POP! is happy to announce that our very own Lead Organizer Florence Annang has been named a SJPLA 2023-24 Systems Change Accelerator Cohort. 

​Every year, the SJPLA Systems Change Accelerator welcomes a new cohort of leaders dedicated to addressing the root causes of Los Angeles’ most pressing social challenges. The SJPLA Systems Change Accelerator supports nonprofit leaders as they refine their systems change strategy, delve into liberatory team culture practices, strengthen their messaging, and widen their relationships and resources. 

Join us!

Councilmember-Elect and POP Board Member Rick Cole’s next issue forum is taking place THIS Tuesday, October 15 at 6:30 PM. These issue forums have been an excellent way to engage our community and discuss the topics that matter to us most. This week, special guest Mayor Victor Gordo will be speaking about his passions for enhancing mental health services and vocational career education in our community.

Click here to tune in!


We hope to see you there!

You're invited!
Elections are coming up, and we know that the ballot measures can be confusing. Join us as Rick Cole, District 2's next Councilmember and POP Board Member, leads the discussion with community guests to help us understand the pros and cons of each ballot measure and what they would mean for Pasadena.
The community meeting will be held on Monday, September 30th at 7-8:30PM at the Pasadena Job Center.
​We can't wait to see you!

Join us!

For the past few years there has been a push from the Police to be back into PUSD schools.

On Wednesday September 25th at 7pm we will have a roundtable discussion at Pasadena Job Center.

Raul Ibanez Director of CORE at Pasadena City College and Patrice Marshall McKenzie School Board member of District 5 discussing the pros and cons.

This will be live streamed on Radio Jornalero and POP’s Facebook pages.

Spanish translation for live stream.

We will be taking questions and having others chime into this long overdue conversation.

Election season is coming up fast! Join us on September 16th at 7pm to listen to the candidates for PUSD School Board speak on the issues that matter to us most.
Attend in person at the Pasadena Job Center, or tune in to Radio Jornalera's live stream on our Facebook page with a full Spanish translation.
​Share your thoughts, questions, and concerns with the candidates, and hear their plans for the future of PUSD!

San Gabriel Valley Literacy Council, an all volunteer 501(c)(3), is offering FREE English and citizenship classes for small groups of adults in the Pasadena area.

SGVLC English and Citizenship classes begin September 20. Until we can get past COVID, all classes will be on Zoom. (We teach our students how to use Zoom.) We teach beginning, intermediate, advanced and advanced conversation classes and citizenship classes. The class schedule is on our website. We offer some one-on-one tutoring.

To join a class (or to ask a question), students can call or text us at 626-283-9767, visit our website sgvlc.org, or email us at [email protected]

A dialogue with local stakeholders moderated by James Farr (Conversation Live Journalist/Producer). We will be moving around our city asking questions that truly affect the local residents and the communities beyond, listening to their answers and solutions.

James Farr, Conversation Live, Journalist/Producer
Horace Warmely, Managing Partner at the Layercake Group & Co-Director of DSTRKT Foundation
Chris Finney, Director of Community Outreach & Engagement
Nicole Bernard, 2nd Vice President, NAACP Pasadena Brand, Dena rooted

A dialogue with local stakeholders moderated by James Farr (Conversion Live Journalist/Producer) and Brandon Lamar. We will be moving around our city asking questions that truly affect the local residents and the communities beyond, listening to their answers and solutions.

The Pasadena Affordable Housing Coalition held a community forum on the city's next Housing Element. Required by State law, the process of updating the Housing Element is an opportunity to create a comprehensive plan for tackling our affordable housing crisis.

Open to the Oxy Community
HOW TO RUN A PROGRESSIVE CITY
Guest speaker
Gayle McLaughlin
Thursday, February 20, 2020
10:05-11:30am
Johnson Hall 203
Gayle McLaughlin served as Mayor of Richmond, California from 2007-2014 and was on the City Council for another three years. Richmond --  a working class a city of 110,000 residents in the Bay Area, is perhaps the most progressive city in the United States. McLaughlin helped lead the city’s transformation through her work with the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA), a broad coalition that engaged in both grassroots community organizing and electoral politics.    Under her leadership, Richmond increased the minimum wage to $15 an hour, reduced homicides 75% in 8 years, forced Chevron (the giant oil company that has a plant in Richmond) to pay over $100 million in additional city taxes, limited its pollution and sued the oil giant for damage to the population.  Richmond dramatically reduced the rate of violent crime, improved its public schools, and became a Sanctuary City to protect immigrant rights. In 2016, Richmond passed the first new rent control law in California in 30 years. 
Sponsored by the Urban & Environmental Policy Department with support from the Remsen Bird and Anderson Funds.

 

PRESS RELEASE
 
Thursday, January 9, 2020
Contact: Kimberly Douglas, Board Chair
Phone: 626-818-8068
Email: [email protected]
 
Pasadenans Organizing for Progress Commends the City for Their Effort to Eliminate Wage Theft
 
Pasadenans Organizing for Progress (POP!), the lead organization in Pasadena that fought for the minimum wage to be increased to $15/hour by 2020, celebrates the effort made by City of Pasadena to ensure that low wage workers earn what they deserve and are not robbed by their employers.
 
On January 8th the City of Pasadena released a statement revealing that a local business, Chapala Bakery, violated the minimum wage ordinance and also violated a number of labor codes. Through a joint effort between the City of Pasadena and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), a minimum wage outreach worker discovered the violations and examined the employee complaints which were ultimately brought to the California Department of Industrial Relations – Bureau of Field Enforcement. The fines, penalties and damages assessed to Chapala Bakery are over $80k. The City reports that the business has been uncooperative throughout the process and is refusing to pay the damages due to the employees and fines owed to the State.
 
“Businesses in the great City of Pasadena cannot and should not succeed on the backs of low wage workers,” said Juliana Serrano, POP! Board Member and Senior Associate at All Saints Church. “Wage theft is a serious issue and employees ought to be paid what they earned for their hard labor. It is wonderful that Pasadena is taking the problem of wage theft head on.”
 
As part of POP!’s advocacy for worker’s rights and economic justice, it also fought for the City of Pasadena to include a strong wage theft enforcement measure as part of the city ordinance when it was unanimously approved in 2016 (and affirmed in 2019). Understanding that many businesses in the city would not pay their employees the minimum wage increases according to the ordinance’s schedule, POP! worked closely with the City to create a mechanism by which wage theft violations could be reported and investigated to the City’s Planning and Community Development Department.
 
“Because of the work that the NDLON outreach worker has been able to do in partnership with the City, many employers and employees have been educated about the new minimum wage and several cases of wage theft have been identified. This is certainly the most egregious case discovered, and we hope no other business will be found in such violation again,” said POP! Board Member and Worker’s Rights Committee Chair, Mark Maier.
 
A multi-issue community organization whose mission is to make Pasadena a more just, fair and inclusive city, POP! remains committed to advocating for worker’s rights and ensuring that the minimum wage ordinance is protected and adhered to by all businesses in Pasadena.
 
To learn more about POP!, please visit: www.poppasadena.org

Our work depends on support from people like you, please consider making a contribution today!

December 12th, 4 to 7 P.M.,
Pasadena Job Center,
500 North Lake Avenue,
Pasadena, 91101

​The POP Board is devastated by the sudden loss of Marv Gross, a founding Board Member. He inspired us. His many years of social justice engagement afforded our new group a rich depth of perspective on the issues we took on. Most recently, he was finding enormous delight in renewing his radio skills working on the newly created POP radio. His happiness could be infectious. We will miss his extraordinary dedication and the understated manner in which he succeeded in making a difference in so many people’s lives.
 
In honor of Marv’s many decade legacy of caring for and lifting up the most marginalized in our community, POP will continue to strive to make Pasadena a more just, fair and inclusive city. 

On October 8, Governor Newsom signed the Tenant Protection ACT. The new law caps rent increases at no more than 5% plus inflation. It also protects tenants from eviction without a good reason or “just cause.” The law goes into effect January 1.
 
Right now, before the new law can take effect, landlords continue to gouge tenants with huge rent increases and unjustly evict them without cause.
 
Attorney Dennis Block, spoke to over 200 landlords at a recent apartment owner conference in Pasadena and advised them to quickly raise rents and evict tenants before the new law takes effect.  Read LA Times Steve Lopez Article,
 
This is exactly the unjust behavior the Tenant Protection Act was passed to prevent.
 
Last Tuesday, the LA City Council unanimously passed an emergency moratorium on “no-fault” or unjust evictions.  The LA ordinance prevents landlords from evicting residential tenants unless there is just cause, such as non-payment of rent or use of a unit for criminal activity. Read LA Times Andrew Khouri - LA Eviction Moratorium  

It’s time to say NO to unjust evictions in PasadenaJoin POP!, the Pasadena Tenants Union, and fellow citizens this Monday, October 28, 2019, at 6:30 pm in the City Council Chambers at Pasadena City Hall, 100 North Garfield Avenue, Room S249.  Please show up at 6 p.m. to fill out a speaker card. 
 
Demand that the Mayor and your council member pass a similar moratorium in Pasadena immediately! Tell them that –
 
Pasadena Tenants and Homeowners Agree Pasadena needs rent control and just cause evictions. See Pasadena Weekly story - Pasadena Needs Rent Control/ 
 
We all need to stand together and protect Pasadena tenants.
 
If you cannot attend, please contact Mayor Tornek and your Council Member (you can find out who that is HERE) and let them know that you support a moratorium on unjust evictions before the Tenant Protection Act takes effect in January.   

Steve Greenhouse – long-time labor reporter for the New York Times, will be speaking at Occidental College on Thursday, October 10 about his new book, “Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor.”  The talk will be from 11:30 am to 1 pm in Choi Auditorium, which is located in Johnson Hall on the Occidental campus.  The book – which has gotten rave reviews in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and other papers, will be available for sale and Steve will be happy to sign books.  The event is free and open to the public.
 
Greenhouse was a reporter for the New York Times from 1983 to 2014. He covered labor and workplace issues for 19 years. He also served as a business and economics reporter and as a foreign correspondent. He has been honored with the Society of Professional Journalists Deadline Club award, a New York Press Club award, a Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial reporting, and the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism for his previous book, “The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker.”
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