Pasadena Unified School District Board President Tina Fredericks is asking a Los Angeles judge to block a recall campaign targeting her, representing herself in court as she fights allegations of backroom dealing and conflicts of interest.
Fredericks, who represents Trustee Area 6, filed suit July 2 against the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder to invalidate the recall petition before it can circulate. The case is scheduled for a hearing Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. Before Judge Tiana J. Murillo at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.
The recall effort accuses Fredericks of violating California’s Ralph M. Brown Act, the state’s open-meetings law, through private communications with fellow board members about school consolidation. Organizers also allege she advanced her own “Consolidation 2027” plan while presenting it as an independent process, and that she worked with a consultant before that consultant landed a taxpayer-funded contract worth more than $233,000, according to Pasadena Now.
Fredericks has pushed back against both claims. She reportedly said no more than two or three of the seven board members participated in any communication, and that “Consolidation 2027” was merely a collection of personal notes that were never circulated.
The legal fight took a strange detour over the summer. Fredericks’s original court filing named 124 unidentified “Doe” parties, a number that matched exactly the count of residents who had signed the notice of intention to circulate the recall petition. Recall proponents believed this meant Fredericks intended to sue each signer individually, Pasadena Now reported.
Fredericks later removed those residents from the case entirely. She submitted an amended petition Sept. 2 striking the 124 signers from the filing.
“I had no intention of suing them,” she told Pasadena Now. “From the beginning my goal was just to clear up the falsehoods about me, and that’s it.”
Fredericks said the inclusion stemmed from a misunderstanding of filing requirements rather than any plan to target constituents.
The recall campaign cleared a key procedural hurdle August 13, when the Registrar-Recorder approved petitions against both Fredericks and Trustee Scott Harden for signature gathering. Supporters now have until December 11 to collect signatures from 20% of eligible voters in each trustee area, according to Pasadena Now.
The dual recalls center on conduct during the district’s controversial consolidation process, which has drawn sustained community backlash. Fredericks’s lawsuit represents an attempt to short-circuit that process before it reaches the ballot, transforming a local governance dispute into a test of recall procedures under California law.
Fredericks is not the only board member facing removal. Trustee Scott Harden is also targeted by recall organizers, though the source article does not detail specific allegations against him.
The legal maneuvering has left some recall supporters wary. The initial “Doe” filing, however brief, suggested a level of legal aggression that Fredericks has since disavowed. Her decision to represent herself adds another unusual element to a case already marked by procedural twists.
California’s recall system allows voters to remove elected officials mid-term through petition and special election, a process that has seen renewed national attention in recent years. The Pasadena case turns on whether recall organizers followed proper procedures in launching their effort, and whether Fredericks’s alleged conduct rises to a level that would invalidate the attempt.
The Tuesday hearing before Judge Murillo will determine whether Fredericks’s challenge can proceed while the recall signature drive continues on parallel track.
