The South Pasadena Historical Museum will remain in its building for now as city and museum representatives continue talks, days after the beloved community fixture said it received an eviction notice from the city, sparking strong community pushback.
This decision followed an extended closed City Council session on Wednesday, Sept. 4, to determine the future of the museum.
That meeting, which was scheduled to end by 7 p.m., but continued for an additional 20 minutes, drew significant public interest. City staff received over 120 letters from concerned community members, and around a dozen people spoke during public comment before the closed session to express opposition against the museum’s possible closure.
After the Council came back from the closed session, City Attorney Roxanne Diaz reported that the panel decided to appoint two liaison to work with the South Pasadena Preservation Foundation, a nonprofit that has operated the museum for 40 years, and it is hopeful that the parties involved can work out a solution.
“The city has been working with the South Pasadena Preservation Foundation for over two years,” Diaz said. “When the lease expired back in 2022, both city staff and the City Council have been actively engaged in this process, (and) have spent considerable amounts of time and resources with many meetings, calls and exchanges over the past two years with numerous proposals having been exchanged between all the parties. We’re hopeful that we can reach a workable solution, and the Council has directed a liaison of two members to work with all involved.”
Councilmembers Jon Primuth and Janet Braun volunteered to act as the Council liaison, retiring Community Services Director Sheila Pautsch said Thursday. She anticipated the parties involved will continue their conversation over the next two to four weeks.
Mayor Evelyn Zneimer previously confirmed that the city owns the land and the historic building at 913 Meridian Ave., which is next to the city’s Metro stop.
The foundation, which has helped teach the community about the city’s history, has been paying a rent of $1 a year to the city, Pautsch said.
Jennifer Trotoux, president of the South Pasadena Preservation Foundation, said the nonprofit wants to clear up any misunderstandings as soon as possible and finalize the lease agreement.
“We’re here because we just have a lot of things to clear up about the lease negotiation, and we hope that with clear air, we can all move forward and get into a lease that will help us continue our good work there,” she said after public comment.
The outpouring of community support since the matter became public over the weekend just reinforces the group’s belief about how much people cherish the museum, Trotoux said.
“We know that it means a lot to people in South Pasadena because people care about our history here, and they love to have a place to go learn about it and to teach their kids about it, to learn about their houses,” she said. “All these things bring meaning to living in a town like this.”
The Wednesday announcement brings a temporary relief to a situation that has captivated the South Pasadena community’s attention since last Friday.
The issue gained traction after the foundation posted on its website and other social media that the group was “threatened with closure of the South Pasadena Historical Museum,” and urged residents to show support.
Trotoux said negotiations with the city over the museum’s lease had been ongoing for months, but the eviction notice came as a surprising turn of events. On its website, the foundation explained that in April, they had agreed to a provision allowing continued use of the museum for activities related to the Farmers Market.
“Misunderstandings about responsibilities, impact, and who would bear the costs, however, seem to have persisted without our knowledge,” the foundation said on its website.
While the nonprofit was ready to send its proposed terms to the City Attorney in April, and the lease was discussed in closed sessions several times between April and late July, the foundation never received a revised copy of the lease or any further questions from the city, it said.
The eviction notice also included complaints that had not been previously communicated to the foundation, along with others that the foundation described as “the result of miscommunication that could easily have been cleared up with a phone call or email before drastic action was taken.”
Councilmember Michael Cacciotti said the matter is a bit more complicated than represented because it involves multiple organizations in the city.
“We’ve been working on this issue for over two years since late 2022, trying to work out the use of that facility with multiple organizations, specially the South Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and the South Pasadena Preservation Foundation,” he told the Star-News after the meeting.
Any suggestion that the Council has only recently become involved or is attempting to evict the museum is inaccurate, Cacciotti said.
“The Council has been very actively involved in trying to resolve this dispute between multiple organizations on use of that facility for two years, and spent significant amount of our time and staff time in these closed session meetings, which is one reason they go over time, to try to resolve this issue and preserve the Historical Museum, its use, its access for the whole community, and also the access for other community groups.”
Laurie Wheeler, president and CEO of the South Pasadena Chamber of Commerce, said Thursday afternoon that the Chamber has a separate agreement with the Foundation to use the museum for parts of its Farmers Market operations.
“We’ve had a longstanding good relationship with the Preservation Foundation since 2010, when the Chamber was awarded the contract to operate the Farmers Market,” she said. “And once the City and the Preservation Foundation have come to an agreement, we’re hoping to sit down with the Preservation Foundation and renew our lease in some form.”
