A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has denied the Pasadena Unified School District’s emergency effort to stop the city of Pasadena from enforcing its tree protection and zoning ordinances on district property, officials said Friday.
Judge Joseph Lipner’s ruling appeared to come swiftly amid a week of legal action between the city and the district over the authority of the district to continue felling campus trees as part of its soil remediation project.
That project has spurred controversy because more than 100 trees, out of the district’s 5,000-strong tree canopy, need to be removed after post-Eaton fire testing found them to be rooted in contaminated soil.
Protesters have staged weeks of sit-ins against the effort to remove the designated trees, and the issue ultimately triggered the city’s effort to enforce its zoning ordinances, of which the Tree Protection Ordinance is part of.
The district alleges that the city’s efforts are delaying the work, just as the district and its students gear up for the new school year, which starts in mid-August.
In his ruling, Lipner wrote that he denied the request for a temporary restraining order against the city because there was no “irreparable harm” to the school district in light of his understanding of a recent Board of Education resolution that exempted from city zoning rules.
After weeks of simmering tensions, the legal battle kicked off when on July 20 the district filed papers in court to get a restraining order to prevent city inspectors from “interfering” with the soil clean up.
“The Court understands this to say that the City will not be enforcing the tree ordinance against Petitioner’s classroom facilities,” Lipner wrote. “Moreover, the City confirms that the previous stop work orders with respect to classroom facilities are no longer in effect. To the extent that the City takes any action inconsistent with the Court’s understanding, Petitioner may seek relief on an emergency basis.”
The city itself had earlier gone to court to obtain a judge’s OK to inspect the work at John Muir High School, where they’d been turned away.
If that was a first victory in the legal dispute, the second came on Friday with the denial of the restraining order and injunction on the city’s efforts.
“This morning, the Los Angeles County Superior Court summarily denied Pasadena Unified School District’s request for a restraining order to prevent the City from enforcing its Zoning Ordinances relating to tree protection at certain PUSD sites,” read a statement on behalf of the city from spokesperson Lisa Derderian.
“The City has maintained that PUSD’s legal action against the City is inappropriate and unnecessary. We recognize that PUSD has authority to adopt a resolution exempting itself from the city’s zoning in some respects, and we will see how the court ultimately decides the extent to which PUSD can proceed. In light of today’s court ruling in the City’s favor, we continue to hope that PUSD will consider options to safeguard protected trees.”
The district was reviewing the ruling with a comment pending, officials said.
While the court denied the school district’s request for emergency relief, there was no final judgement on the matter, according to the city.
Testing last year found fire-related toxins in soil at district sites, which exceeded state screening levels; a finding that prompted the district to close off the areas where the contamination was found.
The substances detected in these initial tests included lead, arsenic, chromium, Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and dioxins/furans.
- Also see: With a warrant, Pasadena inspectors gain access to Muir High to check on tree-removal project
When the district announced the $6.6 million remediation project back in May, Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco said the effort — to be completed before the new school year — was needed for “restoring outdoor learning spaces” at 11 campuses and other sites impacted by the Eaton fire in January 2025.
The sample collected with the highest level of lead was taken from Blair High School at 253 milligrams per kilogram. That sample was taken from next to the tennis courts near Garfield Avenue, next to the 110 Freeway.
Blanco noted that it would take ingestion of the toxins to be the most hazardous. Nevertheless, the primary concern, officials said, was with bare soil, which is limited across campuses and district properties.
Soil issues have become a point of concern in the area, not just at schools but in residential areas, as parcels and lots are cleared from the ash and debris left in the wake of the fire, which destroyed more than 9,000 structures in Altadena, Pasadena and Sierra Madre.
It’s not altogether clear whether the toxins are from the Eaton fire itself, but the fire triggered in a new focus on what could be varying levels of toxins that go back decades in local soil.
Work over the summer has been set for:
• Blair High School.
• Former Cleveland Elementary School site.
• Field Elementary.
• Franklin Elementary site.
• Jefferson Dual Language Children’s Center.
• John Muir High School Early College Magnet.
• Longfellow Elementary Magnet, Octavia E. Butler Magnet.
• San Rafael Elementary.
• Washington Elementary STEM Magnet School.
• PUSD Education Center.
The district has repeatedly leaned on recommendations from the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control for its public safety and health rationale for the project.
And it was the state’s role that loomed large in their arguments for an injunction against the city inspectors’ efforts to “stop work” across an array of district campuses.
In the lawsuit, the district contends it has full authority over its ground and is immune from the city’s enforcement.
“The District is a sovereign public agency subject only to the California Legislature and the California Constitution,” according to the school district’s lawsuit. “The District does not have to comply with the Tree Ordinance.”
Attorneys cited what they argued was settled legal precedent over district-vs.-city authority, noting that in such issues a district must answer to the state, not a local city’s ordinance.
“Defendants are knowingly, arbitrarily, and/or capriciously refusing to acknowledge the District’s sovereign status and have knowingly, arbitrarily, and/or capriciously interfered with the District’s Project via its demand that the District obtain tree removal permits, via its improper service of defective Stop Work Orders, via its improper Inspection Warrants, and without the authority to require the District to comply with its Tree Ordinance,” the document reads.
It was unclear on Friday if the district would pursue that line of argument.
The stop-work orders were posted at the district’s Education Center, Field Elementary School, John Muir High School, Longfellow Elementary, Octavia E. Butler Magnet, Washington Elementary STEM Magnet and San Rafael Elementary.
District officials noted at the time and alleged in the lawsuit this week that the orders did not cite a specific violation, “depriving” the district of due process rights to be informed of a specific alleged allegation.
That has led to a summer break defined by 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 city would ultimately obtain a court-approved warrant to inspect property at John Muir High School, and within days of that the district’s Board of Education OK’d legal action, which led to this week’s lawsuit seeking a court order to stop the city’s enforcement.
In 2002, the city of Pasadena passed the tree protection ordinance, which codified a list of protected species of trees that includes 13 types of native trees.
But in the lawsuit, the district took issue with how the city has approached the project, claiming that the city “flip-flopped” multiple times on its stance.
In April, for instance, two months after the district’s board of education approved the remediation project, “Defendants took the position that the District could not proceed with its Project unless the District obtained tree removal permits per the Tree Ordinance.
“On June 12, 2026, Defendants flip-flopped and informed the District that the District would not be subject to the Tree Ordinance because the Project is “part of a hazardous material and soil removal plan for school sites.
“On June 17, 2026, Defendants flip-flopped yet again, informed the District that it was “revisiting” the issue to determine if the District must apply for tree removal permits under the Tree Ordinance, and ordered the District not to remove any “protected trees.”
And in late June, according to the lawsuit, the city sent the district another email declaring that the district was subject to city’s “zoning and building regulations including the Tree Protection.”
Moreover, the district contends that city inspectors “threatened District contractors and instructed them to stop performing work on the Project.”
Ultimately, district officials have noted that the “interference” could jeopardize the extent to which campuses will be fully restored by the time the new school year begins, in mid-August.
In the lawsuit, district attorneys said that district’s contractors have been wary of returning for the work because of the threats. And the contractor has told the district that the delays from the city action will require “additional compensation” to cover the gap.
Along with the ask of a court to issue an injunction to stop city enforcement, the district is also seeking a reimbursement of legal fees.