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In one of his final acts as mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti stood with Kristen Crowley, appointing him as the city’s first female fire chief and announcing a new department at the fire department.
The Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, created in November 2022, was to lead an underrated group that included women, which were less than 4% of firefighters at the time. The department was also to work “safe and supportive” for everyone for LAFD.
Instead, amid a massive strom of budget cuts, amid a massive surge in criticism from conservative media, and the Trump administration’s targeting DEI, Mayor Karen Bass proposed folding the Equity Bureau into another part of the fire department.
Of the nine “equity and inclusion” positions in the department, five have been cut for which five proposed budgets between 2025 and 26, but the mayor’s office said it would not lead to layoffs.
“This was Karen Bass towards the Trump administration,” said Rebecca Nimburg, a former Garcetti fire commissioner. “Chief Crowley was very proud of this. They are basically eliminating this project while they’re setting up an entirely new structure.”
Bus, who kicked Crawley in February, said folding the Equity Bureau into the department’s professional standards division had nothing to do with the anti-DEI campaign. The fire department remains committed to diversity, including recruiting more female firefighters, she said.
“It’s the beauty of living in LA, I don’t need to soothe anyone beyond diversity and inclusion,” she said in an interview Friday. “We’re looking at reorganising at that level, but we’re never going to roll back our goals. There’s no reason to do that at all.”
LAFD did not respond to requests for comment.
A conservative backlash against the Stock Bureau was generated after the January 7 fire destroyed the Pacific palace and surrounding areas. The 2019 video has resurfaced, with Deputy Chief Christine Larson, who now leads the Equity Bureau, talking about being a black woman at LAFD.
In the video, Larson said residents want the first responder who looks like them. She also seemed to slander her own ability to take someone out of a burning building.
“If he had to get him out of the fire, he would put himself in the wrong place,” Larson said in the video. It used it by outlets like the New York Post and experts like Bill Maher to point out “suspecting budget priorities” in liberal cities.
Bass said in an interview Friday that he is not familiar with the video.
A month before Palisade’s fire fire, the city’s fire committee reported that the eviction of key personnel at the Equity Bureau “compensate” its ability to implement many of its goals, including developing a “robust equity and inclusion framework.”
Larson declined to comment on the 2019 video or stock office disbandment.
She touted the Bureau’s work on mediation and settlement for lower-level conflicts among firefighters. She said the bureau is also working on new grooming standards and updates to its racial equity plan.
The slim expression of women in LAFD hovered at less than 4% in 2023, so it hasn’t increased much since the formation of the Equity Bureau.
LAFD is not just struggling to recruit female firefighters. A 2018 national survey cited in the city’s report shows that fewer than 5% of career firefighters in the United States are women.
Approximately 30% of LA firefighters were Latinos in 2023, but 47% of the city’s population. About 11% of firefighters were black and 9% were black.
In a letter to the city council in March, Los Angeles City Stentorian, a group of black firefighters, said the department under Crawley saw an increase in reports of discrimination and harassment and an increase in discriminatory employment practices.
Nimburg said she is concerned that the department will not be much welcome for women and Latinos. The city could end up spending more on lawsuits filed by firefighters from marginalized groups, she said.
“These are not small issues. They are big issues,” she said. “It went back to its status quo and it wasn’t working, so the Equity Bureau was created in the first place.”
While Bass is proposing a cut to the Equity Bureau, her budget calls for an overall increase in fire department workers.
To close the roughly $100 million gap, Bass is proposing to add 227 positions to the fire department while firing 1,650 urban workers. Approximately half of new hires become firefighters in the firefighter division with fewer than 3,250 people. The remaining new positions include 25 new emergency medical technicians, in addition to mechanisms and more.
Crowley, who was also the first openly LGBTQ+ chief of LAFD, claimed that the Palisades fire had an impact on the LAFD’s ability to fight the fire. Bass and her team said that when employee pay increases were considered, the department’s budget didn’t drop and actually grew.
Explaining her decision to remove Crowley as chief, Bus said she had never heard of it from Crowley in aggravated wind predictions until the fire broke out. She also questioned the Chief’s decision to develop.
Crowley maintains LAFD as an aide to the Operations Valley Bureau, with Ronnie Villanueva serving as interim chief of the department.
Jimmy Woods Gray, a member of the city’s fire committee, said cutting the Equity Bureau is a necessary step in a tough budget year.
“It doesn’t affect the safety of the public and people,” she said.
Times staff reporter David Zahniser contributed to this report.
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