Monday, June 22, 2026

Guest Opinion | Michelle Matthews: Trees Are Not the Problem

Across eleven Pasadena Unified campuses, 193 mature trees are scheduled to be cut down as part of the soil remediation that followed the Eaton fire. The district began the removals on June 11, and 16 trees have already been lost. I write as a parent whose son has attended four of these schools, including San Rafael, Jackson, and Eliot. The more closely I have looked at this, the clearer it becomes that the trees are being treated as the problem when the problem was never the trees.

The contamination did not come from the trees. It came from a catastrophic fire whose ecological effects we will be coping with for years to come, and the lead and other contaminants in the soil were deposited by that disaster, or in some cases were already present beforehand. The contamination was not exacerbated by the mature oaks that have shaded these schoolyards for decades. Those trees are among the few things still providing much-needed shade and habitat on these campuses, most of which are urban heat islands.

Monday, June 22, 2026

Five Chicano and Latinx Writers Come to Vroman’s for an El Martillo Press Reading

A Culture Clash founder and four poets, including Pomona’s second poet laureate, share one Pasadena stage June 26

A founding member of the Chicano performance troupe Culture Clash and four Latinx poets will read from their work June 26 at Vroman’s Bookstore, in an evening staged by the Los Angeles publisher El Martillo Press.

The reading and book signing, set for 7 p.m. at the Pasadena store, brings together a notably broad slate: playwright Herbert Siguenza alongside poets Lorna Dee Cervantes, Paul S. Flores, Sonia Gutiérrez and Ceasar K. Avelar. El Martillo Press, founded in Los Angeles in 2023 by poets Matt Sedillo and David A. Romero, publishes working-class and Latinx writers. “El Martillo” means “the hammer” in Spanish. The store asks that those attending consider buying a book.

The press built a national profile quickly. In its first years it published Flores’ We Still Be: Poems and Performances, which won the American Book Award in 2024. “We want to treat our authors the way we want to be treated,”

Sunday, June 21, 2026

An Altadena Coalition Turns a Half-Hour Toward Fire Safety and Recovery

The volunteer neighborhood group meets Tuesday on Zoom to walk residents through reporting, brush clearance and where to find help.

When Altadena’s neighborhood associations gather on Zoom Tuesday evening, the agenda reads like a snapshot of a community a year and a half into its recovery: how to report problems, how to clear brush as fire season deepens, and where to turn for help.

The Altadena Coalition of Neighborhood Associations (ACONA) meets from 7 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., with the session focused on community safety, fire preparedness and local resources. Residents can expect updates on reporting procedures, brush-clearance requirements and the organizations still working to support the area’s rebuild.

ACONA was established in 2010 as a volunteer umbrella group, a way for Altadena’s neighborhood associations and Neighborhood Watch groups to network and trade best practices. Since the Eaton Fire tore through the community in January 2025, the coalition has been convening more often — bringing county fire, sheriff’s and planning officials before open community audiences and tracking the slow machinery of recovery,

Sunday, June 21, 2026

City Warns of Smoke, Poor Air Quality as Boyle Heights Warehouse Fire Smolders Into Sunday

In a statement, the City of Pasadena recommended that residents with pre-existing medical conditions stay indoors as a regional air-quality advisory covering Pasadena remained in effect Sunday.

The City of Pasadena urged residents with pre-existing medical conditions to stay indoors over the weekend as smoke from a stubborn warehouse fire in Boyle Heights drifted across the city and the San Gabriel Valley, leaving air quality poor into Sunday.

In a statement issued Saturday, the city said smoke and the odor of smoke may be noticeable in the Pasadena area but that “there is no immediate danger to our community.” It advised individuals with pre-existing medical conditions to remain indoors, keep windows and doors closed and run an air purifier if available, and pointed residents to current readings at AirNow.gov.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District’s particle pollution advisory was in effect through 12:30 p.m. Sunday and covered the San Gabriel Valley, including Pasadena, San Gabriel and Pomona. Fine-particle levels had ranged from “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups” to “Very Unhealthy” on the Air Quality Index across central Los Angeles County,

Sunday, June 21, 2026

On a Monday Evening in Altadena, a Conversation About How Octavia Butler Became Octavia Butler

Author Lynell George joins Fin Lee at the Altadena Community Center to trace the science-fiction visionary’s path to the page

The science-fiction writer Octavia E. Butler imagined entire worlds, but the harder act of creation, as she told it, was making herself into a writer. On Monday evening, the journalist and author Lynell George sits down at the Altadena Community Center to consider that long, deliberate becoming.

George, who wrote “A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler,” will be in conversation with Fin Lee from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. Built from years inside Butler’s archive at the Huntington Library — her notebooks, her to-do lists, the hand-lettered affirmations she taped where her eye would catch them — George’s book reads less like a conventional biography than like a field guide to building a creative life from almost nothing.

The setting carries its own weight. Butler was born in Pasadena in 1947 and made her home in Altadena,

Sunday, June 21, 2026

Region Marks the Summer Solstice With Its Longest Day of the Year

The first day of astronomical summer brings more than 14 hours of daylight to Pasadena and nearby foothill communities

Pasadena enters astronomical summer today, Sunday, June 21, as the summer solstice brings the city its longest stretch of daylight of the year and a late-setting sun over the San Gabriel Valley.

The solstice occurs at 1:24 a.m. Pacific time, when Earth’s Northern Hemisphere is tilted as far toward the sun as it will be this year. For Pasadena residents, that means roughly 14½ hours of daylight, with sunrise that started at around 5:40 a.m. and sunset shortly after 8 p.m.

Unlike the calendar used for meteorological seasons, which treats summer as beginning June 1, the solstice marks the astronomical start of summer. It is tied not to temperature, but to Earth’s orbit and axial tilt — the same mechanics that produce the changing length of days throughout the year.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory describes the June solstice as the point when the Northern Hemisphere receives its longest days and shortest nights of the year.

Saturday, June 20, 2026

Water Company Association Asks Pérez To Strike Provisions in Mutual Water Rate Bill It Says Threaten Privacy

The California Association of Mutual Water Companies on Friday called on State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez to strike provisions it says threaten privacy and safety from her bill imposing new transparency and notice requirements on mutual water companies that raise rates, the same day the senator held an Altadena news conference promoting the legislation as a safeguard for Eaton Fire survivors facing rising water costs.

The association’s statement, issued hours after Pérez’s morning news conference, framed a dispute that has tracked the measure through the Legislature.

Pérez and Los Angeles County officials describe the bill as a transparency and consumer-protection measure for customers of private, customer-owned water systems, while the industry group says provisions would endanger the privacy and safety of the volunteer board members and shareholder customers those systems serve.

The bill remains under consideration in the Legislature.

In a statement issued Friday, Adán Ortega, the association’s executive director, said he attended Pérez’s news conference and argued that the measure reaches well beyond the community where it has drawn attention.

Saturday, June 20, 2026

Pasadena to Host Second Free World Cup Watch Party at Civic Plaza for Mexico-Czech Republic Match

The City of Pasadena and the Pasadena Center Operating Company will host a second free public watch party at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium Plaza on Wednesday, June 24, screening Mexico’s final World Cup group-stage match against the Czech Republic.

The event builds on the City’s June 12 watch party at the same plaza for the United States-Paraguay opener and continues Pasadena’s public programming tied to the region’s role as a 2026 World Cup host city.

The plaza at 300 E. Green St. opens at 4:30 p.m., with the game starting at 6 p.m.

The City said the street and plaza will be transformed into a community event space featuring food trucks, family-friendly activities, soccer-themed games, a merch customization station, music, and a beer garden with drinks for purchase. Seating is limited, and attendees are encouraged to bring their own chairs and to represent their favorite soccer team.

The match is Mexico’s final Group A fixture of the tournament and will be played at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.

Saturday, June 20, 2026

Pasadena Quilting Bee Invites Residents to Stitch Democracy-Themed Squares for Nation’s 250th Birthday

A national quilt project arrives in Old Pasadena this Saturday with a two-hour workshop open to all skill levels

Pasadena residents can pick up needle and thread Saturday morning to design quilt squares tied to the nation’s 250th anniversary, as the Quilt for Democracy Project hosts a quilting bee at the Armory Center for the Arts.

The two-hour workshop, running from 10 a.m. to noon on June 20, is part of a national effort that the project says has collected quilt squares from participants across the country, according to promotional materials published in the Robert Hubbell Substack newsletter. Participants will design and create quilt tops intended, in the project’s words, to “celebrate our nation’s 250th birthday and our dreams for democracy’s future.”

No sewing expertise is required. The project’s promotional materials describe the event as open to “beginners, artists, activists and the quilting-curious.”

The venue itself adds to the event’s accessibility. The Armory Center for the Arts, a nonprofit visual arts organization housed in Pasadena’s historic 1932 National Guard Building,

Saturday, June 20, 2026

Gubernatorial Candidate Steve Hilton’s ‘Califordable’ Tour Stops in Neighboring South Pasadena Today

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton is set to hold a “Califordable Town Hall” in South Pasadena at 3 p.m. Saturday.

The event is part of Hilton’s statewide “Califordable Town Hall Tour,” a series of more than 25 stops launched Jan. 21 in Redwood City. The format includes remarks by Hilton followed by an audience question-and-answer session focused on affordability issues such as housing, health care, energy and other rising costs.

Hilton advanced to the Nov. 3 general election after finishing second in the June 2 open primary and will face Democrat Xavier Becerra.

A UC Berkeley IGS/Los Angeles Times poll cited in the source material showed Becerra leading Hilton 52% to 31% among registered voters.

Hilton has centered his campaign on affordability, including taxes, housing, energy prices and health-care spending.

“Everything is too expensive in California. We’re going to cut people’s costs,” Hilton said.

The research report identifies South Pasadena’s housing costs as an example of the affordability issues Hilton highlights.