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A few days after the devastating Palisade and Eton wildfires, questions about the Los Angeles Fire Department, mayor, prompted the text to then LAFD chief Christine Crowley as a way of dealing with the unprecedented fires.
Hello Chief. This is Deputy Director Dennis Mills. They are asking the mayor and ITA to temporarily shut down G-Chat until at least Friday. Does this have a disastrous effect on the operation of your department (i.e. are you relying on G-Chat for emergency communications? Please let me know as soon as possible. Thank you.”
Six minutes later, the fire chief responds, “Hello, please call me.”
The January 13th text was one of more than 300 pages of documents obtained by KTLA last month, and reviewed in a new report in the Los Angeles Times that “Mayor Karenbus has deleted text messages, frowned, raises questions.”
Last month’s KTLA report questioned where all the base communications with the Chief are.
One thing that is not part of the text: a meaningful conversation between the mayor and Crawley. If they were communicating regularly, it was a different way of communicating – possibly disappearing Google Chat
City lawyers told the LA Times that the mayor’s phone is “set to not store text messages and that “there is no requirement that city officials or employees ‘do it’.”
By January 15th, KTLA had already submitted a digital communications record request with Chief Christine Crowrie. The Times reports their requests to the city because the mayor’s communications came on January 10th.
As we know, the memo was considering shutting down Google Chat came on January 13th, and it was January 13th after the city had already reached out to get those communications… and after reporting on an internal review of city officials’ use of Google Chat in December last year.
A text message sent by a LA city lawyer to then Chief Kristin Crowley on January 13, 2025.
When asked Monday why the city wanted to close Google Chat, the city told KTLA:
“In response to user requests related to citywide emergency situations, city lawyers wanted to ensure that all official communications were maintained. One way to do this is to eliminate Google Chat. This means that all employees must communicate using email (all held). Another option was to enable Google Chat history, as all chats are retained. To better inform the city’s decisions, we’ll be able to turn off our off. The agency asked both LAPD and LAFD to determine if there was any operational issues when the chat function was terminated. This email reflects inquiries to LAFD. Chief Assistant City Attorney Mills never contacted the mayor’s office. In the end, the Google Team enabled Google Chat history on January 14, 2025. As a result, all Google Chat one-on-one group and group messages are stored in the chat history.
The city says, to their knowledge, Google Chat has never been closed, but in the same statement the chat history was only valid on January 14th after a request for communication in media was submitted after the Palisade fire burned thousands of acres and flattened the entire neighborhood.
A few weeks after the Palisades fire, the KTLA received some of the public record requests, not others. Some were heavily edited. Mayor Karen Bass only saw two text messages to LAFD Chief. The first is from January 10th to January 22nd.
One was related to the scheduled meeting. Officials have missed the phone. These were regular text messages. Edited to Google Chat without chat history enabled until January 14th, automatically deleted or resident, if any other messages exist and if they do so, it is unknown.
Alison Triessl, a legal analyst at KTLA, said transparency is expected when it comes to the conduct of elected officials.
“The mayor and fire chief are civil servants. As a result, they are employed by the citizens of Los Angeles. We must believe that civil servants are working for our best interests,” Triessl said. “The best way to build trust is to have complete transparency in the government. Conversely, it is the quickest way for civil servants to erode secrets and hide behind disappearing text messages.”
At a press conference Monday, the mayor did not specifically address whether Google Chat or its office used the chat service, but said that the phone would automatically delete the message in 30 days.
On January 10th, 2025, a text message exchange was held between LA Mayor Karen Bass and then-Chief Christine Crowley.
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