Friday, March 13, 2026

County Proposes Temporary RV Living Option for Eaton Fire Survivors in Altadena

By ANDRÈ COLEMAN, Managing Editor

The Altadena Town Council will hear a proposal on March 17 that would allow some fire survivors to temporarily live in recreational vehicles parked in public rights of way

The Altadena Town Council meeting on March 17 is scheduled to hear a proposal that would allow some Eaton Fire survivors in Altadena to temporarily live in recreational vehicles parked in public rights of way while rebuilding their homes.

The proposal, detailed in a memo prepared by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works and several partner agencies, comes in response to a policy motion introduced last month by Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.

Public Works worked alongside the County’s departments of Regional Planning, Public Health, Fire, the Sheriff’s Department and County Counsel to develop a framework intended to provide displaced residents with a temporary housing option when placing an RV on their own property is not feasible.

Under the proposed guidelines,

Friday, March 13, 2026

PUSD Governance Workshop Exposes Board’s Uncertainty Over Its Own Rules

A Pasadena Unified Board of Education workshop intended to sharpen meeting procedure instead laid bare deeper uncertainty over how the board governs itself, as trustees openly disputed rules, questioned prior interpretations and asked for legal follow-up on several core practices.

What began as a training session on meeting discipline repeatedly turned into a debate over whether the board’s own protocols are clear, workable or even consistently followed.

The Thursday evening study session, led by facilitator Marisol Avalos, Ed.D., a registered parliamentarian, was designed around scripted role-playing exercises meant to help the board practice enforcing its meeting protocols. Trustees were told the session was “not a critique of individuals” and that past disagreements would not be revisited.

Instead, the facilitator said, the goal was to “build fluency and shared responsibility around how meetings are conducted.”

But the exercises quickly surfaced fundamental disagreements — about the superintendent’s right to speak during board deliberation, about whether information items allow any trustee discussion at all,

Thursday, March 12, 2026

Coalition Launches Bilingual Campaign to Shield Altadena’s Latino Fire Survivors From Fraud

Four organizations and political cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz gather in Pasadena to help families navigate legal, insurance and rebuilding challenges 14 months after the Eaton Fire

A coalition of Latino-serving organizations launches a bilingual “Know Your Rights” campaign Thursday aimed at helping families affected by the Eaton Fire navigate legal claims, insurance disputes and rebuilding fraud — issues that have mounted in the 14 months since the blaze destroyed more than 9,000 structures in Altadena and surrounding communities.

The campaign, called “Know Your Rights/Conoce Tus Derechos,” is organized by the Viva Altadena Collaborative and scheduled for 2 p.m. at Monarca Sol, a Chicana Indigenous-owned cultural boutique at Paseo Colorado, 300 E. Colorado Blvd., No. 139, according to an announcement from the organizers.

Representatives from the Los Angeles Latino Chamber of Commerce, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, LA Fire Justice, Alliance for a Better Community and political cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz are expected to participate.

The effort comes as research from UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Institute has documented widening disparities in Altadena’s recovery.

Thursday, March 12, 2026

Civil Rights Attorneys Crump, Douglas File Records Request Targeting LA County’s Eaton Fire Response in West Altadena

The civil rights attorneys say they are seeking county documents on evacuation delays in the historically Black community where 18 of 19 fire deaths occurred

Civil rights attorneys Ben Crump and Carl Douglas announced Thursday the filing of a California Public Records Act request seeking documents from Los Angeles County about the emergency response to the January 2025 Eaton Fire in West Altadena, where 18 of the 19 people killed in the blaze lived.

The request, announced at a news conference at Douglas Hicks Law in Los Angeles, is part of what the attorneys described as an effort to examine whether residents of the historically Black community received delayed evacuation warnings and unequal emergency response, and to explore potential federal civil rights claims concerning whether race played a role in the county’s actions before and during the fire, according to a press release issued by Ben Crump Law.

The filing adds a private legal channel to accountability efforts already underway. In February,

Thursday, March 12, 2026

PUSD Board to Consider Second ‘Positive’ Budget Certification

The Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education will consider certifying the district’s financial condition as “Positive” Thursday evening, a required state designation that says PUSD can meet its obligations for the current and two subsequent fiscal years, through 2027-28.

The certification, contained in the district’s Second Interim Budget Report, must be filed with the Los Angeles County Office of Education by March 16.

The district’s own financial data, presented in Board Report No. 120-B, reveals that without one-time insurance revenue, the district is running a deficit. Insurance revenue of $164.65 million from PRISM, the district’s insurer, following the January Eaton Fire flows through the unrestricted General Fund, producing a one-time $66.6 million surplus for 2025-26. Strip out fire-related revenue and expenditures, and the district is running a $16.9 million deficit in the current year, according to the report.

The gap between the two pictures is stark. With fire insurance revenue included, the unrestricted General Fund’s ending balance stands at $173.3 million.

Thursday, March 12, 2026

ArtNight Closeup: PUSD Students Build Their Own Gallery for ArtNight’s 21st No Boundaries Show

Rose City High School teens curate more than 300 works — and some young artists won’t know they’ve won scholarships until they walk in Friday night

For the 21st consecutive year, Pasadena Unified School District students will display their artwork in a professional gallery during ArtNight Pasadena — but the students who built the exhibition won’t be the only ones surprised by what they find on the walls.

Before the public arrives Friday afternoon at The Paseo, representatives from ArtCenter College of Design, Armory Center for the Arts, and the City of Pasadena Arts Commissioners will walk the gallery and place small stickers on selected artwork labels. The student artists will not know they have received scholarship awards or recognition until they arrive that evening, according to Karen Anderson, Arts and Enrichment Coordinator for Pasadena Unified School District.

“When the kids come for No Boundaries, they see, ‘Oh my gosh, why does it say ArtCenter next to my piece?’ And then they find out that they won an award for a scholarship to the ArtCenter,”

Thursday, March 12, 2026

Pasadena Unified Committee Removes Nine Schools From Closure Consideration, Leaving 14 Under Review

First polling round narrows the list as financially strapped District weighs consolidation options

A Pasadena Unified School District advisory committee has removed nine schools from the list of campuses being considered for potential closure or consolidation, the first concrete narrowing in a process that could reshape the District’s footprint as it confronts a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall.

The Superintendent’s School Consolidation Advisory Committee conducted its first in a series of polls on March 9 to identify schools to remove from the list of sites under consideration, Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco announced in an email to the school community on March 11.

The schools removed span all levels. John Muir High School and Pasadena High School are off the list, as are Octavia E Butler Magnet and Sierra Madre Middle School. Three elementary campuses were removed: Mary W. Jackson Steam, Madison Elementary, and Sierra Madre Elementary. Two alternative schools, CIS Academy and Rose City High School, were also taken off the list.

The 14 schools that remain under review include two secondary campuses — Blair School and Thurgood Marshall Secondary School — along with Eliot Arts Magnet middle school and McKinley School,

Thursday, March 12, 2026

‘We’re Talking About People’s Lives:’ California Lawmakers Grill DMV Director On Deadly Failures

By Lauren Hepler and Robert Lewis, CALMATTERS

The man in charge of California’s Department of Motor Vehicles finally had to face tough questions Tuesday about what his agency is doing to address an increase in road deaths in recent years.

Though he didn’t provide many answers.

DMV Director Steve Gordon told lawmakers that he didn’t know if his agency had the ability to speed up license suspensions, didn’t know if he could get data for lawmakers on how often the agency takes action against dangerous drivers, and wasn’t familiar with numbers – that his agency provided CalMatters just last week – showing the DMV rarely investigates motorists who get in crashes seriously injuring or killing people.

Gordon did, however, assure lawmakers at various times that the seeming lack of details or direct response to questions was because the DMV’s operations are “complex,” “very inside baseball,” and “extremely nuanced.”

“I can follow up in detail with your office,” he told one senator.

Thursday, March 12, 2026

Native Plants Take Root at New Eaton Canyon Center Built to Restore Altadena’s Parks

The nursery hub, funded by nearly $3 million in grants, will grow trees and shrubs for seven fire-damaged sites across the community

Los Angeles County opened a nursery and restoration center at Eaton Canyon on Saturday dedicated to growing the native plants that will restore seven parks destroyed or damaged by the Eaton Fire.

The Landscape Recovery Center at Eaton Canyon, located at 1456 East Mendocino Street near Altadena Golf Course, will cultivate native trees and shrubs to support long-term habitat regeneration across six Altadena parks and Castaic Lake State Recreation Area, county officials said at a ceremony marking the facility’s launch.

Assemblymember John Harabedian, D-Pasadena, announced a total of $21.7 million in state investment in Altadena’s park and green-space recovery at the event, according to his office.

The center itself is funded by nearly $3 million in grants — $1 million from the Regional Park and Open Space District, governed by the LA County Board of Supervisors, and $1.87 million from the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy,

Thursday, March 12, 2026

Housing Market Clouds Gather as Economic Turmoil Deepens

By EDDIE RIVERA

Conflict in the Middle East, job losses and policy uncertainty add pressure to a fragile housing recovery

The U.S. housing market entered 2026 hoping for a modest recovery. Instead, it now faces a deepening fog of economic uncertainty fueled by geopolitical conflict, slowing job growth and volatile policy signals that are rippling through financial markets and the broader economy.

New data released by the California Association of Realtors (CAR) suggests the nation’s housing sector is once again confronting the same headwinds that stalled activity for much of the past two years: stubbornly high borrowing costs, weakening consumer demand and mounting economic anxiety.

Those pressures have intensified as conflict in the Middle East threatens to drive energy prices higher and prolong inflation—developments that economists warn could keep mortgage rates elevated and push the U.S. economy toward a period of stagflation.

“An escalation of conflict in the Middle East raises the risk of higher oil prices and therefore higher inflation,” said Mark Zandi,