XPost: alt.wildland.firefighting, alt.government.employees, alt.los-angeles XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, sac.politics

https://www.foxnews.com/us/la-fire-chief-says-city-failed-residents- wildfire-prep-budget-cuts-screaming-properly-funded

Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley said that the City of
Los Angeles failed its over 100,000 displaced residents who were forced to evacuate from the ongoing wildfire siege.

When asked by Fox News' affiliate, KTTV, if the City of Los Angeles, and
its Mayor Karen Bass failed the city, Crowley replied: "Yes."

Crowley said that pressing staffing shortages impacted the department's response time when the blaze began tearing across Los Angeles.

"Any budget cut is going to impact our ability to provide service," she
said. "That is a ground truth in regard to our ability. If there's a
budget cut, we had to pull from somewhere else. What does that mean? That doesn't get done or that there are delays."

LA FIRE SOUNDED ALARM ON BUDGET CUTS IMPACTING WILDFIRE RESPONSE: MEMO

Crowley said that staffing shortages and lack of resources has been a
pressing issue facing the department for years. She pointed to a series of memos she sent to the city identifying in detail the needs of the
department.

"Since day one, we've identified huge gaps in regard to our service
delivery and our ability of our firefighters' boots on the ground to do
their jobs since day one," she said. "This is my third budget as we're
going into 2025-2026, and what I can tell you is we are still
understaffed, we're still under-resourced and we're still underfunded."

CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES DEVASTATE LOS ANGELES COUNTY, KILLING 5 AND
THREATENING THOUSANDS OF HOMES

When asked about how the budget cuts, which slashed the budget by
$17,553,814 from $837,191,237 to $819,637,423, Crowley said that they "did impact our ability to provide service."

"On a normal day, our firefighters are running over 1,500 calls, and
they're transporting 650 patients a day – let alone the last three days of
what we've had," she said.

The problems facing the fire department "isn't a new problem," Crowley
told the local outlet.

"The amount of calls that our firefighters are running today has doubled
since 2010, a 55% increase with 68 fewer people. Full transparency. This
isn't a new problem for us," she said. "Since the three years that I've
been in the seat, I've sounded the alarm to say we need more."

We are screaming to be properly funded to make sure that our firefighters
can do their jobs…

— Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley
"This is no longer sustainable. So with that, we are now in a position to
be properly funded," she said. "We are screaming to be properly funded to
make sure that our firefighters can do their jobs so that we can serve the community."

Crowley said that the department has identified gaps in service and sent recommendations to the city.

"We know we need 62 new fire stations. We need to double the size of our firefighters. The growth of this city since 1960 has doubled and we have
less fire stations," she said.

PHOTO GALLERY: PALISADES FIRE BEFORE AND AFTER

"So when you talk about sounding the alarm and asking and requesting
budgets that are easily justifiable based off of the data, real data shows
what the fire department needs to serve this beautiful city and the
beautiful community that we swore that we would. That's what that is
about," she said.

Speaking from the heart, Crowley said: "None of us on the fire department
are politicians."

"Firefighters are here to serve them, first and foremost. Again, none of
us on the fire department are politicians. We're public servants first,"
she said. "We took an oath to serve the public before ourselves and even
before our families."

"So with that, I want to focus on path forward. I want to focus on what
the LAFD needs," Crowley said. "What our people need to do their jobs is
to make sure that we can save lives and that we can protect property to
the greatest capacity."

"But we need to be funded appropriately," she said. "And that's where my
head is at."


--
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump. We look
forward to America being great again.

The disease known as Kamala Harris has been effectively treated and
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We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
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Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
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Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

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