On Tuesday evening, three weeks after the start of an unprecedented firestorm, Alphonso Browne circled the Pasadena City College gymnasium before a gathering of hundreds who lost their homes, holding a sign intended as a warning to any land speculators hoping to capitalize on Altadena’s misery. “Altadena Not For Sale.” Altadena Town Council President Victoria Knapp, who lost her home, stepped to the podium and urged: “I want everyone here to please take a deep breath and honor those who lost their lives to this devastating fire.
” A woman standing next to me said that she, like many others in western Altadena, got no evacuation warning and barely made it out alive. She said her name is Rose Robinson. Baseball great Jackie Robinson was her uncle, and her father, Mack Robinson — a Pasadena City College student-athlete — was a track and field silver medalist in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.
“We lost the suitcase he took to the Olympics,” she said of the fire that destroyed her home and everything in it. The gathering at PCC, organized by a nonprofit called Change Reaction , was intended as a show of support for those impacted by the fires, with relief checks of up to $5,000 distributed to attendees. “We will rise from the ashes stronger than ever,” said Bishop Charles Dorsey of the Lifeline Fellowship Christian Center.
L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who terms out in 2028, told the crowd that the board had just unanimously approved a motion she .
