An L.A. county employee who allegedly had “a long history of sleeping on the job” was in charge of emergency workers sending evacuation alerts during critical moments of the Eaton Fire, according to a whistleblower complaint filed with the county.
The complaint was filed late last year by Nick Vaquero, an associate director in the county’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) since 2023. The county’s Chief Executive Office confirmed to LAist that it received the complaint.
Vaquero reiterated the details of his written whistleblower complaint in interviews with LAist. He said he was speaking out now because he believes OEM’s leadership decisions about staffing during the emergency were shortsighted, and he was upset that his oral complaints to his bosses and to the team working on a major after-action report released in September were ignored. He filed his written whistleblower complaint in October.
Vaquero said he saw Steve Lieberman, a nearly 40-year county employee, asleep at work more than a dozen times in two years prior to Lieberman supervising OEM’s overnight shift from the evening of Jan. 7 through the morning of Jan. 8, 2025. The whistleblower complaint alleges Lieberman was “sleeping in his office” during his overnight shift.
By the time Lieberman’s shift began, the Palisades Fire had devastated whole neighborhoods, multiple new fires had started, including the Eaton Fire, and the National Weather Service had the region under critical fire weather warnings. That...
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