During an interview with Fox L.A. on Thursday, Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said that he pushed Mayor Karen Bass to dismiss now-dismissed LAFD Fire Chief Kristin Crowley and said that, even if Crowley’s criticism of the department’s funding was correct, the timing of it was “really, really bad timing and bad judgment.”
Harris-Dawson said that he was pushing Bass to terminate Crowley “weeks” before she did so and that there were things “observed that I had a lot of discomfort with, that I discussed with the Mayor.”
Co-host Elex Michaelson then asked, “Like the insubordination — or the claims of insubordination, basically, Crowley coming out, talking to…every reporter that would listen, basically saying that the budget had been slashed and blaming a lot of this on the Mayor, at a time when that’s her boss?”
Harris-Dawson responded, “At a time when that’s her boss. But more important than that being her boss, at a time when the city was still on fire and you’re the Fire Chief. I said in city news, it’s like if I’m in surgery and my body’s still cut open and my surgeon decides to go give an interview about how terrible the HMO is, even if I agree with him about the HMO, it’s really, really bad timing and bad judgment. And so, I was uncomfortable with that and I let the Mayor know about it.”
Harris-Dawson also stated that the budget wasn’t cut.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
