(The Center Square) — Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass started her week making headlines. She talked about wanting to rid the city of all National Guard troops and saying she has no problem with the Los Angeles Fire Department lacking a permanent chief during the current wildfire season.
Bass held a news conference Monday morning at Los Angeles Mission College, calling for the removal of the remaining National Guard troops from the city.
The federal government sent thousands of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles in early June to help protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the city amid immigration riots. Last week, half of the 4,000 National Guard troops who were deployed were sent home, leaving 2,000 guards as well as 700 Marines in the city.
Bass disapproved of President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard and the U.S. Marines to Los Angeles and said the city never needed the National Guard, during an interview Sunday on “Face The Nation.”
“We never needed the National Guard in the first place,” Bass told anchor Margaret Brennan on the CBS News series. “This is a political stunt. A terrible use of taxpayers’ dollars.”
Shortly after Bass spoke at Los Angeles Mission College, she posted a video on X with California Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Marine veteran and Democrat who represents Burbank and the San Fernando Valley.
The mayor said the Trump administration notified her that the remaining Marines in Los Angeles will be leaving the city. Bass called that a victory.
During her “Face The Nation” interview, Bass also said it is not a problem that the Los Angeles Fire Department has not had a permanent chief since she fired Chief Kristin Crowley on Feb. 21. Bass added that despite not having a permanent chief, the LAFD is still prepared this wildfire season.
“Our interim fire chief has 40 years of experience,” Bass said.
“In fact, he had just recently retired. I called him out of retirement,” she said, referring to her appointment of former Deputy Chief Ronnie Villanueva as the interim chief. He will serve in the role until a permanent chief is chosen.
Bass said her office is doing a national search for the best chief. She added that Villanueva, in the mean time, is “more than capable of managing” the department.
“We are doing a national search, and he [Villanueva] is certainly open to apply, but the nation’s second largest city needs to make sure that we search the nation for the best talent,” Bass said.
The mayor said she fired Crowley because the fire chief placed 1,000 firefighters off-duty the morning the Palisades Fire erupted, and she failed to complete an after-action fire report, according to a Feb. 21 press release from the mayor’s office.
“We know that 1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch,” Bass said in the news release. “Furthermore, a necessary step to an investigation was the president of the Fire Commission telling Chief Crowley to do an after-action report on the fires. The chief refused. These require her removal.”
Crowley appealed for reinstatement as fire chief to the Los Angeles City Council on March 4, saying Bass’s accusations were incorrect.
“On the morning of the fire, I did not send home 1,000 firefighters who could have hopped on fire engines and fought the Palisades Fire,” Crowley told the Los Angeles City Council. “Nor did I leave 40 available fire engines unstaffed.”
Crowley also said fire commissioners, following her recommendation, determined the Fire Safety Research Institute was best equipped to conduct the after-action report on the January fires. The institute was selected by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office to conduct an independent analysis of the blazes, as explained on the institute’s website.
Crowley, who warned Bass about this year’s $17.6 million in budget cuts to the fire department in a letter in December 2024, also told the Los Angeles City Council that the lack of money led to the lack of staff and resources during the Palisades Fire.
“As for the 1,000 firefighters who were allegedly sent home prior to the fires, we did not have enough apparatus to put them on,” Crowley told council members. “Because of the budget cuts and lack of investments in our fleet maintenance, over 100 of our fire engines, fire trucks, and ambulances sat broken down in our maintenance yards, unable to be used to help during one of the worst wildfire events in our history.”
The council rejected Crowley’s appeal for reinstatement as fire chief in a 13-2 vote, with only council members Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez voting to reinstate the chief. Park represents the 11th District, where the Palisades Fire took place.
Crowley still works for the LAFD as the assistant chief of the Valley Bureau.
The Center Square reached out to Crowley and the LAFD for comment, but they did not reply.
