LA Times owner rips Mayor Karen Bass for slashing fire department budget: ‘A bad call’

The billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times blasted the city’s mayor, Democrat Karen Bass, for her “poor planning” and “poor judgment” in slashing the budget for the fire department, which has been hamstrung while trying to contain the wildfires that have devastated entire neighborhoods.

“The mayor wanted $23 million [cut], she got $17.8 million as I understand. But that’s a sort of, really, I think a bad call, especially water and fire is exactly, you know, I see the end result of that devastation,” Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong told the Fox News Channel on Thursday.

Firefighters working to combat the blazes that have killed at least 10 people encountered empty hydrants and insufficient water pressure — limitations that are being attributed to the budget cuts that have hampered the city’s emergency response capabilities.

Soon-Shiong said his newspaper’s coverage has focused on the “whole issue of leadership.”

He said “part of the reason of our being is to call accountability to those in power.”

Bass, who was elected mayor in 2022, is being pilloried after she approved a $17.6 million cut to the Los Angeles Fire Department budget.

Those funds were redirected to address rampant homelessness in the city, but subsequent inquiries revealed that nearly half of the reallocated funds went unspent.

Bass was also criticized for taking a trip to Ghana to attend the inauguration of the president even though weather officials had warned of unusually strong winds that posed an increased risk.

The mayor’s absence during the early stages of the crisis is believed to have delayed critical on-the-ground decision-making.

Bass on Thursday was evasive when pressed by reporters over the city’s preparedness for the devastating wildfires that erupted while she was in Africa.

When a CBS News reporter asked the mayor why it took “several hours” for fire engines to respond while bystanders directed traffic, Bass deflected, saying: “We have to protect lives, we have to save lives, and we have to save homes.”

Soon-Shiong, the South Africa-born physician who made his fortune in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, blocked his newspaper’s editorial board from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris before the election.

The move prompted some of the newspaper’s journalists to quit the editorial board in protest.

He has since sought to diversify his newspaper’s op-ed pages by adding more conservative voices.

Soon-Shiong recently announced that Scott Jennings, the former George W. Bush aide and CNN commentator, was added to the editorial board.