I thought it was bad Bass cut the fire department budget by $17 million dollars before the devastating forest fires, but now a memo has leaked that just one week before the fires she demanded an additinal $49 million, which would have closed 16 firehouses. Remember LA voters, you get what you vote for. Remember this next election or initiat a recall election. To make matters worse Bass’ water boss allowed the fire hydrants to be empty and allowed the Santa Ynez Reservoir to go empty and off line.
The water commissioner is Janisse Quiñones and her annual salary is $750,000 a year or $300,000 more than the president makes. The Santa Ynez Reservoir holds 117 million gallons of water that could have been used to give the area a fighting chance against the fire.
Gavin Newsom said:
“I am calling for an independent investigation into the loss of water pressure to local fire hydrants and the reported unavailability of water supplies from the Santa Ynez Reservoir. We need answers to ensure this does not happen again and we have every resource available to fight these catastrophic fires.”
According to the memo:
“The LAFD is still going through a FY 2024/2025 $48.8 million budget reduction exercise with the CAO. The Fire Chief, Board of Fire Commissioners, COA, and UFLAC are steadfast in their message of defending what resources we currently have in place.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELThe only way to provide a cost savings would be to close as many as 16 fire stations (not resources, fire stations); this equates to at least one fire station per City Council District. The details of this plan have not yet been developed. This is a worst-case scenario and is NOT happening yet. The Fire Chief will have a “Chat with the Chief webinar next week to clarify the situation and the budget.”
A veteran firefighter told Daily Mail:
“They did not want this out. It’s an internal memo not to be distributed.”
“They’re trying to allocate more money for the homeless, and they need to start taking from everybody. But we already exhausted our budget. It’s already tapped. That’s why they cut the fire academy in half, so they could save more money. That’s why we’re not testing if hydrants work any more. We’re doing everything we can to save money.”
“We have fire engines we can’t get parts for. When one breaks down we strip it of parts to put on other fire engines because we can’t buy any more parts. If you shut down 16 stations, that’s about 750 personnel. Then they expect us to take the same call volume. And yesterday we did 3,800 calls, almost twice of what our daily call volume usually is.
“We’re already shy 200 paramedics, and we’re on the verge of another 200 quitting because we can’t do this any more. If we don’t work overtime, they suspend and threaten to terminate us. It’s untenable.”
This demand came on top of $17.6 million in cuts already approved in Mayor Bass’s budget for FY 2024/2025 last December.
DEI Fire Chief Kristin Crowley had previously cautioned that the initial $17.6 million reduction would “severely limit the department’s capacity to prepare for, train for, and respond to large-scale emergencies, including wildfires,” the New York Post reported.
So, Mayor Karen Bass slashed over $17 million from the LA Fire Department budget while prioritizing $170,000 for “Social Justice Art” and $100,000 for “transgender cafés.”
