"Another Froot Loops Day At LA City Council" by Daniel Guss
Takeaways from an event that literally told us nothing, but which speaks volumes.
The Los Angeles City Council held a highly anticipated meeting yesterday that was more sideshow than substance.
It was dominated by agenda item #30, in which former Los Angeles Fire Department chief Kristin Crowley appealed her recent firing by Mayor Karen Bass in the wake of January’s Great Los Angeles Inferno that killed many, incinerated thousands of homes and drowned oceans of memories that tens of billions of dollars in future legal and insurance settlements can never replace.
If you want the quick recap, Crowley lost badly.
If you want the context, here are my takeaways.
We will get to this, ↓↓↓↓↓, momentarily.
Los Angeles City Council president Marqueece Harris-Dawson keeps using the phrase, “your Los Angeles City Council,” while making it increasingly onerous for the public to participate in its meetings. (I recently offered him the opportunity for a potentially positive story on this, despite several recent physical attacks committed by his staffers upon journalists, but I simply do not write columns through politicians’ proxies. More on this in the event he gets back to me to discuss ideas that would actually benefit the public.)
The main event for yesterday’s meeting was agenda item #30, Crowley’s appeal.
As Harris-Dawson pointed out, it boils down to whether the Los Angeles Mayor has the right to fire a department head for any reason or no reason.
City Council took a predictably passive-aggressive approach to the Crowley firing and appeal.
While the mainstream news media erroneously reported a 13-2 vote against Crowley’s appeal by the 15-person legislative body, that’s not exactly what happened.
The public participants largely fell into two categories.
Supporters of Bass firing Crowley, including some claiming that those who didn’t agree with their view are “racist,” a trite allegation that harms actual claims of racism.
Proponents of Crowley’s appeal, which was primarily firefighters and union representatives, which led one reader to point out to me that one of them, Freddy Escobar, doing this while presenting himself as President of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City (UFLAC) Local 112, raises the “questionable legality and ethics representing a manager (Crowley) when he only should be representing labor.”
After an hour of public comment and another hour of politicians’ posturing revealing virtually nothing about fault, one Councilmember “called the question,” which is government-speak for let’s end the debate and vote on the appeal.
The Councilmembers voted to do that.
Yet they didn’t.
Immediately after agreeing to call the question, another Councilmember made a motion to “receive and file” the agenda item, i.e. Crowley’s appeal, which is government-speak for let’s acknowledge the appeal, but not vote on it.
The Councilmembers voted to do that, as well.
With an audience largely unfamiliar with the receive and file maneuver, in real world terms, it’s a dodge that formally acknowledges Crowley’s appeal, but relieves the Councilmembers from voting on it.
In other words, Crowley needed 10 votes to overturn her firing and, in essence, a non-vote means she didn’t get them. Case closed.
The Councilmembers use this dodge as an escape hatch so they are not seen as abandoning (a) a powerful union whose money and election phone banking they crave or (b) a Black, female politician who once again backed herself into a corner with bad decisions and lies and (c) the well-organized civil rights and church groups that inherently see issues primarily, if not exclusively, as a race thing.
I love that part because only three of the city’s 18 elected officials (Mayor, Controller, City Attorney and City Council) are white, male Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield, Adrin Nazarian and Tim McOsker.
It must be exhausting to have to calculate issues on something other than the facts and circumstances that led to Bass firing Crowley. But, hey, live by the sword, die by the sword.
But don’t cry for Crowley.
City Council’s non-decision increases the likelihood that she will file a bruised-ego lawsuit that will eventually land her a whopper of a settlement and send her off to an even comfier retirement and potential consultancy or some such. They’ll give her a nicely framed certificate, smile disingenuously for photos and pretend that none of this happened.
In the meanwhile, she enjoys civil service protections that keep her employed, albeit it at a demoted level and demoted responsibility accompanied by a salary for which the vast majority of taxpayers would salivate.
But do you know what I still haven’t heard?
Where were Carolyn Webb de Macias, Bass’s chief of staff, and her dozen or so deputy mayors while Los Angeles burned down?
These are her closest people on a staff that numbers well over 200 and costs the rest of us more than $25 million in salaries each year.
Webb de Macias hauls in more than $350,000 a year in salary and benefits, slightly edging out Bass, who pockets more than $345,000, while the deputies all enjoy total compensation that teeters on the edge of $300,000 annually.
And who, specifically, took on the role of Brian K. Williams, Bass’s deputy in charge of public safety, during the inferno while he sat (and still remains) at home pending the outcome of a recent FBI raid there, allegedly in connection with his making at least one terroristic threat?
How.
How. How. How.
How. The. Fuck. is this not the top priority of Los Angeles City Hall?
Which leads me back to the Froot Loops reference in the title of today’s column.
Did you know that despite the various colors in a box of the popular, sugary cereal, they are all the same flavor?
Think about it.
They are all the same flavor, despite outwardly appearing unique from their peers.
And virtually all of it is bad for those who swallow it.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, won the LA Press Club’s “Online Journalist of the Year” and “Best Activism Journalism” awards in June ‘23. In June ‘24, he won its “Best Commentary, Non-Political” award. He has contributed to the Daily Mail, CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW 89.9 FM, KRLA 870 AM, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star-News, Los Angeles Downtown News and the Los Angeles Times in its sports, opinion, entertainment and Sunday Magazine sections among other publishers.)