Suspicious Fires Erupt in Elysian Park; Mayor's Budget Cuts Firefighting Rangers
A number of suspicious fires erupted in Elysian Park at around 11 PM Saturday evening causing minor damage due to the swift response by Los Angeles City Park Rangers and the LAFD. Other agencies responding included LAPD, OPS, and Los Angeles County Sheriff who were spotted passing residents roused by the noise and, in some cases, smoke.According to residents, small fires are common in Elysian Park, but these fires were very different up to and including the hardcore response they received, with numerous agencies' helicopters buzzing the park for hours. LAFD Twitter stated that more than 90 firefighters responded to this incident, which is a very large allocation for what they reported as just a 2-acre fire.
Los Angeles City Park Rangers were observed by residents as first on-scene with firefighting units. The Rangers' division - part of the Department of Recreation and Parks - has reportedly had patrols in the area as well as in other parks as a precaution against the dry conditions throughout the past week, a week that coincidentally marked the second anniversary of the devastating Griffith Park fire.
Although the swift emergency response is in part responsible for the minimal damage caused by this fire event, it is worth noting on this politics blog that counter intuitively, Los Angeles City Park Rangers are not funded with other so-called vital emergency services in the Mayor's budget, but are prioritized by the police-obsessed Villaraigosa with all other Department of Recreation and Parks' activities, including trash collection and restroom cleaning.
In fact, as activists pointed out at the Budget and Finance Committee hearings, the Mayor's 2009-10 budget actually cuts ten Park Ranger positions plus their Chief position, regardless of the fact that the state agency that certifies and accredits these types of organizations (CA P.O.S.T.) requires them to have a chief.
Yet simultaneously, a stubborn Tony V holds firm to his 'hire 10,000 LAPD officers' obsession. At a time when LAPD is blasting stats saying crime in the City has decreased to 1950s levels, the 10,000 number appears to hold little if any real needs significance. It's more likely just a nice, round number, divisible by ten, that looks good in headlines and on resumes.
Wonder what the people whose Elysian Park homes were spared by the quick response of the Rangers think of the Mayor's budget priorities? My impression as I hung up the phone was: "Not a whole hell of a lot, right now."
Labels: 1956, city of los angeles budget, elysian park, lafd, lapd, mayor antonio villaraigosa, OPS, park rangers, Recreation and Parks, twitter
Posted by Petra Fried in the City @ 5/10/2009 02:43:00 AM
9 Comments:
Not a big surprise that Rangers were the first responders. My experience with Griffith Park fires is that this is nearly always the case.
I already sent my letter to the Budget Committee and the Mayor's office. Lots of other things should be cut ahead of the Ranger staffing! Everyone that cares about out regional parks needs to act fast to keep enough Rangers in our City parks!
Rangers are nice to have dont need to have !!! Think about it if you call 911 you dont get rangers you get fire or police.Their so called chief dosen't even have a have a Basic POST certificate!!They would not appoint anyone to job so he could qualify? and after 3 tries still doesnt. That underhanded stuff has been going on for over 4 years.Oh by the way he still has the job Hmmm! that sounds legal? As far as Rangers doing firefighting they are an accident waiting to happen!!Read the after action report from the Griifith Park Fire from the LAFD.They would be better off tranfering the equipment to the fire dept so it could be used in safe professional manner.Do the math if you only have less than 10 rangers able to physicaly do that aspect of the job..or want to do that part of the job how do you cover all the parks?,you can't make people who never wanted to do that part of the job do it now,So how you do interpetive hikes and fight fires 24hrs. a day 7days a week? Overtime!! certain supervisor rangers get 100's of hours of overtime while others are forced to adjust time off .If you think they are in it for the parks you are sadly mistaken!!Certain senior rangers make well over $100,000.00 but no one wants to talk about that!Must be nice while othe city employees are threatened with layoffs.
3:28 is a bitter OPS officer.
Sucks to work for an agency filled with people who couldn't make LAPD, doesn't it?
at least their chief hasn't cost the city millions in payouts and attorney fees for hiring and promoting his friends illegally and racial discrimination
Hey OPS do we need a second polie force too? nice to have don't need
Um, let's all play nice now, people. It sounds like the community or public wants Rangers doing Ranger things in their local park, so ok. And all agencies have their warts, all agencies. So let's shake hands and move on. Tomorrow is a big big day at City Hall.
I know what 8:39 was trying to say. 3:28 said "Rangers are nice to have (but we) don't need to have (them)."
O.P.S. is a second police force in Loa Angeles. If anything fits 3:28's argument, then it is GSD police or Office of Public Safety. When you look at the cost of O.P.S. verses the cost of park rangers, theres little doubt which one is costing people their jobs due to the redundancy argument 3:28is claiming.
The redundancy claim is bullshit where park rangers are concerned. Rangers are parks dedicated specialists working on crimes LAPD or LAPD Lite won't bother with but which usually lead to larger crimes if unchecked by the perp. Look at the textbook escalation of the pond scum who commit crimes against children. Usually they start on the act by sitting in cars near playgrounds smoking a cigarette while window shopping and fantasizing. Bust the scum for smoking violation or parking violation and you put a crimp in their plan. Bust em again and now the 'park police' are paying them way too much attention for many to get comfortable with going forward on their plan/fantasy. You think PD or PD Lite is going to take the time to enforce smoking violations? or even show up often enough to make pond scum uncomfortable? shit no.
so what exactly does OPS specialize in? Nothing. a second police force unencumbered by the federal consent decree that specializes in nothing and costing this town a small fortune.
Something things said here are full of emotion but are not true. The Park Rangers would be first rersponders to an Elysian Fire because they cannot leave the regional parks (griffith, elysian, etc). However, they operate dangeriously when conducting firefighting operations. They routinely do not coordinate with LAFD, they do not have but a handful of rangers authorized to fight fires and they are a small contribution to any fire. They were more of a resource many years ago before the consolidation of General Services.
As far as their crime fighting ability and stopping lower level crimes that LAPD or LAPD "lite" wont do, well the whole reason for General Services taking over the parks is because the Rangers were not equipped or trained to handle criminal activity. Citations and such yes, but as we know, Parks can be as dangerous as any South central alley at night.
Today, General Services Police (many of them former Rangers) do proactively patrol the parks and do cite people for smoking in the park as well as enforce many other quality of life crimes.
Why have two citywide police departments? Quality of service. The same applies to the Port and Airport. The police departments there provide an ownership style service to the areas they patrol. General Services goes to many of the calls that LAPD would never show up for.
Park Rangers are "neither fish nor fowl"- they are NOT police, nor are they fire fighters- they have some ability to do both , but only in a preventative( stop gap) measure UNTIL BETTER TRAINED,and EQUIPPED personnel arrive ( namely LAPD,LAFD, and OPS-GSD PD)
Since they are NOT ARMED they can barely interdict, or abate serious crime in the Parks, and since they are not fully trained in firefighting ,they can only abate. the basic brush fire. 30-40 rangers spread out over 460 sq.miles, and hundreds of parks? Ineffective in providing park safety..
I blame the Rangers for not merging into the OPS-Gen.Servs. PD.They( Rangers ) could have swelled the ranks of the OPS and brought the "Search and rescue" + fire abate aspect to that agency, making OPS a bigger, more effective public safety unit,and havin immediate access to MORE personnel.In return they would have recieved a $10K/yr pay raise and got BETTER training.
People forget OPS was designed to stop crime in the parks that LAPD was too short handed to get to, and Park Rangers were INCAPABLE of handling. OPS officers are fully CA.POST certified,Are trained by LAPD as officers and Supervisors, operate POLICE vehicles, and have POLICE AUTHORITY to investigate and STOP crime( ThINK ABOUT which one works - "Halt, Park Ranger,or I'll write you a ticket" or "stop, Police officer, I WILL shoot").
IF the Rangers are to continue to exist, they need to focus solely on the "search and Rescue" and fire abatement role and align themselves with the LAFD( who I think should supervise them), and Abandon being UNARMED "security police".....
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