Fired Los Angeles Fire Chief Loses Appeal But Strikes Pr Blow Against Karen Bass

LOS ANGELES — The good news for Mayor Karen Bass: Her decision to sack the city’s fire chief in the wake of devastating wildfires was broadly upheld Tuesday by the City Council.

The bad news? That affirmation followed a messy spectacle that put the mayor and many council members crosswise with the politically potent firefighters — a spat with implications that could persist long after the council vote.

“You all tell us how much you support firefighters, how much you love labor,” Freddy Escobar, president of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, the union representing the rank-and-file, pointedly told the council. “Well, labor is with Chief Crowley on this.”

The showdown centered on ex-Chief Kristin Crowley’s appeal of her termination, which Bass announced nearly two weeks ago. Crowley would have needed the support of two-thirds of the council — or 10 members — to reverse the decision.

In the end, Crowley only got two members — Traci Park, who represents the district torched by the Palisades Fire, and Monica Rodriguez. The 13 votes affirming the mayor’s decision was a forceful show of muscle by Bass and council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, her close ally.

Though the math was not on Crowley’s side, her appeal offered a consolation prize: the chance to inflict new PR pain on a mayor who’s been on rocky footing ever since the fires broke out in early January.

The high drama was heightened by an audience stacked with union firefighters — unmissable in Los Angeles Fire T-shirts — while Bass had her own contingent of backers, including civil rights groups and the Stentorians, an organization of Black firefighters. A line of spectators waited outside City Hall well after the proceedings began, while inside the chambers, there was a row of local television cameras capturing live coverage.

Crowley, in her first extended public comments after her firing, offered a point-by-point refutation on Bass’ stated reasons for the firing.

She said Bass’ primary justifications — that Crowley sent home 1,000 firefighters on the morning the Palisades Fire began and that she refused to participate in an after-action report — were “false accusations.”

She also refuted Bass’ assertion that she failed to warn her of the dangerous conditions before the fires, which the mayor said would have informed her decision to take a diplomatic trip to Ghana — a fateful choice that left her across the globe when the fires began.

More pointedly, Crowley laced into the city’s continued underfunding of the fire department, suggesting that Los Angeles’ safety is compromised because of the budgetary decisions of its leaders.

“I have seen our fire departments struggle from year to year with limited funding, staffing and resources,” she told the council. “We are past the point of sustaining our services without compromising public safety and the safety of our firefighters.”

Those budget battles were at the root of the fracture between Bass and Crowley, who gave media interviews while the fires were still burning asserting that the strained resources had hobbled the department’s response. Though the two women later insisted they were working together to control the crisis, the public rift had irrevocably poisoned their relationship.

Rodriguez, a frequent critic of the mayor, said that Crowley’s firing will have a chilling effect on government workers who could fear the “political ramifications” of publicly voicing concerns.

“It's sending the wrong message to every city employee and general manager that it is safer to stay silent than to call out what's wrong,” Rodriguez said.

Park, the other member to support Crowley’s appeal, said the quest for accountability might ultimately merit firing “everyone who has culpability across multiple departments.”

“But I wouldn’t do it without a well-informed record and actual evidence to support that decision, and I don’t have it today,” she said.

Other members made clear the painful position they were in, torn between the mayor and the firefighters, who are often a coveted political backer, especially in the wake of disaster.

Some, like Imelda Padilla, tried to split the difference, taking pains to separate the vote on Crowley from support for the department writ large.

“We cannot allow this conversation to overshadow the extraordinary bravery and dedication of our first responses and firefighters who battled this disastrous fire,” she said. “Because honestly, it's starting to feel that way, and I’m over it.”

Padilla voted against Crowley’s appeal, as did Tim McOsker, whose brother is a former UFLAC president who spoke in favor of Crowley. McOsker said the city would not be well-served by having a mayor and public safety chief who were at odds. But he was blunt about the blowback he may face for his vote.

“With a very, very, very heavy heart, I will say that I'm going to put the goal of public safety and a functional city above what might be more politically expedient for me,” he said. “Sometimes we need to risk our jobs to do our jobs.”