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With five major wildfires continuing to devastate neighborhoods in Los Angeles, Khloe Kardashian took to Instagram to admit that she wasn't a fan of Mayor Karen Bass right now.
The Good American founder criticized the mayor alongside a video of Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley telling Fox 11 Los Angeles that the city had failed them after recent cuts to the department's budget.
“I support YOU, Chief Crowley!!! You told the truth and you had tears in your eyes because I can tell you didn't even mean that but it was THE TRUTH,” Khloé wrote on Instagram last night (Jan. 10). “Thank you for being honest. “Mayor Bass, you are a joke!!!!”
When Chief Crowley spoke three days after the start of the wildfires, which have already left at least 11 dead and more than 37,000 acres destroyed, it was the second time she urged the city to increase the department's funding by just over a month.
On December 4, Crowley issued a warning that budget cuts would negatively impact his department's ability to respond effectively to emergencies.
According to city documents, the fire department's budget decreased by $17.6 million between fiscal years 2023-2024 and 2024-2025. The department's 2025 budget currently stands at $819.64 million, according to the city's website. Taking into account funding for salary increases and new equipment, the department's budget ultimately increased 7 percent for the new fiscal year.
In Chief Crowley's letter to the Board of Fire Commissioners, he said the reductions, including a $7 million reduction in overtime, “have negatively impacted the Department's ability to maintain core operations” and “severely limited the Department's ability to Department to prepare and train for and respond to large-scale emergencies,” as well as brush clearance and resident inspections.
In a January 9 press conference, Mayor Bass stated that these previous cuts have not affected how the department has been able to respond to the current fires.
“I think if you look back and look at the reductions that have been made, there were no reductions that would have impacted the situation that we were facing in the last few days,” he said.
“It's important to understand that we were in difficult budget times,” he continued. “Everyone knew it, but the impact of our budget didn't really affect what we've been going through the last few days.”
Despite her claims, several celebrities have expressed the same exasperation as Khloé, ridiculing the mayor for her funding problems and for being abroad in Ghana when the fires first broke out.
Sara Foster, the 43-year-old actress known for her role in 90210wrote in X: “We pay the highest taxes in California. Our fire hydrants were empty. “Our vegetation was covered in weeds and the bushes had not been cleared.”
“Our governor emptied our reservoirs because tribal leaders wanted to save the fish,” he continued. “Our mayor cut our fire department budget. But thank God the drug addicts are receiving their first aid kits.”
Meanwhile, gym legend Jillian Michaels wrote: “I lost a house in the Woolley Fire of 2018. I was in Cali for New Years this year and podcasts; I just evacuated my mother from her home in California. Apparently the mayor is in Ghana.”
“The budget of the fire departments was apparently reduced by 17 million,” he added. “And someone made the decision not to refill some of the tanks; Now some fire hydrants are dry. Leadership in California goes beyond negligence. “This is completely unacceptable.”
