Sunday, August 9, 2026

An Altadena Nonprofit’s Annual Back-to-School Giveaway Moves to Pasadena City Hall For the First Time Today

By THERESE EDU

LOV Olive Branches will distribute supplies, barbering vouchers and clothing to nearly 2,000 registered families on Sunday, August 9

When Valerie Toliver talks about handing a child a backpack, she does not talk about zippers or notebooks. She talks about the look on a kid’s face — the shift, she calls it — when a small face softens as yungster realizes, “Hey, there’s people out here that care.”

That moment will play out again on Sunday, August 9, when LOV Olive Branches Community Development Corporation holds what Toliver described as its 17th annual Back to School Community Give Back at Pasadena City Hall, distributing backpacks, school supplies, food, gift cards and clothing to families who have registered for the free event. Toliver is the organization’s President.

Close to 2,000 families have already signed up, Toliver said in early August.

The giveaway, scheduled from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at 100 North Garfield Avenue,

Saturday, August 8, 2026

PUSD Trustee to Tell Rotary How Her Mother’s Whistleblowing Closed Willowbrook

Jennifer Hall Lee traces a 1972 television exposé to the special education law that followed, and Wednesday’s luncheon is open to the public to attend

Pasadena Unified School District board member Jennifer Hall Lee will tell the Rotary Club of Pasadena on Wednesday how her mother’s whistleblowing inside a New York institution for people with disabilities helped force its closure and reshape special education nationwide.

The noon luncheon at the University Club of Pasadena is open to the public to attend, and it brings a national civil rights story back to the district Hall Lee helps govern. The federal law that guarantees special education services in every PUSD classroom traces to the scandal she will describe.

Her topic, as the club has billed it, is “Willowbrook School, Geraldo Rivera and Why Special Ed was Never the Same Again.” Hall Lee represents District 2 on the seven-member PUSD board and lives in Altadena. She also serves on the boards of the Pasadena chapters of the United Nations Association and the National Women’s Political Caucus.

Saturday, August 8, 2026

A Festival Before The Festival

By EDDIE RIVERA

Students tour Brookside ahead of Head in the Clouds

Head in the Clouds is two days away. The grass at Brookside is still green. The stage is still steel bones. The loudest sound on the field belongs to a portable speaker, slung from one hand.

That hand belongs to Tim Le, festival director for Goldenvoice, who spent Thursday morning walking the production lot with a microphone raised, narrating the guts of a music festival for about 25 high schoolers who had never seen one from this close. Behind him trailed forklifts, box trucks, a loader parked near the Arroyo Grill, and a line of students in matching lanyards trying to keep pace.

The event was Career Exploration Day, part of AEG Futures, a program run through the company’s Community Affairs and social impact teams in partnership with Goldenvoice and 88rising, the creative force behind Head in the Clouds. Students came from Crowell Family YMCA,

Friday, August 7, 2026

Unopposed PUSD School Board Races Would Be Removed From November Ballot

By ANDRÈ COLEMAN, Managing Editor

Instant winners will be appointed to school board

Two uncontested races for two school board seats won’t appear on the November ballot if additional qualified candidates do not emerge before tonight’s 5 p.m. filing period cutoff.

Incumbent Patrice Marshall McKenzie and candidate Dennis McNamara have qualified for seats in districts 5 and 7, respectively, and so far are running unopposed.

In accordance with Education Code Section 5328, the pair would be seated as if elected if no one else qualifies for the election.

Earlier this year, the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) passed a resolution adopting an Education Code that allows the Los Angeles County Registrar’s Office to cancel uncontested races as a cost-saving measure.

The canceled races would save the school district approximately $60,000 to $75,000 for each race canceled.

Several other school districts including the Arcadia Unified School District have canceled uncontested races.

Friday, August 7, 2026

Grant From Supervisor Barger Keeps Altadena Swimming Pool Open Through September 30

Loma Alta Park’s pool runs lap sessions, water exercise and lessons from August 24 under one-time Fifth District funding

For the second year running, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger is paying to keep Altadena’s public pool open past the end of the county’s summer season.

A one-time grant from Barger will carry aquatic programming at Loma Alta Park through September 30, her Fifth District office announced August 6. The extended season runs Monday, August 24 through Wednesday, September 30, 2026, at the pool at 3330 North Lincoln Avenue in unincorporated Altadena. Los Angeles County Parks sets the pool’s regular summer season as June 8 through August 15.

The pool will be open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., and Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. General swimming is free. Along with lap swim, water exercise and swim lessons, the extended schedule includes other aquatic programming, Barger’s office said.

Lap swim runs Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m.

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.