We often think of our participating community of Altadena as our poster child - the ultimate example of how a community is treated improperly and poorly due to its unincorporated status. So it was good to see that Altadena made the cover of Time Magazine's 12/08/2025 issue. The magazine featured Altadena in "Amid the Ashes", an article by Justin Worland. The article by Mr. Worland, who grew up in Altadena, details the community’s grief, hope and demands for real change.

 That's important, because it is all too easy for unincorporated places like Altadena to get lost in the noise. Like all of California's urbanized, unincorporated communities, Altadena doesn't have a Mayor and a City Council to focus on municipal affairs. Instead, municipal governance for the residents and businesses there rests with the county Board of Supervisors. Altadena is within one of Los Angeles County's five Supervisorial Districts. The Supervisor of that District is something of a lesser god, functioning as the community's sole public policy maker and administrator.  Besides Altadena, though, the Supervisor is responsible for over 2 million other people in a geographic area of almost 3,000 square miles with 71 other urban places - cities and unincorporated communities. Having that vast a span of attention means the Supervisor cannot truly focus on Altadena. Understanding and dealing with everyday issues in Altadena is an impossible task for the Supervisor, the implementation of which defaults to talking points and occasional photo ops. Oversight by Altadena's Members of the Legislature can also be something of a non-starter. Their State Senator has over a million constituents across two counties. Their Assembly Member has almost 1/2 million constituents, less than 9% of whom are Altadenans. It is plain to see that Altadena's needs have a hard time seeing the light of day.

The Time Magazine article explains that the devastating Eaton Fire put an exclamation point on the inherent unfairness of Altadena's situation.  It tells a story that needs to be heard. Given their circumstances, the people of Altadena yearn for elected leaders who actually understand the community's new reality and who act on it. They want meaningful change and they don't want to wait for it, as it has been almost a year since the fire.  The obvious solution is for Altadena to have local control of its own municipal circumstances: