Former Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley took the extraordinary step Thursday of appealing Mayor Karen Bass’ decision to dismiss her over her handling of the catastrophic wildfire that destroyed much of Pacific Palisades.
The appeal, which would require the approval of 10 of 15 City Council members, is unlikely to succeed. But it will almost certainly cause further public turmoil for Bass, who has struggled to regain her political footing since the Palisades fire erupted Jan. 7.
The move comes less than a week after Bass ousted Crowley, criticizing the then-chief for not fully pre-deploying engines amid dire wind forecasts and for allegedly refusing to participate in an after-action report on the fire.
In an email to members of the City Council declaring her intent to appeal, Crowley did not provide any arguments to support her position, simply citing the section of the City Charter that allows her to seek reinstatement.
Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl said Thursday that Crowley “has the right to appeal her dismissal.”
City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, a stalwart ally of the mayor’s, initially attempted to fast-track the process — a move that would help minimize the political disruption for Bass.
Hours after receiving Crowley’s letter, Harris-Dawson scheduled a special council meeting to decide Crowley’s fate at 5 p.m. on Friday in Van Nuys, which would have given the public only 24 hours notice — and also coincided with the start of the weekend.
Council meetings are normally held at 10 a.m. three days a week at City Hall in downtown L.A.
Harris-Dawson’s scheduling decision was quickly denounced as “outrageous” by United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112, which represents city firefighters and is a strong supporter of Crowley. The union argued that the council was trying to “bury this issue when nobody is watching and holding them accountable.”
Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who has been pushing for Crowley’s reinstatement, also spoke out, saying Harris-Dawson scheduled the meeting for a day he knew she had an excused absence. Harris-Dawson signed off on that absence months ago, she said.
“He wants to shut us down,” Rodriguez said. “He wants to shut down public participation and transparency.”
Harris-Dawson later tapped the brakes, telling The Times just after 8 p.m. that he had rescheduled the appeal vote for Tuesday.
“While it is in the best interest of the City to hear this matter expeditiously, it is important to allow the appellant, interested parties, and Councilmembers to be present and prepared for the meeting,” he said in a statement.
Regardless of the timing, Crowley will face an uphill climb to get the 10 votes needed to regain her job. Four council members, including Harris-Dawson, stood behind Bass at a news conference last Friday as she announced her decision to remove Crowley.
In addition to those four, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield said he believes the mayor has “the right to hire and fire whom she wishes.”
“She needs to have the full confidence of her general managers and her chiefs. If she has lost that confidence, she has every right to change out the head of a department” or the fire chief, he said in an interview earlier this week.
Blumenfield said he was also troubled by Crowley’s decision to appear on multiple news shows on Jan. 10 to complain that her department was underfunded, at a time when the Palisades fire was still burning out of control.
Councilmember Traci Park, an outspoken Crowley supporter whose district includes the Pacific Palisades burn area, said earlier this week that she could not predict how she would vote if Crowley were to appeal, saying she had not seen all of the evidence.
“I was not there when the mayor had whatever conversations that led to this decision,” she said. “I don’t know what information or evidence may come to light.”
Fernando Guerra, a political science professor and director of the Center for the Study of L.A. at Loyola Marymount University, said that council members will face competing pressures. On one hand, the politically powerful firefighters union, which regularly donates to council members, is backing Crowley and has major clout at City Hall. But crossing the mayor so emphatically could also have repercussions for their political careers — and their ability to advance their own legislative agendas.
Bass, too, could be damaged by the public airing of her dispute with her former fire chief.
“There is nothing good about this being litigated in public for Mayor Bass,” Guerra said. “However, what will soften and mitigate that is the fact that the [former] fire chief will probably lose the appeal.”
The City Charter gives the mayor the power to remove most department heads, including the fire chief, without council approval. The charter also gives Crowley the right to appeal the decision to the council, with a two-thirds vote required to reinstate her.
The City Council has 10 “meeting days,” or days when the council is scheduled to meet, to take up Crowley’s filing, per the charter.
Before Bass dismissed Crowley last week, the mayor and her team told reporters that the chief hadn’t reached out to warn Bass about the potential severity of the winds before the mayor left for Ghana on Jan. 4.
In announcing Crowley’s removal, Bass questioned her deployment decisions ahead of the fire and blamed her for sending home firefighters who could have stayed on for a second shift.
The mayor also alleged that Crowley had refused to participate in an after-action report on the fires after being asked to do so by Fire Commission President Genethia Hudley Hayes, a Bass appointee.
A Times investigation found that LAFD officials chose not to order roughly 1,000 firefighters to remain on duty for a second shift as the winds were building. Fire officials also declined to put all available engines in the field ahead of the windstorm.
The department only started calling up more firefighters and deploying additional engines after the Palisades blaze was burning out of control. By comparison, a similar wind forecast in 2011 prompted a much more robust response from the department, according to former fire chiefs.
Although Crowley has defended her pre-deployment decisions, she has not yet addressed the allegation that she declined to do the after-action report. In a statement last week, she said she based her “actions and decisions on taking care of our firefighters so that they could take care of our communities.”
Bass’ decision to remove Crowley has been sharply criticized by the firefighters union in recent days.
Union President Freddy Escobar said the mayor should have waited for the results of an outside state review that’s already underway. Escobar praised Crowley for speaking out about the size of the Fire Department’s budget — and the need for greater resources.
“She’s being terminated for telling the truth,” he said last week.