South Pasadena is gearing up for a big makeover — but whether it actually happens on schedule is the million-dollar question city leaders faced this week.

At the June 4 City Council meeting, officials rolled out a sweeping $24.8 million blueprint for fixing streets, sidewalks, parks, and water infrastructure as part of its five-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP).

Nearly half the budget — about $11.2 million — will go straight to street repairs, which City Manager Todd Hileman called the city’s top priority. Expect to see fresh asphalt, safer sidewalks, new ADA-compliant ramps, and a facelift for aging roadways citywide.

An additional $6.1 million will cover modern traffic signs, better pedestrian crossings, new bollards, and a high-tech Intelligent Transportation System along Fair Oaks Avenue designed to smooth traffic flow.

Parks and recreation won’t be left out either — about $3.2 million is earmarked for creating and maintaining two “pocket parks” on Grevelia Street and near Berkshire Avenue. The city library will get a tidy sum too: $547,231 for long-overdue updates.

On the utility side, officials plan to pour more than $1.3 million each into water reservoir upgrades and sewer system improvements, with another chunk reserved for stormwater drainage fixes.

Sounds ambitious? It is — and that’s where the challenge begins.

Public Works Director Ted Gerber admitted the obvious at the meeting: “To be honest, that’s the big question of the evening.”

While the Council has already signed off on hiring more staff to manage the massive to-do list, actually filling those positions is proving tricky. Until then, the city is leaning heavily on contract workers — a solution Gerber says the CIP budget can absorb, but only for so long.

Mayor Janet Braun didn’t mince words about her skepticism, asking whether the department can realistically pull off all 62 planned projects without major delays or trade-offs. Gerber’s answer was blunt: “It just scales based on how much we can actually support.”

In other words, if hiring stalls or costs balloon, some improvements might get pushed back.

The Council will officially vote on the full CIP plan at its next session on June 18. If approved, it will become part of South Pasadena’s fiscal year 2025–2026 budget later this summer — and residents will be watching closely to see if promises turn into pavement.

A shocking scene unfolded on a Pasadena street this week when a plainclothes federal agent sprang from his vehicle at a stoplight and drew his gun on a man who was reportedly trying to photograph his license plate.

The confrontation, which rattled witnesses and quickly went viral in local news clips, happened Wednesday morning — the same day federal immigration officers were conducting an unannounced operation near Orange Grove Boulevard and Los Robles Avenue.

Masked agents in bulletproof vests were first spotted around 6:30 a.m., questioning two men at a bus stop before arresting them and several other day laborers in the area. Cellphone video shot by a woman inside Dena’s Burgers, a small neighborhood diner on the corner, shows officers escorting the detained men into an unmarked minivan before driving away.

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told KTLA in Spanish that she personally knows one of the arrested men and insisted, “He’s not a criminal.”

Residents say the sudden sweep has left the local Hispanic community on edge. Fernando Banuelos, the owner of Dena’s Burgers, told KTLA’s Elina Abovian that his business is suffering as a result: “I’ve lived in L.A. for 35 years already and I’ve never seen anything like this. Our business has been down I would say 60% to 70%.”

The agents reportedly returned to the same corner again at around 9:30 a.m., though it’s unclear if any additional arrests were made.

Pasadena city leaders have since released a statement expressing “deep sadness and concern” over the events, clarifying that neither the City of Pasadena nor the Pasadena Police Department participate in federal civil immigration enforcement.

“We do not ask about an individual’s immigration status when responding to calls for service or delivering city services,” the statement stressed.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security — which oversees both Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — has yet to issue an official comment on the stoplight confrontation or the broader arrests.

For many local families, however, the fear is real and growing. “More than half of our customers are afraid to come out,” Banuelos said. “People are staying inside their houses.”

As the community demands answers, one thing is certain: the sight of a gun drawn at a stoplight has left Pasadena asking how far immigration enforcement will go — and what comes next.