After weeks of building tension, the Pasadena Unified School District has sued to prevent the city from enforcing the city’s tree protection ordinance on district property, amid a row over a project to fell trees on soil found contaminated after the Eaton fire.
In the lawsuit, filed this week in Los Angeles Superior Court, the district contends it has full authority over its ground and is immune from the the city’s enforcement.
In recent weeks, city inspectors have posted stop-work orders at several district campuses, seeking to stop the felling of trees district’s attorneys argue in the lawsuit must be cut down for public safety and health reasons and is backed by a recommendation from state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control.
“The District is a sovereign public agency subject only to the California Legislature and the California Constitution,” according to the 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.
City officials were reviewing the lawsuit and preparing a public response.
The district’s soil cleanup project began in mid June, but concern and questions soon popped up over the trees. Advocates began staging tree sit-ins and rallies as district crews worked.
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.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.