Going Down in Flames

It was time for Los Angeles Fire Chief Donald O. Manning to go. Actually, it was past time. In any event, with the embattled chief’s sudden resignation this week comes a fresh opportunity for the city to address the problems that led to his departure.

In a resignation letter distributed to firefighters, Manning said he is leaving his job after 12 years because of “false allegations and innuendoes.” He also blamed Mayor Richard Riordan’s proposed budget, which cut $8 million from the department.

Manning seems to have found blame everywhere but in his own leadership. The allegations and innuendoes to which he refers appeared last November, when a city Personnel Department audit confirmed what minority firefighters had said: that women and minorities had been locked out of top jobs and in some cases forced out of the department. Manning in effect called the contention hogwash--but later he acknowledged that the department had to do better. There also was the embarrassing disclosure that department personnel had made a videotape of some female firefighters stumbling through basic training. Manning bungled that controversy too, first suggesting it was a harmless blooper-type tape and then apologizing for not having been fully informed about the situation.

The seesawing went into high gear in March after a Fire Department internal investigation, which followed the critical city audit, said there was absolutely no merit to sexism and racism allegations. Then, beating a hasty retreat amid an uproar, Manning acknowledged that the internal investigation was flawed. And as if that wasn’t enough, the city controller also began investigating a little-known nonprofit corporation headed by the chief that had banked more than $200,000 for renting out a city-owned firehouse to a tenant running an unlicensed business.

Stated most charitably, these problems point to a major lack of management controls in a department of fine professionals who have shone in recent years in fighting some of the most horrific blazes in Southern California’s history. Let’s hope that in replacing Manning, the Fire Commission and the City Council will be sure that the Fire Department gets a leader who can return the focus to where it belongs--on the firefighters and the important job they do.