Mayor Bass, LAFD chief put on united front after speculation of chief's firing
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and LA Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley put on a united front during a news conference Saturday on the deadly wildfires which continue to rage — a day after reports surfaced saying the chief had been fired.
The speculation was dismissed by the mayor's office and the fire department Friday night, both releasing statements confirming that Crowley is still leading the agency as chief. She and Bass did not appear alongside each other during a news conference that evening, fueling speculation of supposed tensions. Earlier in the week, it was revealed Crowley had issued a warning about $17 million in recent budget cuts potentially hurting LAFD's ability to respond to emergencies.
Crowley wrote in a Dec. 4 memo to the Board of Fire Commissioners that the slashing of $7 million in funding for overtime hours had "severely limited the Department's capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies."
But both leaders told reporters Saturday morning that their "No. 1 priority" is tackling the wildfires, which have killed at least 11 people and destroyed thousands of structures including homes, schools, stores and churches in different parts of the LA area. Bass acknowledged the pair may have differences but said they would remain united through the ongoing crisis.
"So let me be clear about something — the fire chief and I are focused on fighting these fires and saving lives. And any differences that we might have will be worked out in private," Bass said Saturday, saying she and the chief are "in lockstep" in their leadership.
When asked by a reporter if she had planned to fire Crowley, the mayor said "no." However, she did not respond to a reporter's question asking if the cuts to this fiscal year's budget have hurt LAFD's ability to respond to emergencies.
Funding for LAFD was reduced by $17.6 million, or by 2% of the total budget, between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 fiscal years, according to a review of city records. During an interview with CBS News' Norah O'Donnell, Crowley said that the department had to cut down non-essential responsibilities, but she said those reductions did limit the department's response to the fires "to a certain factor."
"We did exactly what we could with what we had," Crowley said. "Something that is as significant as this particular fire, I would say we threw exactly what we could with what we had."
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Bass denied that any of the slashed funding ended up hurting firefighting efforts.
"There were no reductions that were made that would have impacted the situation that we were dealing with over the last couple of days," she said. "The unprecedented wind storm, wind at such ferocity that we haven't seen in years, is the context in which we were dealing with this."
In November, the Los Angeles City Council approved a four-year $203 million contract with the firefighter's union, with funding drawn from the budget's general fund and intended to go toward wages and health benefits for those on staff.
Three weeks before the devastating wildfires, on Dec. 17, LA Fire Commission President Genethia Hudley-Hayes said during a commission meeting that the city's fire department had reached a "crisis point."
"It is not unfair to say that we are in crisis mode within the Los Angeles Fire Department," Hudley-Hayes said. "Anybody who knows a council person really and truly needs to be either going to city council, talking to their council person, talking in their neighborhood councils, doing whatever they need to do because we really are at a crisis point."