Well, you could see that one coming.
After Pacific Palisades was torched while a reservoir sat empty and fire hydrants ran dry, the fire chief didn’t even wait for the body count before accusing the mayor of underfunding the Los Angeles Fire Department. And now the mayor, stumbling through the worst two months of her political career, has settled that score.
On Friday, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass fired LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley.
Was it a classic case of someone having to take the fall in the aftermath of an epic disaster?
Sort of, but one longtime political observer said Bass did the right thing. Aside from Crowley’s decidedly questionable management of the department and handling of the crisis, she was “politically insubordinate,” said Fernando Guerra, founding director of the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles.
Crowley had confronted Bass publicly as the fire smoldered, claiming the LAFD budget had been cut. Which, as the L.A. Times reported, was not the case. Guerra said the message behind the firing of Crowley was: “If you can’t figure out that wasn’t the time to make those statements, I can’t trust you to figure out other things.”
Agreed. But to me, the firing looks like an act of political desperation as much as a take-charge moment by Bass. And the City Hall fires that keep springing up, sparked by Bass blunders, signal that the door has now swung wide open to challengers in next year’s mayoral election.
Is businessman Rick Caruso going to give it another try after losing to Bass the last time around? Is Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who is increasingly critical of Bass, primed to pull together a coalition of moderate business interests and exhausted taxpayers?
The perception is that there is “blood in the water,” said Jaime Regalado, former executive director of the Pat Brown Institute. “And there are a lot of sharks out there in politics. There always have been. They’re smelling some blood and they’re smelling some vulnerability.”
And they’ll have plenty of fodder, beginning with photos of Bass at a cocktail party in Ghana on Jan. 7, while the Palisades began to burn.
On the growing list of missteps was the saga of Bass naming political ally Steve Soboroff as the Palisades rebuilding czar, followed by her refusal to answer questions about how much he was being paid and by which nonprofits.
The fee, it turned out, was $500,000 for three months.
Shortly after everyone’s head exploded, the mayor backpedaled. Under the new terms of the deal, Soboroff ended up agreeing to serve as a volunteer. Then came the hiring of additional consultants at undisclosed fees, leading to even more lack of transparency, and to more and more questions, including one of particular note:
Who the heck was in charge?
Well, the mayor said she was in charge, but also that she was “locking arms” with other public officials. But The Times then dug up this testy Jan. 21 text from county Supervisor Lindsey Horvath to Bass:
“You asked us to lay off the daily pressers. We did. We asked you to join us for this announcement tomorrow. No response. Now we hear you’re doing one without us today when we are in lead role at your Depts’ request?”
From locking arms to pointing fingers.
I think it’s only fair to note that Bass has considerable strengths, and she’s demonstrated that by putting together a long and successful career — first in healthcare, then in the nonprofit world and later as a state legislator and congressional representative.
But being mayor of a huge city like Los Angeles is a different beast, said Regalado, partly because the challenges are immense and power is shared with the City Council. Bass needed to quickly figure out how to lead, given the diffuse power structure, but Regalado said he’s beginning to agree with critics who think “she’s been a slower study than she needed to be.”
“It certainly seems like a political moment,” said Sara Sadhwani, an assistant professor of politics at Pomona College. Voters want clear leadership and more progress than they are seeing, she said, when it comes to the fires, homelessness and public safety issues in MacArthur Park.
As for the firing of the fire chief, Sadhwani said, “it’s questionable whether or not this action is going to have the intended effect of a rebound for the mayor, because firefighters are heroes in this moment, despite everything.”
Any doubt that Crowley was a goner was erased Wednesday, when Bass — who’s generally fairly reserved and nonconfrontational — said through a spokesperson that Crowley hadn’t warned her about the fire risk leading up to Jan. 7.
She told two local TV news outlets she wouldn’t have gone to Ghana as part of a presidential delegation on Jan. 4 if she’d been aware of the fire risk in Los Angeles. “If I had all the information I needed to have, the last thing I would have done was to be out of town,” she told KABC.
She should have called me. I had all the information I needed, along with a garden hose at the ready, and so did everybody else. After months of drought, Southern California was a tinderbox, one spark away from going up in flames.
On Jan. 3, the National Weather Service warned of “critical fire conditions” that constituted a “major risk — take action.” Presumably that meant action other than waving goodbye and heading off to a social gathering on another continent, as the mayor did on Jan. 4.
If the fire chief didn’t call Bass, OK, shame on Crowley. But phones are designed for both outgoing and incoming calls. Given the forecast and warnings that dominated the news, why didn’t Bass call the chief?
Bass’ criticism of Crowley this week extended to LAFD’s failure to pre-deploy maximum resources, as documented by The Times, given the dire warnings.
“Although there were warnings, I think our preparation wasn’t what it typically was,” Bass told Fox 11 News.
Again, that cuts both ways.
Los Angeles and wildfire are not strangers. In fire season, the mayor — and City Council members, as well — shouldn’t be bystanders. They have to be involved in the preparation.
Or there are consequences, because voters have two jobs.
They can hire.
And they can fire.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
