Fox accused of abusing his power on LAFD

It appears that Mayor Andy Fox's spin machine has penetrated the halls of the Acorn.

A story last week would have their readers believe that the Los Angeles Fire Department was reorganized as a regular matter of course, and that Dep. Chief Fox was promoted. The difficulties at the Los Angeles Fire Department led to the ouster of his boss, Fire Chief Bill Bamattre, a few months back.

Other high-profile lawsuits involving Fox are now getting big press, so the interim fire chief finally had no choice but to demote him.

If it was a year or two from now, Fox would be fully vested in his pension and probably would have been shown the exit too. But the new LAFD decision makers are not as vengeful as Fox himself is.

One of the lawsuits involves the alleged wrongful dismissal of a firefighter, a Thousand Oaks hometown boy and Iraqi war hero who was forced out of the LAFD by Fox as a political payback to Marty Bates, his buddy and Ventura County education board member. You see, Bates' grandson was involved in a verbal altercation with the firefighter at a heated baseball game in T.O.

Hey Andy, can you help me teach a kid a lesson? Sure, Marty, what can I do for ya? The Acorn's editor has embarrassingly crossed the line between news reporting and the opinion page.

If advocate-journalism like this continues, maybe the Acorn should be renamed Pravda.
John Fonti
Thousand Oaks