The Los Angeles City Council backed Mayor Karen Bass’s decision to fire L.A. Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley, voting 13-2 to affirm the firing. Crowley would have needed ten votes to be reinstated.
As Breitbart News reported, Bass fired Crowley last month, claiming that “1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch,” and that Crowley had “refused” to “do an after action report on the fires.”
The Westside Current reported that Crowley disputed these claims:
Crowley insisted that she did not send 1,000 firefighters home nor did she leave 40 available fire engines unmanned. The former chief said the 40 fire trucks were already staffed and running 911 calls with on-duty personnel when the Palisades Fire erupted.
…Under the City Charter, Crowley needed the support of 10 of the 15 council members to be reinstated as chief. That number proved difficult to reach. Four council members stood alongside Bass at the Feb. 21 news conference announcing Crowley’s ouster — Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and members Curren Price, Hugo Soto-Martinez and Adrin Nazarian. Councilman Bob Blumenfield also publicly came out in favor of Bass’ decision.But on Tuesday, Council Members Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez, who have spoken out against Crowley’s firing, urged their colleagues to reinstate her as fire chief.
The Los Angeles Times had previously reported that ten fire engines that could have been pre-deployed to the Pacific Palisades area were not. Breitbart News reported that the decision not to pre-deploy firefighters was taken for budgetary reasons, since Mayor Bass had cut nearly $18 million from the firefighters’ budget.
Many critics of Bass argued that she should have resigned, whether or not Crowley was fired.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
