Robert Cotton faces two murder counts in the deaths of his mother, a Pasadena City College educator, and his uncle

A pretrial hearing is scheduled Friday for the man charged with fatally stabbing his mother and uncle at their Altadena home nearly five years ago, in a case that drew national attention when part of the attack was witnessed by a colleague during a Zoom call.

Robert Anderson Cotton is set to appear at 8:30 a.m. in Dept. B of the Pasadena Courthouse, 300 E. Walnut St. He faces two counts of murder with an allegation of using a knife as a deadly and dangerous weapon in the deaths of Dr. Carol Anne Brown, 67, and Kenneth Wayne Preston, 69, according to a press release from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. The case number is GA109673.

The stabbings occurred March 22, 2021, at the victims’ shared residence in the 3100 block of North Marengo Avenue, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Brown was Cotton’s mother. Preston was her brother and Cotton’s uncle. Cotton lived with both victims at the home.

Brown, a Pasadena City College employee for nearly 15 years, was on a Zoom call with a colleague when part of the attack unfolded, according to the Sheriff’s Department. The colleague saw a man dragging another man into the living room and called 911 to report a possible kidnapping, according to investigators.

Deputies from the Sheriff’s Department’s Altadena Station responded around 2:45 p.m. and found Preston dead in the driveway with multiple stab wounds, according to the Sheriff’s Department. Brown was found dead inside the home. Detectives recovered a large hunting-style knife at the scene, which they believed was the weapon used, according to a report citing sheriff’s officials.

Investigators determined that a Lexus SUV belonging to one of the victims was missing from the residence, according to the Sheriff’s Department. While deputies were still processing the crime scene, Cotton returned on foot and identified himself as a resident. He was detained and booked on two murder counts, according to sheriff’s officials.

Then-District Attorney George Gascón described the case in a March 2021 statement as “horrific,” according to the DA’s office press release.

Brown served as co-coordinator of PCC’s Black STEM Program and had also worked in Financial Aid, Former Foster Youth Services, Dreamkeepers Emergency Aid, Student Life and other departments, according to a Pasadena City College memorial page. Then-PCC President Erika Endrijonas called her death “a terrible loss” for the college community, according to a PCC statement.

Cotton was 32 at the time of the stabbings. He has remained in custody since his arrest, with bail set at $4.02 million, according to booking records cited in news reports. The case has moved through multiple hearing settings since 2021, with previous appearances held in Dept. H of the Pasadena Courthouse. Friday’s hearing is now scheduled in Dept. B.

Authorities have not publicly disclosed a motive in the case, according to multiple news reports.

Cotton is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

[Rep. Judy Chu via Facebook]

The congresswoman also backed a bipartisan measure designating Iran the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism

Rep. Judy Chu voted Thursday to stop U.S. military operations in Iran, backing a War Powers Resolution that would have required the withdrawal of American forces from the conflict. The House rejected the measure 212-219.

Chu, a Democrat whose 28th Congressional District includes Pasadena, cast two votes on the Iran conflict in quick succession. She supported the War Powers Resolution, H.Con.Res. 38, and also voted for a separate resolution reaffirming that Iran remains the largest state sponsor of terrorism. That second measure passed 372-53, according to the Clerk of the House.

The votes came as U.S. military operations in Iran entered their second week. Six American service members have been killed and 18 others seriously wounded since the U.S. and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran on February 28, according to U.S. Central Command. The national average gas price jumped 11 cents overnight to $3.11 per gallon in the days after the strikes began, according to AAA — the largest single-day spike since 2022.

The War Powers Resolution was sponsored by Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and co-sponsored by Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat. It would have directed the president to terminate the use of U.S. Armed Forces against Iran unless Congress declared war or authorized the use of military force. The vote fell largely along party lines. Two Republicans — Massie and Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio — voted in favor. Four Democrats — Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Greg Landsman of Ohio, and Juan Vargas of California — voted against it.

The Senate had rejected a similar measure a day earlier, 47-53.

In a statement released after the vote, Chu said the president had launched the war without congressional authorization, according to her office’s press release.

“Despite no imminent threat to the United States, no long-term strategy, no support from the American public, and no authorization from Congress, the President launched a war in Iran,” Chu said in the statement. “That is a direct challenge to the constitutional guardrails that have protected our democracy for generations.”

Chu said the conflict had already cost American lives and affected household budgets.

“This war has already claimed the lives of six American servicemembers, and the President himself has said he expects even more deaths to come,” Chu said. “It has already caused gas prices to rise by 11 cents a gallon as Americans face an affordability crisis.”

Chu also addressed her vote on H.Res. 1099, the resolution designating Iran a state sponsor of terrorism, which was sponsored by House Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast, a Florida Republican.

“I voted yes on H.Res. 1099, a resolution affirming that Iran remains the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, because it is true that the Iranian regime brutally oppresses its own people and spreads terror and violence throughout the world,” Chu said in the statement. “Those facts, however, do not justify President Trump’s decision to launch a foreign war with no authorization and no plan.”

Chu has represented the 28th Congressional District since 2009. The district includes Pasadena, Altadena, and communities across the west San Gabriel Valley. Her Pasadena district office is located at 527 S. Lake Ave., Suite 250.

The Pentagon is preparing a supplemental funding request for the Iran operations, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, said Thursday. Whether Congress will vote to authorize the military campaign remains an open question.

All Saints Church will hold a free Youth Self-Care Day on Saturday, March 7, offering haircuts, beauty services, therapy dogs, books, quilts and snacks for youth ages 10 to 18, according to information provided by the church. The event is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Regas House at 132 N. Euclid Ave., across from Pasadena City Hall.

The program is organized by the church’s Children, Youth & Families Ministry under Director Amanda Baughman and is part of All Saints’ 2026 Lenten Offerings. Church materials describe the gathering as a relaxed, drop-in event intended to give young people “a gentle space to pause, breathe, and find a little joy.”

All offerings are free, according to the church. Activities include:

• Haircuts, styling, manicures and makeup provided by Paul Mitchell The School – Pasadena
• Beauty, art and paint activities from Jazzy Jam for Empowerment, a Pasadena-based nonprofit
• A quiet room with therapy dogs
• Cookies from Diddy Riese
• Handmade quilts and pillowcases, similar to those donated by quiltmaker guilds for a 2025 youth event
• Young adult books from The Book Truck
• A pop-up store with products from EOS, Briogeo and more
• Snacks, beverages and space for youth to relax

Preregistration is encouraged, especially for hair and art services.

Baughman serves as the primary contact for families seeking information. She holds a master’s degree from Fuller Seminary with a background in psychology and has worked for nearly two decades supporting families as a doula, consultant and parent educator.

The Rev. Tim Rich, appointed Priest-in-Charge of All Saints Church in 2024, leads the parish. Church materials note that the March event builds on a similar Youth Restoration Day held in May 2025 for youth affected by the Eaton Fire.

The event will take place in Regas House, a circa-1930 Gothic Revival building on the All Saints campus. Church listings reference both “Regas House” and the “Guild Room”; the Guild Room is located inside the building.

All Saints Church is part of the Pasadena Civic Center Historic District. The Youth Self-Care Day is included in the church’s broader Lenten programming, which also features book studies, Taizé worship, centering prayer, sacred collage and African American Lenten reflections.

Families may preregister through the church’s online form at https://allsaints.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/197/responses/new or contact Baughman at abaughman@allsaints-pas.org for details.

People vote at Assumption Church in Los Angeles on March 3, 2020. California’s top-two primary will be June 2 this year. Photo by Kyle Grillot, Reuters

Turmoil within the California Democratic Party over this year’s election for governor and  fallout from the party’s naked grab of congressional seats could have long-term effects, undoing two important political reforms — the top-two primary system and redistricting by an independent commission.

The turmoil is over having nine Democratic candidates for governor, creating the possibility that two Republicans could finish one-two in the June 2 primary, thus resulting in a GOP governor being elected in November.

A recent Public Policy Institute of California poll of voters found that Republicans Steve Hilton (14%) and Chad Bianco (12%) are 1st and 3rd in support, with Katie Porter (13%) the leading Democrat, followed by Eric Swalwell (11%) and Tom Steyer (10%). The other six Democrats are all 5% or less.

Filing for the primary ballot closes this week, and Rusty Hicks, the Democratic state chairman, is publicly pleading for lower tier Democrats to drop out and thus reduce chances of a 1-2 GOP finish.

This week, in a public letter, Hicks said a 1-2 GOP primary outcome may be implausible, but “it is not impossible, and I know we are collectively committed to taking the steps required to avoid that possibility.”

So far, none of the bottom six has volunteered to quit. The angst is likely to fuel efforts to do away with the top-two system and return to closed party primaries, thereby eliminating any possibility of a future backdoor Republican win.

Neither party liked the top-two system when it was proposed during a stalemate on the state budget in 2009. Republican Sen. Abel Maldonado, backed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said he’d vote for the budget only if Democrats placed the top-two system on the ballot, arguing that it would reduce polarization.

Democrats caved and Proposition 14, creating the system, was approved by voters in 2010. Given their dislike of the top-two system in the first place and what happened this year, it’s highly likely Democratic leaders will seek to eliminate it.

Leaders of both parties also disliked it when Charles Munger Jr., a wealthy Stanford University scientist, proposed the state shift the redrawing of legislative and congressional districts away from the Legislature to an independent commission. Munger, backed by Schwarzenegger, contended it would end self-serving gerrymanders.

A Munger-financed ballot measure in 2008, Proposition 11, created the commission for legislative districts, and in 2010 Proposition 20 extended the commission to congressional districts. The commission drew new maps after the 2010 and 2020 censuses.

Last year, however, to counter a Texas effort to shift five congressional seats from Democrats to Republicans, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed and voters passed Proposition 50. It gerrymanders California’s 52 congressional districts to gain at least five Democratic seats this year.

Newsom said the gerrymander was needed to blunt President Donald Trump’s efforts to skew the 2026 congressional election. Newsom promised that the radically revised districts would last for only three election cycles, and the commission system would return after the 2030 census.

[photo credit: Boys & Girls Club of Pasadena]

The 89-year-old youth organization replaces decades-old mission language and sets four strategic priorities through 2028

The Boys & Girls Club of Pasadena has adopted a new three-year strategic plan and rewritten its mission statement for the first time in decades, changes the organization says were shaped by the January 2025 Eaton Fire that disrupted its planning process and reshaped its direction.

The plan, titled “Future Ready: Boys & Girls Club of Pasadena 2025-2028 Strategic Plan,” replaces the organization’s longtime mission focus on “kids who need us most” with broader language committing to all youth. The new mission statement reads: “BGCP provides youth and teens with the environment, relationships, and opportunities that equip them to build essential skills to learn, lead, and succeed.” The Club’s Board of Directors adopted the plan in late 2025, according to a statement from the organization.

The 18-month planning process began in 2024 and was interrupted when the Eaton Fire struck in January 2025, according to the press release. The pause allowed the Club to evolve in its planning and adopt a strategic plan and mission reflective of the community’s strengths and needs revealed after the fire, according to the statement.

The plan is built around four strategic priorities: expanding and deepening the Club’s value for youth, families, and the community; ensuring teens are prepared for success in college and career, with a focus on academic achievement, workforce readiness, leadership development, and post-secondary planning; fostering partnerships with schools, businesses, nonprofits, and civic leaders; and building the organization’s financial sustainability and resilience.

Guided by the new mission, the Club plans to increase its capacity and operations to meet needs ranging from workforce readiness programs for teens to ongoing mental health supports to evidence-based programs that boost academic skills.

To support long-term impact, the plan calls for the organization to diversify revenue streams, strengthen donor engagement, enhance operational excellence, and invest in systems that support sustainable growth..

A central element of the teen-focused priority is the Dena Teen Center, which opened at the start of the 2025-26 school year at the Mackenzie-Scott Branch on North Fair Oaks Avenue. The organization commissioned a concept paper in December 2024 to explore expanded teen services and a dedicated facility, according to the organization’s strategic plan summary.

“Our new mission statement and strategic plan reflect that every child can benefit from what the Club has to offer,” said Lisa Cavelier, the Club’s CEO. “We are elevating the Club experience and our programs to ensure that every young person who walks through our blue doors gains the skills, confidence, and support they need to thrive in school, career, and life.”

The strategic planning process included a Discovery phase with staff and stakeholder interviews and a Design phase with 12 sessions involving the board committee and senior leadership, organized around four themed areas, according to the plan summary. The strategic planning committee was chaired by board chair Melina Montoya, with planning consultant Annette Ricchiazzi of MissionLab guiding the process.

BGCP was founded in 1937 and now operates five locations in the Pasadena area: the Slavik Branch on East Del Mar Boulevard, the Mackenzie-Scott Branch on North Fair Oaks Avenue, the Dena Teen Center, Odyssey Charter School – North in Altadena, and a new site in the Kings Villages housing community on North Fair Oaks Avenue. The organization serves more than 1,500 youth ages five to 18 annually, according to a press release.

The plan’s progress will be measured through key performance indicators and milestones, according to the strategic plan summary. More information is available at bgcpasadena.org/strategic-plan or by contacting Cavelier at lisa.cavelier@bgcpasadena.org.

“We are truly excited for what lies ahead for the Club and for the kids and teens we serve,” Cavelier said.

The Los Angeles Conservancy announced Thursday it has received a $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, the largest single gift in the nonprofit’s history, to expand a community-driven effort documenting Altadena’s cultural heritage following the devastating Eaton Fire.

The funding, awarded through the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities in Place program, will support expansion of the Conservancy’s Altadena Cultural Asset Mapping project, which aims to identify and document the community’s cultural landmarks, traditions and stories as part of long-term recovery efforts, according to officials.

“Altadena’s recovery is about more than rebuilding structures — it’s about honoring the lives, memories, people and cultural heritage that make this community what it is,” Adrian Scott Fine, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy, said in a statement.

The three-year grant will fund expansion of the mapping effort, a full- time project manager and a community regranting program aimed at supporting local storytelling and cultural preservation projects, officials said.

A total of $550,000 will be redistributed to Altadena-based organizations to support oral histories, cultural programming and community storytelling, including $300,000 for the Altadena Rebuild Coalition, an initiative of the Southern California chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects, according to the organization.

The Eaton Fire burned more than 14,000 acres, killed 19 people, and destroyed nearly 7,000 homes and businesses.

The Mellon funding builds on a $420,000 grant awarded by the Getty Foundation in 2025 to begin a historic resources survey and the Altadena Cultural Asset Mapping project.

Founded in 1978, the Los Angeles Conservancy works to preserve historic buildings, neighborhoods and cultural landmarks across the region.

Class-action lawsuit alleges hygiene company conducted substandard contamination assessments that let the insurer underpay for cleanup

Two Altadena property owners have filed a class-action lawsuit accusing Farmers Insurance and the environmental testing firm it hired of conducting shoddy smoke-damage assessments after the Eaton Fire, then using those findings to avoid paying for proper cleanup of toxic contamination.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, targets Fire Insurance Exchange, a Farmers Insurance entity, and Hygiene Technologies International, a Torrance-based industrial hygiene firm. It is one of at least two cases — including another involving a Pasadena duplex — that take the novel approach of suing both the insurer and the third-party testing company over how post-fire contamination was evaluated, according to a Law.com report on the litigation.

“Farmers Insurance and HygieneTech’s failure to uphold their obligations under the policy is not just a matter of negligence, it’s a case of deliberate bad faith practices that have caused real harm to our clients,” said Michelle Meyers, a partner at Singleton Schreiber and the plaintiffs’ attorney, in a Feb. 23, 2026, press release announcing the lawsuit.

More than a year after the Eaton Fire, thousands of homeowners whose properties survived the flames are locked in disputes with insurers over whether their homes are contaminated and what it will cost to fix them.

“This is a huge issue (affecting) thousands of people,” said Joy Chen, chief executive officer of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.

The class action lawsuit alleges that Hygiene Technologies International performed inspections that did not meet environmental hygiene industry standards and produced reports that understated contamination, according to Singleton Schreiber. Insurers then allegedly used those reports to deny or limit remediation payments, the lawsuit claims.

In a second, separate lawsuit also filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Pasadena duplex owners Jonathan Allen and Bridget Killian allege that Environmental Consulting Industries, a Chino-based firm hired by American Family Insurance, sent an unlicensed worker to collect samples but listed a different, certified technician on the official report, according to the Pasadena Star-News. That case raises similar claims of substandard testing used to reduce insurer payouts.

The Ghazarian v. Fire Insurance Exchange case appears on the docket of Judge David S. Cunningham III in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The case is in its early stages; no trial date has been set.

[Photos courtesy René Amy]

René Amy spent months sowing California poppies across more than 750 fire-damaged properties, largely alone and at his own expense — and the flowers are now emerging

The first California poppy René Amy can claim as a direct result of his Great Altadena Poppy Project bloomed about a week ago. It opened on the lot where his own home once stood, before the Eaton Fire took it.

The first flower, from 250 million seeds.

Amy, the founder of The Great Altadena Poppy Project, said he spent months sowing a quarter-billion California poppy seeds across more than 750 fire-damaged properties in the Eaton Fire burn scar — an effort he executed largely alone, largely at his own expense, using a portable hand-crank seed spreader on each property.

His project has no office and no staff. Whether those seeds produce anything close to a quarter-billion blooms depends on rain and conditions he cannot control. But more flowers have opened since that first one, he said — on his property and across Altadena.

“The whole idea — especially what was driving me to get it done — was to bring a little bit of hope and joy and beauty to my neighbors,” Amy said in an interview. “Unfortunately, I can literally feel for them, because we’re all in the same boat.”

Amy lost his home when the Eaton Fire swept through the community on January 7. The blaze destroyed more than 9,400 structures and killed 19 people. Amy is currently living in temporary housing near Altadena.

The project traces back to a wildflower seed and native milkweed seed giveaway Amy had planned before the conflagration, for January 27 at Altadena Grocery Outlet — an event the fire prevented from happening.

Amy operates Altadena Maid, a micro-business he describes as a “passion project” built around native wildflowers and their role in supporting pollinators such as monarch butterflies. He said he has spent “pushing 15 years” building a sense of community in Altadena, including founding a local Nextdoor neighborhood.

When the project’s initial goal of 100 million seeds was announced November 19, 2025, Amy said he expected 200 to 300 property signups. But community interest far outpaced that.

“It proved to be far more popular than I anticipated,” he said, “ultimately having upwards of 750 property signups.”

By January 13, 2026 — six days after the one-year anniversary of the fire — the seed count had more than doubled to 250 million. Amy said he also distributed more than 8,000 hand-packed seed packets locally, regionally, nationally, and, to some degree, internationally.

He considered cheaper seed varieties — some running as many as 20 million seeds per pound — before deciding to use California poppies despite the cost.

“I don’t care if I have to eat cardboard for a few months,” Amy said. “I’m going to get this done and I’m going to use the California poppies and hopefully funding to help support will come in as it is actually starting to, and I won’t have to eat cardboard.”

Amy told ABC7 in January that most of the funding came “out of my own almost-completely-empty pocket,” according to the station’s report. The Altadena Rotary Club also contributed financially to the seed purchase, Amy said.

Volunteer support was minimal, Amy said. He had one organized day with six members of the California Climate Action Corps, facilitated through the environmental nonprofit Amigos de los Rios, and approximately five individual community volunteers who showed up on various days.

“As the seeds hit the ground,” Amy said, “it was pretty much just me.”

Through the fall, Amy had been running field operations for Amigos de los Rios and its tree-watering program in the fire zone, moving through a landscape he described as “dry, dusty, desolate.” What he saw there, he said, pushed him to see the poppy project through.

The largest single property Amy seeded was Nuccio’s Nurseries, which he estimated at 10 to 15 acres. That property alone received tens of millions of seeds, he said. A hillside he called “the star of Palow” received another tens of millions. Amy said ArtCenter College of Design’s 160-acre campus was also seeded as what he called a local extension of the project.

Some of those blooms may never be visible from any road. Many seeded properties are far back into the hills, Amy said, their poppies seen only by their owners. In other cases, Army Corps of Engineers clearing operations left seeded areas below surrounding grade — blooms that may be visible, he said, only from the air.

“For me, losing damn near everything I had ever acquired, made, appreciated, everything in my life was one thing,” Amy said. “Losing the homes on the street I lived, experiencing that was another, but the major aspect of the devastation to me was the loss of community.”

The California poppy — the state flower, and what Amy and local officials describe as Los Angeles County’s designated flower — has been associated with Altadena for more than a century. A famous 1907 photograph, taken and then hand-colored, shows tourists picking poppies in Altadena. The poppies in that image are depicted as red, not the golden orange of California poppies. Amy said the poppies were colored red because the wealthy East Coast visitors of the day were more familiar with European red poppies — “in the fields of Flanders, poppies are red,” as he put it — and marketers colored them to appeal to that audience.

Early promotional materials referred to Altadena as the “Altar Cloth of San Pasqual” because of the dense poppy fields that once defined the landscape. The California poppy appears in the Altadena Town Council seal, according to Amy, and Altadena has a street called Poppy Fields Street.

Veronica Jones, president of the Altadena Historical Society — which assisted with packing and distributing seed packets — said the community’s tie to poppies runs deep.

“There’s good reason why Altadena has streets named Poppyfields and Las Flores,” Jones said. “Our area was actually a tourist destination before it was fully developed.”

Val Zavala, president of Altadena Heritage, called the California poppy “the perfect metaphor for Altadena’s recovery.”

Brad Roeber, president of the Altadena Rotary Club, described the project as an example of community in action.

“Rotary is all about service above self, and it’s projects like René’s that remind us how a simple idea — along with some elbow grease and can-do attitude — can make a huge difference,” Roeber said.

The project also reached beyond Altadena. Amy said he distributed nearly 1,000 seed packets to incoming Rotary International club presidents from across the Southwest United States at an LAX Marriott training event for ShelterBox, a disaster-relief organization. The intent, he said, was for those presidents to distribute seeds to their members worldwide for what he calls “solidarity sowings.”

Amy said he can see the project evolving into what he calls “the great Altadena pollinator project” — a more personalized effort, in collaboration with the Xerces Society, where he said he serves as a volunteer ambassador, to help residents build pollinator-friendly gardens using native plants and wildflowers. He also hopes to see a Great Altadena Poppy Festival in the future.

“The original idea was, and hopefully we’ll see a quarter billion California poppy plants,” Amy said. “That should get some attention.”

“If all the poppies and all the poppy seeds somehow instantly disappeared from Altadena,” he said, “the net result would still be a win because it helped to make people feel good, feel that someone actually cares and that someone is actually taking positive steps to get it done.”

An aerial view of a 33 megawatt data center with closed-loop cooling system in Vernon on Oct. 20, 2025. A surge in demand for AI infrastructure is fueling a boom in data centers across the country and worldwide. Photo by Mario Tama, Getty Images

By Alejandro Lazo, CALMATTERS

If you’re worried about data centers and AI inflating your electricity bill, you’re not alone.

A California watchdog released a report Tuesday urging policymakers to act fast on the state’s fast-growing data-center industry – before soaring electricity demand from artificial intelligence lands on the bills of ordinary households.

“The costs that data centers impose on the electrical grid should be paid by the centers themselves, not by average California families already struggling with high utility bills,” said Pedro Nava, chair of the Little Hoover commission, the independent bipartisan body that produced the report.

The commission outlined more than a dozen recommendations for managing the industry’s impact on the power grid, electricity prices and the state’s climate goals.

The report lands at a critical moment as lawmakers in Sacramento prepare another round of proposals aimed at regulating the rapidly expanding industry.

Similar efforts last year — including proposals to require more transparency about energy use and to shield ratepayers from the cost of grid upgrades — stalled in the Legislature after opposition from the tech industry and business groups.

The coming power surge

At the center of the debate is the sheer scale of electricity demand anticipated from data centers. Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s largest utility, told regulators last year that data center projects seeking power could add about 10 gigawatts of electricity demand over the next decade — roughly four times the generating capacity of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. For context, the Sacramento region uses a little over 3 gigawatts of electricity at its busiest times.

State energy planners assume many planned data center projects will never be built or will operate below full capacity. That’s because companies can propose large data centers without committing to build them while AI computing and cooling needs are changing quickly. But the commission’s report says that California still needs a clearer picture of where that load will land.

The report recommends requiring confidential, facility-level reporting of data center electricity use so regulators can better forecast demand, identify where the grid has room for new projects and understand local reliability and environmental impacts.

Who pays for the grid

Even a fraction of that projected demand could require billions of dollars in new grid infrastructure – and consumer advocates warn the upgrades could shift costs onto households.

The report says large data centers should pay the full cost of the infrastructure and grid services they require. It recommends a special electricity rate category for extremely large power users that would require prepayment for grid infrastructure, contributions toward wildfire safety costs and commitments to pay for a share of the power capacity they request.

“Data center growth has as much potential to increase electricity rates as it does to decrease rates if not done properly,” said Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network.

“The recommendations put forward by the Little Hoover Commission are one hundred percent aligned with the Assembly’s priorities,” said Assemblymember Cottie Petrie Norris, a Democrat from Irvine who is the chair of her house’s energy and utilities committee. “We are moving expeditiously to pass a package of bills that will protect Californians from any rate increases and ensure that data centers pay their fair share.”

Transparency and environmental impacts

Data centers are also straining California’s climate goals.

Researchers say electricity use and carbon emissions from the facilities have climbed sharply as AI expands.

The report warns that backup diesel generators at data centers add local air pollution concerns, and that facilities can place significant demands on local water supplies.

It recommends limiting pollution from backup generators, encouraging cleaner backup power and requiring better reporting so regulators can track the environmental footprint of large facilities.

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

The home of Rossana Valverde and her husband Sam Strgacich in Pasadena on April 26, 2025. Valverde and Strgacich are working with their home insurer to reach a settlement to cover costs associated with repairing damage caused by smoke from the Eaton Fire. Photo by Joel Angel Juarez for CalMatters

In November, Californians will vote for “the second-hardest job in the state behind the governor.”

That’s according to someone who has held the job twice: John Garamendi, who was the state’s first elected insurance commissioner in the 1990s and served again in the early 2000s. Garamendi, now a U.S. congressman, said the commissioner job is “complex, hard, detailed work.”

“There is no other task in any office in the state of California, except the governor, that has such significant power and the necessity to use the power to regulate the industry,” Garamendi said.

Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara is nearing the end of his second four-year term. In the past seven years, California experienced the biggest and most destructive wildfires in its history, which were a factor in insurance companies canceling homeowner policies or refusing to write new ones. With the insurance market out of whack, Lara last year put in place new regulations that include provisions insurers have long sought. Availability in the state is beginning to improve, though the commissioner said recently that he expects the recovery to take a few years.

The next insurance commissioner will have to balance availability with affordability. Premiums are rising. Many survivors of last year’s Los Angeles County fires are struggling to rebuild; they have sued insurance companies; and they have called for Lara to step down because they don’t think he has done enough to hold insurers accountable for delaying or denying their claims. Some insurers are still canceling policies. Many homeowners are continuing to turn to the last-resort FAIR Plan, which has seen a 146% increase in the number of policies since 2022.

“Affordability is only one piece of the very complicated puzzle,” said Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. She said the insurance business is more complicated today partly because of new technology and participants in the market, such as third-party administrators for insurers and non-admitted carriers, which among other things are not subject to rate reviews by the Insurance Department.

If all that doesn’t sound like enough responsibility, California’s insurance commissioner also regulates auto, health, pet, ride-hailing and life insurance, as well as workers’ compensation.

Among the candidates who have thrown their hats into the ring are state Sen. Ben Allen and former state Sen. Steven Bradford, former San Francisco Board of Supervisors member Jane Kim and Patrick Wolff, a financial analyst with experience in the insurance industry.

New rules and fire aftermath

Lara recently told the state Assembly Insurance Committee that the new regulations he put in place last year are showing signs of working — that insurers are writing policies in California again.

Those regulations include speeding up reviews and approvals of insurers’ requests to raise rates, and allowing them to factor in reinsurance costs and catastrophe models when setting rates in exchange for writing a certain percentage of policies in areas with high wildfire risk. Insurance companies including Mercury, CSAA and USAA have requested higher rates under the new rules and have received them, Lara told the committee.

He credited the rules with the availability improvements the department has seen so far, despite the deadly, multibillion-dollar disasters that were the L.A.-area fires.

“The market stabilized at a moment when it could have collapsed,” he told the committee last month, referring to the fires as the “event that reshaped everything.”

Lara told the committee that he expects his so-called sustainable insurance strategy — and the recovery from the fires — to take three to five years, and that California is already a year into that timeline.

Policyholders have also complained about delays and denials of claims with their insurers, prompting the insurance department to investigate market leader State Farm, as well as the FAIR Plan, over their handling of claims. Lara has backed new legislation and policies to address some of the problems fire survivors have experienced, including lack of smoke-damage standards and underinsurance.

So the next commissioner will have to handle the continuing aftermath of the fires, and either work with or modify the regulations Lara put into place.

‘Brutal’ balancing act

That will require engaging with competing interests: insurance companies, lawmakers, consumers and consumer groups.

Early in his tenure, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Lara accepted donations from the insurance industry despite promising not to; he apologized and returned those donations. Since then, he has been accused of continued coziness with the industry and criticized for his overseas travel.

Former insurance commissioner Dave Jones, a Lara critic, said the next insurance commissioner needs to have “integrity” and “a seriousness of purpose.” Both Jones and Garamendi told CalMatters the commissioner must protect consumers while ensuring a viable insurance market, which almost everybody needs – whether they’re current homeowners, renters, business owners or property owners, as well as those who need insurance to buy a property.

Lara has often defended himself by saying he needs to communicate with the insurance industry that he regulates, and has criticized his predecessors as “armchair insurance commissioners.” He was not available for an interview, according to department spokesperson Gabriel Sanchez, who did not want to respond to the commissioner’s critics for this story.

Joel Laucher worked for the insurance department for more than three decades, focusing on insurers’ conduct — including briefly under Lara. He said the incoming commissioner will have to be diplomatic but firm with the industry.

“Even if you’ve had a nice conversation with them, that shouldn’t hold you back from enforcing consumer protection laws, including levying fines or taking them to hearings,” said Laucher, who is now a program specialist at United Policyholders.

Robert Herrell worked at the insurance department for several years. He is now executive director of the Consumer Federation of California, another nonprofit consumer advocacy group.

His group and others have asked Lara to withdraw regulations that make it harder for intervenors — any members of the public who under California law can challenge insurers’ requests to raise premiums — to have an impact on the insurance department’s rate reviews. The commissioner has said the new rules, which the industry supports, are meant to improve efficiency and speed up rate reviews; the consumer groups say the rules are “designed to impede effective consumer participation.”

“It’s exactly the opposite direction of the way you ought to be going,” Herrell said.

Bach, of United Policyholders, signed onto those joint comments submitted in November by consumer groups, unions and others. But she said some of Lara’s critics are a bit too tough on him.

She said the commissioner has to be the “bad guy” on rate increases; hold insurers accountable while encouraging them to keep writing policies in the state; and communicate to consumers that the insurance department can be helpful but doesn’t have the capacity to give them individualized legal aid.

“We’ve never seen a market like this,” Bach said. “The balancing act is so brutal.”

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