Los Angeles mayor removes fire chief, blaming her for lack of preparation

LOS ANGELES – After days of public battling, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass abruptly removed the city’s fire chief Friday, increasing the turmoil that has surrounded City Hall in the weeks since a wildfire devastated the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood and led to an increasingly acrimonious dispute between the two officials.

Bass said in a statement that she had removed Kristin Crowley, chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department, effective immediately. The announcement came after Bass said publicly for the first time that she made a mistake leaving the country and traveling to Ghana days before the fires broke out – but blamed Crowley for not alerting her about the impending threat of catastrophic fires.

Crowley had forcefully pushed back on the claim by the mayor. In the hours before Bass left on her trip, there had been numerous warnings from weather forecasters about dangerously high winds and dry weather conditions.

In announcing the shake-up, Bass criticized Crowley for sending home 1,000 firefighters the morning the Palisades fire broke out Jan. 7. It was the first of two major blazes that destroyed about 12,000 structures combined in Southern California last month. She also accused Crowley of refusing to pursue an examination of what the fire department might have done wrong leading up to the fires.

“These require her removal,” Bass said in the statement. “The heroism of our firefighters – during the Palisades fire and every single day – is without question. Bringing new leadership to the Fire Department is what our city needs.”

The removal of the fire chief comes as Bass has been rocked by criticism of her management of one of the worst catastrophes in the history of Los Angeles. The criticism began with her trip to Ghana, where she joined an official U.S. delegation celebrating the inauguration of that country’s president. She aborted her trip and flew back home on a military transport as the fires spread.

In an interview this week with a local Fox News affiliate, Bass said she would not have traveled farther than San Diego if she had been properly warned about the dangers of the fires.

“I felt absolutely terrible not being here for my city,” she said, adding of the lack of warnings from fire officials, “it didn’t reach that level to me to say, ‘Something terrible could happen and maybe you shouldn’t have gone on the trip.’”

Bass has also come under fire after the Los Angeles Times disclosed that she had agreed to pay Steve Soboroff, a longtime developer, $500,000 to serve three months as the city’s chief development officer helping with the rebuilding. She said the money would come from unidentified philanthropies. After the arrangement was disclosed, Bass reversed herself, and Soboroff said he would do the work for free.

Bass’ decision to dismiss Crowley drew sharp criticism from Rick Caruso, the Los Angeles developer who ran unsuccessfully against her for mayor and has emerged as one of her biggest critics in the aftermath of the fires.

“Honesty in a high city official should not be a firing offense,” Caruso said in a statement. “The mayor’s decision to ignore the warnings and leave the city was hers alone. This is a time for city leaders to take responsibility for their actions and their decisions.”

Bass said her office would lead a national search to find a new fire chief. For now, Ronnie Villanueva, who had recently retired after serving in the Los Angeles Fire Department for more than 40 years, will serve as the interim fire chief.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.