IF ONLY SHE HAD DIRECTED WATERING DOWN THE FIRE AS WELL: Bass directed watering down of Palisades fire after-action report, sources say.

• Sources told The Times that Mayor Karen Bass was concerned about legal liabilities for failures in combating the Palisades fire.
• Bass wanted key findings about the Los Angeles Fire Department’s shortcomings removed or softened, the sources said.
• The most significant changes to the report involved a failure not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available engines ahead of dangerously high winds.

For nearly two months, Mayor Karen Bass has repeatedly denied that she was involved in altering an after-action report on the Palisades fire to downplay failures by the city and the Los Angeles Fire Department in combating the catastrophic blaze.

But two sources with knowledge of Bass’ office said that after receiving an early draft, the mayor told then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva that the report could expose the city to legal liabilities for those failures. Bass wanted key findings about the LAFD’s actions removed or softened before the report was made public, the sources said — and that is what happened.

The changes to the report, which was released on Oct. 8, came to light through a Times investigation published in December.

The sources told The Times that two people close to Bass informed them of the mayor’s behind-the-scenes role in watering down the report. One source spoke to both of the people; the other spoke to one of them. The sources requested anonymity to speak frankly about the mayor’s private conversations with Villanueva and others.

One Bass confidant told one of the sources that “the mayor didn’t tell the truth when she said she had nothing to do with changing the report.” The source said the confidant advised Bass that altering the report “was a bad idea” because it would hurt her politically.

Altering the fire department itself was a bad idea as well: LA Mayor Karen Bass cut fire department funding by $17.6M, focused on homeless spending — months before wildfires turned city into hellscape.

“Charlie Peters’ ‘Fireman First’ principle says you always threaten to cut firemen in order to create a public outcry against budget cuts. You’re not supposed to actually do it,” Mickey Kaus tweeted a year ago, as a reminder of just how incompetent Bass is.

In November Cal Matters reported: In L.A. mayor’s race, Karen Bass is vulnerable but she’ll be tough to topple.

Good and hard, L.A., good and hard. This 2015 City Journal piece by VDH titled “The Scorching of California” is a reminder that wealthy Californians seem to have little desire to fix their state’s myriad woes.