During an interview with Fox L.A. on Thursday, Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said that he’s “happy with my vote” in favor of the city’s budget and “the City Council has a lot of priorities, many of which are life and death, including fire. Fire isn’t the only thing that’s life and death, but it’s one of the things that is. In those categories, we want to spend more on all of them, but we have a limited amount of money, and we have to make choices about what to do and what [not] to do.”
Co-host Marla Tellez asked, “[D]o you feel a responsibility, in terms of, we should have funded the LAFD more to prevent more homes being lost?”
Harris-Dawson answered, “I’m happy with my vote on the budget. I think the City Council has a lot of priorities, many of which are life and death, including fire. Fire isn’t the only thing that’s life and death, but it’s one of the things that is. In those categories, we want to spend more on all of them, but we have a limited amount of money, and we have to make choices about what to do and what [not] to do. And so, we did that. We tried to strike a balance. And we passed a budget that I voted for, as did 12 other members of the City Council.”
Co-host Elex Michaelson then asked, “And when Crowley’s defenders say, because of that vote, they didn’t have the resources to pre-deploy, they didn’t have the resources to do everything they wanted to do that day. What say you?”
Harris-Dawson responded, “Well, we will see. Certainly, we’ve had other high fire alarm times, and they’ve been able to pre-deploy fine. So, I haven’t seen anything to suggest that pre-deployment was hampered by the budget. In fact, I’ve seen quite the opposite, that, pre-deployment, like the county did do, even though they’re under budget constraints as well, there was a decision not to do the pre-deployment, and it did not have anything to do with money.”
Harris-Dawson added that the fire department budget wasn’t cut and “we were negotiating the firefighter salaries during the budget process. So, we knew they were going to get a raise. We didn’t know exactly how much and who and all that. We knew [they] were going to get a raise, and we knew that it was going to cost in the neighborhood of $50 million. So, we passed a budget knowing that we were going to add that cost on top of the budget. So, there just was not a cut. Now, did the fire department get everything they asked for? Absolutely not. No department in the city gets everything they ask for. And so, I think, sometimes, people feel like, oh, I would like to have done more, and I’m in that category as well. But, again, you’re in a place where we have to make choices.”
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