s elected insurance commissioner gets a lot of pressure to make those disappear. Some — such as survivors of the deadly Los Angeles County fires last year — have placed the blame squarely on Ricardo Lara, whose term is set to end this year. They called on him to resign.

A couple of insurance experts who are also consumer advocates said there is no “magic wand” that can make the insurance industry be as responsive as their customers want them to be, and no easy fixes for the other issues plaguing insurance markets everywhere.

“(Fire survivors) have the right to be angry about the impact of industry trends on them,” said Amy Bach, executive director of consumer advocacy group United Policyholders. But the insurance department’s authority over industry trends and practices — such as the number of adjusters that might be assigned to a claim — is limited, she said.

Lara’s department eventually found that State Farm, the biggest insurer in California, violated laws in its handling of claims from the L.A.-area fires. A yet-to-be-scheduled hearing before an administrative law judge will determine whether to impose the penalties suggested by the department.

[photo credit: Coldwell Banker Real Estate]

A fully permitted 54-unit parcel changes hands for $6.25 million as the buyer, unnamed, says displaced families will get preference

A patch of Altadena land already cleared through the county’s approval maze — the step that has stalled much of the town’s recovery — has a new owner, and, according to the broker who sold it, a purpose tied to the fire that emptied the neighborhood.

The 1.08-acre site at 2214 North Windsor Avenue has sold for $6.25 million. The buyer, whom Coldwell Banker Commercial Realty did not name, is a local affordable-housing developer that is working with the various agencies to re-imagine the property and build affordable housing. 

The unnamed developer says it will give preference to families displaced by the Eaton Fire when the units are ready for residency, the brokerage said in a statement.

The property is entitled to site a three-story, 54-unit mixed-use building of roughly 42,524 square feet, with 2,122 square feet of ground-floor retail, 80 parking spaces and 41 bicycle spaces. The residential mix is 30 studios, 14 one-bedroom units and 10 two-bedroom units, according to the statement.

What sets the parcel apart is what the buyer did not have to wait for. Permits were pre-secured from the Los Angeles County Planning Department before January 2025, and the site sold with them in hand, according to the brokers.

That timing matters in Altadena, where rebuilding has moved slowly through the county’s permitting process. Only a fraction of the nearly 6,000 significantly damaged homes in the community had finished rebuilding a year after the fire, leaving an entitled, shovel-ready site a rarity in the recovery.

Coldwell Banker Commercial Realty brokers Kathi Constanzo and Bill Ukropina represented both the buyer and the seller and closed the deal, the brokerage said.

The brokerage described the price as one of the highest known prices per square foot for residentially zoned land in the area.

County planning records list the seller as KT and KT Investments, LLC, a Pasadena-based firm, and the project’s architect as Kluger Architects.

The development had been slated for review in January 2025 but was postponed after the Eaton Fire, then advanced as one of the first multifamily projects to move forward in Altadena since the disaster.

[photo credit: Eventbrite]

Afternoon event at the Altadena Community Center offers grant applications, technical help and one-on-one guidance for owners still rebuilding

Local business owners rebuilding after the Eaton Fire can meet with funding, banking and recovery organizations at the Altadena Business Resource Fair on Thursday, July 30 from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Altadena Community Center, 730 East Altadena Drive.

More than a year after the Eaton Fire many Altadena businesses continue to confront rebuilding costs, insurance delays, reduced customer traffic, workforce disruptions and limited access to recovery capital. According to the release, the event is designed to bring these resources together in one location so owners can receive personalized support, explore funding opportunities and develop long-term recovery strategies. The Chamber says the fair is intended to help small businesses recover and rebuild.

Attendees will be able to meet representatives from SCORE, Operation HOPE, the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute, the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC LA) and Chase Bank, among other organizations.

These organizations will offer assistance with business planning, funding, marketing, workforce development, financial management and long-term recovery, and that bringing the partners together in one place is meant to give owners a convenient way to access resources for the rebuilding process.

One funding option available on site is the LA Rise & Renew Wildfire Recovery Grant Program. The program is powered by BMO and administered by LISC LA, and provides unrestricted $5,000 direct cash grants along with technical assistance, resiliency planning and educational programming for small businesses affected by the January 2025 wildfires.

Public program materials say the grants are aimed at businesses with annual revenue under $2 million in Altadena and Pacific Palisades that were directly impacted by the fires, and that applications close August 10, 2026. The release states owners can apply in person at the fair or online at lariseandrenew.org.

The Altadena Chamber of Commerce & Civic Association describes its mission as promoting a vibrant local economy, supporting business development, advocating for the interests of the business community and fostering civic engagement. The Chamber works through partnerships, education and community collaboration to strengthen Altadena’s economic vitality and quality of life for residents and businesses.

The fair is hosted by the Altadena Chamber of Commerce & Civic Association in partnership with the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce Foundation, according to a press release issued by the Chamber. 

Need to Know

The Altadena Business Resource Fair takes place Thursday, July 30, 2026, from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Altadena Community Center, 730 East Altadena Drive, Altadena, California 91001.  For information, contact the Altadena Chamber of Commerce & Civic Association at 626-794-3988 or webmaster@altadenachamber.org. Grant details and applications are at lariseandrenew.org.

A free soccer park and learning center at St. Elizabeth Parish School opens with limited hours as fire recovery continues

When UNIQLO opened what it calls its first permanent community hub anywhere in the United States last Thursday, the global retailer didn’t choose Manhattan or downtown Los Angeles. It chose a schoolyard on Lake Avenue in Altadena, adjacent the Eaton Fire burn area.

The UNIQLO Street Soccer Park & Learning Center, built with nonprofit Street Soccer USA at St. Elizabeth Parish School, offers two turf soccer fields and a classroom converted from a shipping container — all of it free. Organizers say they expect to reach 1,000 young people in the first year with soccer programming, homework help, mentorship, and financial and digital literacy support, according to the companies’ July 9 announcement.

The park grew out of a pledge UNIQLO and its parent company, Fast Retailing, made in January 2025: up to $2 million in funds and clothing for communities affected by the Los Angeles wildfires, according to the announcement. The site was selected for its proximity to the burn area and its central location in Altadena, the organizations said.

“St. Elizabeth Parish School was a meaningful location because it serves as an important community anchor in Altadena,” Jean Shein, UNIQLO’s global director of sustainability, said in written responses to Pasadena Now. The company confirmed the Altadena site is its first permanent community hub in the U.S.

The July 9 grand opening drew a crowd for a ribbon-cutting, friendly matches between UNIQLO team members and local families, learning center tours, a taiko drumming performance, and food from In-N-Out Burger, according to the announcement. Attendees included UNIQLO USA CEO Fuminori Adachi, Angel City FC midfielder Hina Sugita, and County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, whose district includes Altadena.

“Seeing local children and families step onto the fields for the first time was incredibly meaningful,” Shein said. “After months of planning, the space immediately came to life with play.”

The park is Street Soccer USA’s third free-to-play hub in Los Angeles County, after Watts and South Gate, the organizations said. But the nonprofit’s local roots here run through its own staff. Luca Marton, Street Soccer USA’s managing director for Los Angeles, lives in Altadena, along with one of the organization’s program managers.

“Watts has different needs than South Gate. South Gate has different needs than Altadena,” Marton said in written responses. “When we move with the understanding that we are stewards, guests in servitude, not saviorism, it leaves space for the community to lead and for us to resource the drive to fulfill that need.”

Demand for places to play has been part of Altadena’s recovery story. LAist reported in March that a group of Eaton Fire survivors who had played weekly pickup soccer at Loma Alta Park since 2018 described the games as central to their recovery after being told by the county they could no longer play soccer on that field.

For Street Soccer USA founder and CEO Lawrence Cann, the ribbon-cutting carried personal weight. “For me personally it was a full circle moment,” Cann said in written responses to Pasadena Now. “We started SSUSA partially because of all the people that helped me and my family when our house burned down when I was a child.”

For now, the park operates on a limited schedule tied to St. Elizabeth Catholic Church’s calendar: Monday through Friday from 2:30 to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Marton said. Free toddler programs run Saturdays from 9 to 10 a.m. — ages 2 to 3 on one field, ages 4 to 5 on the other — and the remaining hours are open free play, with field reservations available through Street Soccer LA’s Instagram account, @streetsoccerlosangeles. The organization is working to expand the hours, Marton said.

A year from now, Marton said, success would look like play running every weekday evening and all day Saturday. “We envision a cherished 3rd space that the community of Altadena and Pasadena can call their own, can have autonomy and ownership over, and can feel safe and proud to seek respite there after a long day or week,” he said.

Southern California consumers were reminded Saturday that Salinas-based Taylor Farms, whose products are sold throughout Southern California, has removed iceberg lettuce sourced from a farm in central Mexico and tied to a multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasis from the U.S. market.

The company’s products are sold at retailers including Target, Whole Foods and Walmart, according to Taylor Farms’ website. There is no indication that shredded iceberg lettuce believed to be linked to the outbreak was distributed to those retailers.

“While the FDA traceback is indicating a specific independent farm, which represents less than 1% of the U.S.’ iceberg lettuce supply, as the potential source of the outbreak, we have removed all iceberg lettuce from the region indefinitely,” the company said in a statement.

Company officials said no other products are affected and that none of its Taylor Farms-branded salad kits contain iceberg lettuce.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, the outbreak has been linked to shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell restaurants in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.

Taco Bell has voluntarily removed the potentially contaminated lettuce from its supply chain indefinitely.

“Taco Bell has taken precautionary action, and we encourage all relevant restaurants, retailers and foodservice operators to do the same,” the Irvine-based company said in a statement.

The FDA said it is continuing to work with the supplier to determine whether the contaminated shredded iceberg lettuce was distributed to additional restaurants or retailers.

California health officials said earlier this week that the state is not experiencing an increase in cyclosporiasis cases and that there are no known local outbreaks.

California reported 41 provisional cases from January through June, compared with 80 during the same period in 2025, according to the California Department of Public Health. The annual average from 2015 through 2025 was 106 cases.

“Cases for 2026 are well within expected ranges for California, and we are not currently one of the states experiencing increased cases or an outbreak,” CDPH Director Dr. Erica Pan said in a statement earlier this week.

Cyclosporiasis is an intestinal illness caused by the Cyclospora parasite and is generally spread through food or water contaminated with human feces.

Person-to-person transmission is considered unlikely because the parasite must remain outside the body for at least one to two weeks before becoming infectious, according to the CDPH.

Symptoms can include prolonged watery diarrhea, loss of appetite, weight loss, stomach cramps, bloating, nausea and fatigue.

State health officials encouraged residents to wash their hands before and after handling produce, rinse fruits and vegetables under running water, discard the outer leaves of lettuce and leafy greens, prevent cross- contamination and promptly refrigerate cut or peeled produce.

Los Angeles County’s total assessed property value surpassed $2.2 trillion this year despite the economic fallout from the wildfires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena and a slowing real estate market, Assessor Jeff Prang announced Tuesday.

The county’s 2026 Assessment Roll reached a record $2.272 trillion in net taxable value, an increase of $96 billion, or 4.42%, over the previous year and marking the 16th consecutive year of growth, according to Prang.

The increase is expected to generate more than $27 billion in property tax revenue to support public schools, public safety, health care, libraries, parks and other local government services throughout Los Angeles County.

“When I presented the forecast to the Board of Supervisors in May, I emphasized 2025-26 was a challenging year, and the impact of January’s devastating wildfires will be felt for years to come,” Prang said in a statement. “Even so, Los Angeles County’s economy continues to demonstrate remarkable resilience. Not only did we maintain value growth, we exceeded our May forecast of 3.9%, finishing the year at 4.42%.”

According to the assessor’s office, new construction added more than $12 billion to the assessment roll despite staff resources being diverted to assist property owners affected by the fires.

Property transfers accounted for the largest share of growth, adding $49 billion in assessed value, while the maximum 2% inflation adjustment allowed under Proposition 13 contributed roughly $43 billion.

The median home sale price in Los Angeles County climbed to $982,000 during the assessment period, according to the assessor’s office.

Los Angeles posted the county’s highest citywide assessed value at $926.1 billion, followed by Long Beach at $84.5 billion and Santa Monica at $54.9 billion.

Irwindale recorded the fastest growth in assessed value at 15%, followed by Vernon at 13.3% and Hidden Hills at 11.7%.

The 2026 Assessment Roll includes nearly 2.4 million taxable real property parcels, more than 157,000 business property assessments, nearly 32,000 boats and more than 3,500 aircraft.

Under Proposition 13, most property owners will not see tax bills rise by the same percentage as the assessment roll because annual increases in assessed value generally are capped at 2%.

A person crosses a street as pollution fills the air in Los Angeles on Dec. 4, 2024. Photo by Andy Bao, AP Photo

Southern California air regulators can move forward with new limits on the sale of certain gas-powered appliances, including water heaters.

Despite pushback from businesses and developers, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 ruling last week upheld restrictions on commercial and industrial gas appliances in four Los Angeles-area counties.

The ruling directly affects roughly 1.3 million water heaters and industrial boilers in L.A., Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, according to the Sierra Club, a defendant in the lawsuit. South Coast Air Quality Management District adopted the mandate in 2024, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.

• Noah Rott, a deputy press secretary at the Sierra Club, in a statement: “When fully implemented, the boiler rule will avoid over 2,800 early deaths, 11,800 cases of asthma, and 300,000 lost work and school days, yielding over $95 billion in health benefits.”

The air board earlier this year backed down from extending the restrictions to residences.

Opponents argued that the restrictions violated federal law by banning appliances protected by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, and that the rules would limit consumer choices and raise the cost of appliances.

But the court held the air district had the power to target pollution sources under the Clean Air Act.

• Circuit Judge Lucy Koh, in the majority opinion: “If Congress wanted to interfere with the system of federal-state collaboration set up by the (Clean Air Act), impede upon the EPA’s statutory authority to protect the public’s health and welfare, or restrict states’ ability to comply with federal air quality standards, one would expect Congress to have said so. But Congress said nothing.”

CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Legislation sponsored by the county’s district attorney closes a jurisdictional gap in wage theft and trafficking cases

Employers who traffic workers or steal their wages across county lines can now be prosecuted in the county where those workers lived, where their employment agreement was entered into, where any portion of the work was performed, or where the offending business operated, under a bill that has been signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom and takes effect Jan. 1, 2027, according to a news release from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

The measure, AB 1583, was sponsored by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and co-sponsored by the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office. It was authored by Assemblymember Chris Rogers, D-Santa Rosa, and passed the Legislature unanimously with bipartisan support.

The bill closes a loophole that has made it difficult for prosecutors to pursue cases spanning more than one county — for instance, when a victim lives in one county but was hired or worked in another. It also authorizes coordinated prosecutions across multiple jurisdictions.

“Labor traffickers don’t stop at county lines, and our work to stop their crimes doesn’t either,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said in the release. “Under this new law, labor exploiters can be held fully accountable and can no longer hide behind multi-jurisdictional crimes.”

The law will also strengthen protections for vulnerable workers in Los Angeles County and statewide, including immigrant workers in the agriculture, service, construction and garment manufacturing industries, Hochman said in the release.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office operates a branch office in Pasadena, according to the office’s directory. That means labor trafficking or wage theft cases affecting Pasadena and Altadena workers could potentially be handled by that office, though the release does not specify how cases will be assigned once the law takes effect.

Hochman credited Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney and Legislative Advocate Tamar Tokat with helping advance the bill through the Legislature, and thanked Sonoma County Deputy District Attorney Katy Yount for drafting it, according to the release.

The law will be enforced locally through the district attorney’s Economic and Labor Justice Unit, which investigates and prosecutes cases involving unpaid wages, exploitative labor practices and human trafficking. According to the office, the unit has become a leader in the field, providing training, technical assistance and strategic guidance to agencies across California and throughout the nation.

Once the law takes effect, prosecutors will have jurisdictional options for labor trafficking and wage theft cases that current law does not provide.