Former Fire Chief Kristin Crowley will appeal her termination Tuesday to the Los Angeles City Council after Mayor Karen Bass fired her as head of the Fire Department.
On Thursday, Crowley announced she would appeal in an email sent to City Council members. Under the city charter, Crowley would need the support of 10 of the 15 council members to be reinstated as chief.
That could be a difficult number to reach. Four council members stood alongside Bass last Friday at a news conference announcing Crowley’s ouster — Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and members Curren Price, Hugo Soto-Martinez and Adrin Nazarian. Councilman Bob Blumenfield has also publicly come out in favor of Bass’ decision.
At least two council members — Monica Rodriguez and Traci Park — have spoken out against Crowley’s firing and encouraged her to appeal the decision.
Asked about Crowley’s decision Thursday, Bass spokesman Zach Seidl said, “Former Chief Crowley has the right to appeal her dismissal.”
Hours after receiving the notice of appeal, the City Council originally scheduled a special meeting for 5 p.m. Friday at Van Nuys City Hall to consider the appeal.
However, late Thursday night, Harris-Dawson’s office announced that the Friday special meeting had been canceled, and that Crowley’s appeal would be taken up Tuesday at 10 a.m. at L.A. City Hall, during the council’s regularly scheduled meeting.
“While it is in the city’s best interest to hear this matter expeditiously, it is also important to allow the appellant, interested parties, and Councilmembers to be present and prepared for the meeting,” Harris-Dawson’s spokeswoman, Rhonda Mitchell, said in a statement. “This matter will be heard in City Council on Tuesday, March 4, at 10 a.m.”
In her decision to fire Crowley, Bass cited what she called various failures in leadership ahead of the January windstorm that led to the deadly Palisades Fire, as well as what Bass said was Crowley’s refusal to prepare an after-action report on the firefight. She also said Crowley had failed to give her a weather update prior to the historic windstorm as she had done for other potentially dangerous weather events — despite such warnings being widely publicized in the days ahead of the Jan. 7 event that sparked the Palisades and Eaton fires, and several other wildfires in the area. Bass also questioned a failure to deploy about 1,000 firefighters the morning of the dramatic Santa Ana wind event.
Crowley issued a statement over the weekend, saying, “As a humble public servant for over the past 30 years, 25 of those with the LAFD, it has been an absolute honor to represent and lead the men and women of one of the greatest fire departments in the world. As the Fire Chief, I based my actions and decisions on taking care of our firefighters so that they could take care of our communities. Serving others before self, having the courage and integrity to do what is right, and leading with compassion, love and respect have guided me throughout my career. I am extremely proud of the work, sacrifice and dedication of our LAFD members, both sworn and civilian.”
Bass has come under criticism for the handling of the wildfire, in particular because the mayor went on a diplomatic trip to Ghana days before the fires erupted despite the warnings about anticipated severe wind and fire-danger conditions.
Tensions with Crowley increased upon Bass’ return to the city when Crowley made public comments critical of what she described as the city’s under-funding of the LAFD. That led to a one-on-one closed door meeting between the pair, but no punitive actions were taken against Crowley at the time.
The union that represents LAFD firefighters — United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112 — has stood firmly behind Crowley.
“We are outraged at the termination of Fire Chief Crowley,” UFLAC President Freddie Escobar said last week. “In our opinion, Crowley is being made a scapegoat and she’s being terminated for telling the truth.”
After her firing, Crowley exercised her civil service right to remain with the LAFD at a lower rank in a different position, which was to be determined by interim LAFD Chief Ronnie Villanueva.
This is going to be the biggest charade of the nation’s fucking discrimination. Princing these unlicensed and unregistered an unregulated officers to work in the fields that they have never had the regulations or the schooling or the training or even the licensing to do the job but how you put the morons up there every day and this is what you get for paying them for $300 an hour and $80,000 a year from 109 cities in the county this is the incompetent you get at the table every day. The law states if you break a Law you pay the price and the price is that you go straight to jail for your crime because you’re a civil servant for the State of California. You don’t get a propaganda and a charade in the fucking courthouse in the fucking Street just to go out and make up some kind of bullshit so you can get off by some sorry ass judge that wants to have sex with your do whatever or needs to make more money. Just a bunch of fucking fraud is in this country