LOS ANGELES — The Los Anglees Times has filed a lawsuit against the city that seeks to force Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office and the Fire Department to release numerous internal records in the case of a high-ranking fire official who was reported to be drunk on duty during a major blaze but faced no discipline and retired with a $1.4 million payout.
Filed late Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, the suit alleges that the city violated the California Public Records Act by denying the newspaper’s requests for an investigative report and other documents regarding former Chief Deputy Fred Mathis, who was the department’s top administrative commander.
Mathis was reported to be under the influence during last May’s Palisades fire while overseeing the department’s operations center at City Hall East. Critics of then-Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas contended that he and other officials attempted to cover up the incident by not filing a complaint about Mathis’ conduct for three days and allowing someone to make a retroactive entry in city timekeeping records to show he was out sick when he was allegedly intoxicated at work.
