This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A new report reveals that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who already is being blamed for contributing to this week's fire hellstorm that hit the city and destroyed thousands of homes by cutting some $17 million from the fire department's budget, did much worse.
In fact, the Daily Mail report accuses her of ordering another $49 million in fire department budget cuts only a few days before the city's world turned smoky as blazes erupted amid 100 mph winds, costing at least ten lives and literally uncountable home losses.
The report said the demands were found in a "leaked memo."
"The extra cuts, requested just days before fires broke out and devastated swathes of Los Angeles, would have shut down 16 fire stations and crippled the department's ability to respond to emergencies, sources said," according to the report.
The publication said current and former senior officers in the department were briefed on the "shocking" plan.
The memo comes from January 6, just hours before the Palisades Fire erupted.
The Daily Mail said the memo was sent by fire department officials at city hall to division chiefs and captains.
It threatened, "The LAFD is still going through an FY [financial year] 2024/2025 $48.8million budget reduction exercise with the CAO [City Attorney's Office]. The only way to provide cost savings would be to close as many as 16 fire stations (not resources, fire stations); this equates to at least one fire station per City Council District."
This week, an estimated 54 square miles of the city have been reduced to dirt, concrete, and rubble by five separate fires.
"The billionaire and celebrity-inhabited neighborhood of Pacific Palisades was almost completely wiped off the map," the report said.
There have been multiple calls for Bass, as well as Gov. Gavin Newsom, to leave as they failed to address a long list of issues that impacted the fires' lethality. Among them was a failure to make sure there was water for fire hydrants, and a long-standing problem with a failure to create fire breaks in the region.
The firestorm was aggravated by Santa Ana winds, which pushed the sparks and flames from neighborhood to neighborhood in literally seconds.
There also are charges the city had shipped some of its equipment to Ukraine.
The report said the damages, so far, have been estimated at $49 billion in homes, businesses, schools, and churches lost to the 120-foot-tall flames.
Reports Friday said the Palisades Fire in 8% contained, the Eaton Fire uncontained, the Kenneth Fire and Hurst Fire 35%, and the Lidia Fire 75%.
