Just 12 days ago I challenged Los Angeles City Hall to make public safety a priority. City Hall data showed the Los Angeles Fire Department with a dramatic worsening in response times, getting to an emergency in less than five minutes only 59 percent of the time versus 86 percent in 2008, and against a stated goal of 90 percent.
City Hall has since admitted the 86 percent figure they provided the public was wrong -- it might have been 87 percent (LAFD reports for 2007), or 64 percent (City Hall's latest claim for 2008) or some other figure yet to be shared with the public. Any way we look at it, it's taking far longer for our firefighters to respond to an emergency than it used to.
