"Another LAFD Scandal and City Hall Still Lacks Proactive Transparency" by Daniel Guss
@TheGussReport - Back in October, The Guss Report broke the story about a sexual harassment investigation at the LAFD in which its likely next chief, Armando Hogan, was accused by at least one high-profile civilian colleague of misconduct. City Hall politicians and their media flacks stonewalled my questions, to the detriment of their ever-eroding credibility.
In January, both the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Magazine credited my accuracy and timeliness.
Now, it appears that since January 29th, the same City Hall power players have stayed mum on another scandal at the troubled agency — a cheating scandal on a Captain I electronic test.
The LAFD’s response to my weekend media inquiry reads, “On January 29th, the Fire Department was made aware of allegations of cheating on the Captain I electronic test. The Department contacted the City Personnel Department, which administers the test, and informed them of the claims. It has been determined that Personnel will offer a new Captain I test. Candidates were notified by City Personnel via email.”
That’s bad enough.
But that’s not all.
Why haven’t city officials — but especially Mayor Karen Bass, City Council President Paul Krekorian, and Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who chairs the council’s Public Safety Committee — proactively made the public aware of the scandal?
And here’s another nugget that the LAFD’s release dodged after I asked about it: Were those who cheated, whether test administrators or test takers, members of a single ethnic group?
That’s what this column’s inside sources are saying.
And that’s what may be even more painful for our City Hall politicians to acknowledge, because virtually everything they do is tinged with identity politics rather than merit and accomplishment.
And that’s where the city’s ongoing scandal sits today.
This is a government that has allowed Los Angeles to rot from woke identity politics. It has allowed rampant corruption with vote trading that continues to this day. This body of politicians, perhaps except for the newcomers, blindly endorses one another to keep one another in office. It keeps their family members employed in jobs for which some are not qualified, and it keeps their paramours promoted for the same reason. And just months after the LAFD’s sexual harassment scandal resulted in Hogan’s retirement, we now find out that more scandal is brewing there. Even in its response to my inquiry, it dodged the all-important questions that I posed to representatives for Bass, Krekorian and Rodriguez, which are as follows:
Has Mayor Karen Bass been advised of the LAFD’s alleged cheating scandal and, if so, when was she advised? If not, why hasn’t she been advised?
Is Mayor Bass aware that those allegedly involved in the scandal are mostly, if not all, members of a single ethnic group?
If it is determined that cheating took place, will Mayor Bass and Councilmembers Paul Krekorian and Monica Rodriguez call for the termination of those who cheated as well as those who enabled it by, for example, providing an advance copy of the test questions to the test takers?
What, if anything, are Bass, Krekorian and Rodriguez doing to ensure that the public is protected by the best qualified first responders, and does merit even matter anymore?
What I want to know is why our politicians are not making sure that the public is aware of these never-ending crises when they first become aware of them?
And we specifically want to hear from you in the Mayor’s office, Zach Seidl. When you have the lofty title of Mayor Bass’s Communications Director and Senior Advisor, Acting Deputy Mayor of Communications, dodging accountability gets called out. In this latest scandal, that appears to go as far back as January 29th. And your lack of responsiveness to earlier inquiries from this column indicates a default that is unbecoming of our groundbreaking new mayor.
If Mayor Bass and company knew enough about these allegations to cancel the scores, then they know enough to inform the public about it.
And that’s a scandal on its own. Where is the proactive transparency, folks?
These questions were posed not only to these officials, but also their chiefs of staff and communications directors.
I’ll let you know who responds, who responds with transparency and who stays silent in the middle of yet another scandal in a government that continues rotting from within.
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(Daniel Guss, MBA, was nominated for three 2022 LA Press Club awards and was a runner-up in 2021 and 2020. He is City Editor for the Mayor Sam network, and has been a featured contributor for 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.)