The Pasadena Unified School District Board of Education on Thursday, July 16, approved legal action to protect the district’s controversial soil-remediation work while also voting to exempt itself from the city’s zoning ordinances, which city inspectors have said justify a halt to the district’s tree-removal work — work that has drawn the ire of local environmental advocates.
“The board approved initiating litigation to protect against interference on the district’s school campuses and property and the approved and ongoing contaminated soil removal and remediation project,” Board President Tina Fredericks said, referring to the unanimous vote enabling the litigation.
Fredericks did not provide any additional information about the type of legal action or what individuals or agencies would be the subject of the district’s action.
Trustees voted to take that step during closed session, before a special meeting where the Board of Education also passed a resolution that exempted its remediation and tree-removal work from Pasadena’s zoning ordinances, including its Tree Protection Ordinance.
The resolution passed 5-2 with Fredericks and Trustee Scott Harden voting no.
“What is clear is that the city government has jurisdiction over the city and what is clear to the school board is that we have jurisdiction over the school district,” Trustee Michelle Richardson Bailey said.
According to district officials, summer remediation work needs to be done at 84 remaining trees. Of those, 42 are mature or native trees and 42 are not protected based on the city’s criteria.
“The city has always valued our collaborative relationship and has worked diligently to assist PUSD,” Pasadena spokesperson Lisa Derderian wrote in a statement. “The city maintains its focus, which is the retention of protected trees during the soil remediation process and hopes PUSD leadership will carefully consider options that retain protected trees and restore lost canopy moving forward.”
So far, about 80 trees have been removed, according to local advocates. The district plan — which kicked off in June as part of a cleanup of soil found to be contaminated after the Eaton fire — calls for the replacement of trees that have been removed. Last month, the Board of Education passed a resolution that committed to preserving protected trees by seeking alternative methods of remediation.
About 20 people attended Thursday’s meeting, with all 10 public speakers voicing opposition to the district’s approach and urging trustees to take up a different path.
The meeting took place at the same PUSD headquarters where advocates have attempted to stop tree-removal work over the last month. Fencing has since been set up around some trees around the property.
PUSD’s summer break has been a continuous back-and-forth between district leadership reiterating the need to clean up campus soil for fully reopened schools to start the 2026/27 school year while local environmental advocates, and more recently the city of Pasadena, have pushed back against the plan to cut down more than 100 trees.
The district has said that push back threatens a “critical timeline” to get campuses fully restored by the time the new school year begin next month.
The work this summer is the result of soil testing at district sites in the wake of the Eaton fire, which found contaminants at several locations across PUSD.
In its latest defense of the clean-up work, PUSD’s communications office this week released a lengthy statement that included a detailed timeline of how it arrived at the current situation citing months of planning and consultation with the city and the Department of Toxic Substances Control.
It said both entities signed off on the plan and claimed that the city back tracked its initial stance that the work would not be subject to Pasadena’s tree protection ordinance. Late last week, city inspectors were turned away at John Muir High School before returning the following day with a court-approved warrant in hand to inspect the ongoing removal work.
Before city government entered the fray, a grassroots effort led by community members and tree advocates had been doing whatever it could to block the tree removal work as far back as early June.
Volunteers have tied themselves to tree trunks and climbed up into tree branches to save trees and publicize the situation. They claim the district could have taken a path that cleaned up the soil without taking down trees.
Thursday’s meeting was streamed live on the KLRN Pasadena YouTube channel.