This week’s decision by City Council to defund the Sheriff’s Department was the culmination of a highly coordinated strategy advanced by progressive policy makers, alternative policing advocates and a slew of insular activist groups.
A story published in the Davis Vanguard quotes leaders of the organizations — which include JusticeLA, Partners for Justice, Fund for Guaranteed Income, CURB, La Defensa, Dignity and Power Now, Gender Justice LA and Re-Imagine LA Coalition — as they affirm their roles in the defunding effort, as well as hinting at their future ambitions.
“West Hollywood City Council’s decision to significantly reduce the reallocation of funding from the corrupt and fiscally incompetent Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is indefensible,” said Ivette Alé-Ferlito, Dignity and Power Now’s director of policy and advocacy.
“As a Queer migrant organizer, I and many others in the community would like to see a full transformation of WeHo’s public safety system. The Public Safety Committee’s proposal to shift $3.6 million from the Sheriff’s budget was not that; it was simply a pragmatic step towards a more holistic vision that prioritizes care, and the Council could not deliver. The $2.4 million dollars they chose not to reallocate means that community-based services like HIV prevention, alternative crisis response, and mental health care will remain underfunded.”
Ambrose Brooks, the coordinator for JusticeLA Coalition often seen at City Council meetings, was also unsatisfied with the extent of the sheriff’s budget reductions.
“West Hollywood City Council’s June 27 budget vote is a step in the right direction: away from funding Sheriff’s violence and towards investing in care,” Brooks said. “The LA County Sheriff’s Department is charging contract cities tens of millions of dollars each year to criminalize Black, Brown, Queer, and Trans communities. Other Los Angeles County contract cities must take the same path as West Hollywood, and also re-evaluate their costly contracts with LASD.”
“WeHo’s bold yet insufficient decision to reallocate funds from the largest and deadliest sheriff’s department in the world laid down the gauntlet for other contract cities. The Council’s decision indicates what is possible, and what is next, in LA county –– the reimagination of public safety as investments in community-based alternatives to law enforcement,” according to a statement issued by the social justice groups.”
That’s why we need residents to vote for the WeHo City Council. We have a very low turnout and we need to get people out there. I am totally against defunding sheriffs. Our crime has increased so why are we decreasing law enforcement. I’m disgusted.
Defunding the Sheriff is about the dumbest thing Council has ever done. Come Election Day there will be hell to pay We need our law enforcement and fire dept as a matter of public safety. look at other parts of the City Budget and cut the fat! Like overpaid City Officials.
Yea and what’s Weho’s surplus, isn’t it like a billion? This isn’t about cutting cost. They want to destroy the neighborhoods so they can get the property so they can build more hotels. Same thing that’s happening in LA, they are purposely trying to destroy LA County, and there’s literally one person in the county trying to keep things together and that’s Alex Villanueva anyone that says otherwise is either misinformed or they are paid opposition.
Weho is getting exactly what it deserves. Enjoy your surge in crime. Harassment, hate crimes, home invasion, robbery, pet snatching! What a world. You built this!!!
Have you heard of our lord and savior, the boogaloo?
Ambrose Brooks and her contemporaries should take responsibility for dispensing false and misleading information. Having a law degree she/he should understand the ethical responsibility of this act and not confuse it with “free speech”.
A person knowingly dispensing false and misleading information is at the heart of the January 6 Investigation. At the very least those inclined are free to file complaints with the California Bar Association.
And I note that you were equally performative in making it about the comments section and not reaching out.
I am defiant and we as citizens should counteract these instigators to use West Hollywood as the epicenter for no police force that has incurred high crimes and prevent any form of punishment against criminals. I am a multiple victim of crime here in West Hollywood. I’ve never seen brazen robberies, lawlessness, assaults without provocation intimidation! I got punched on the bus, chased on sunset, rocks thrown at me by schizophrenic individuals, cornered by people who thought I lived in a house in Weho all while running for bus! The assumption is steal from people who look like they have… Read more »
For all of the complaining I’ve seen here for months, it would have been nice if someone had taken the reigns and formed our own movement, or organization that opposed de-funding the Sheriff. It could even be just a Facebook page. And our own form letters, or, even better, a signature petition, in combination with an online petition (signatures would have been better, and more legit). Maybe one of you created something. I was against defunding, but I am not as passionate as some of you, and wouldn’t have had the time. This is how Measure C passed. All I’m… Read more »
Their job is Marxist revolution. Most of us have real jobs like bakers and pharmacists and running businesses.
The democratic party of FDR and JFK is unfortunately long since dead and buried. Now it is the party of billionaire hedge fund oligarchs pouring cash into all of these interlocked sleazy astro turf “activist groups” whose sole purpose is to recruit low skill, low iq misfits into tearing down what little is left of our middle class and basic social stability.
Perfect analogy, and conclusion.
When did we start listening to geeks?
It’s in the Bible: and the Marxist geeks shall inherit the earth. Or something like that.
Solution like I’ve been saying vote them OUT. Meister is the only member to keep.
Recall Gascon is a new beginning.
D’Amico is retiring, Horvath might not be on the ballot (still unsure if she can run for Supervisor and Councilmember at the same time).
Shyne is your next mayor. And you have her for 2+ more years, before you can vote her out.
We live in Los Feliz. We USE TO spend a lot of time in WEHO eating, shopping the unique boutiques and galkeries, visiting Gay bars, (how many are left now? two?) and generally “hanging-out.” The difficulty finding parking slowed us down; the totally unchecked violent crime, property damage and just plain bad energy are now keeping us at home. Defunding the LASD is a mindless, destructive idea that will probably result in MORE murder, mayhem and violent crime. Business leaders, property owners (almost none of whom serve on the WEHO Council) wise-up, rise-up and fight-back! And to think Mayor Horvath,… Read more »
I lived there, before the corrupt rot of cityhood took over in the middle of the plague. My returns there in 2015 and ’19 were real eye openers. Now I understand it”s even worse. Worse than being pushed out of a fake bell tower at San Juan Bautista!
Spend twenty minutes and watch this starting at 1:33. Watch Sepi Shyne lie and deceive. Watch her malign intentions. Watch her suggest that we can’t have both foot patrols and fully funded LASD deputies. Watch her talking about fiscal responsibility. Sepi Shyne’s claims to fiscal responsibility are bellied by her pushes to fund completely wasteful projects, including a study that had already been conducted by SCAG, of which WEHO is a paying member. Sepi suggested that her additional $100,000 was specific to West Hollywood historical context. Asked if she thinks WeHo’s “historical context” is divorced from the vast metropolis surrounding… Read more »
The link won’t open, Alan.
https://dsa-la.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/DSA-LA-2020-General-Election-Voter-Guide-5.pdf
Page 76 right out of the Socialist Democratic Party about Sepi & her intentions to defund the Sheriff’s dept
Of course Sepi Shyne is a manipulative fraud. Let’s not stress too much over this disgusting woman. She’ll implode soon enough.
Pull back the many layers and you will discover a direct financial path to the Soros Foundation. They are funding thousands of these radicalized anarchist organizations. The Soros Foundation continues the push by elite globalists for dissolution of all borders across the world…zero sovereignty, thus allowing multi-nationals and the elite super rich to destroy any trace of a middle class. This is no globalism without the USA, the richest consumer market in that me world. The audacity for a Third World immigrant to come here with the intention of destroying our system of life is War words for me! Great… Read more »
Ian, you are one of the few on this paper that is well informed in this grand scheme of the New World Order run by the elites, especially China! Socialism is just a nice word for New World Order COMMUNISM! Come on people….wake up!
Obsessions with things like the Soros Foundation and “globalism” is how these activists will take control. Especially when people aren’t feeling safe, they need a choice that isn’t radical and crazy. This will just lead to more division.
Have you even thought about as to WHERE the money comes from for “these activists”? There is no activism without MONEY. These people take control when people just throw out innuendos without so much as a google. It appears some people are too afraid to find out the truth. It is this very mentality that has fed this monster that West Hollywood, indeed the nation is facing such division.
Pretending there are no bad people in the world like Soros, is like the Germans pretending Hitler didn’t exist.
Even if you truly believe this, it’s making you seem super crazy, and that’s not helping to situation in West Hollywood.
Super crazy because certain people run from the truth? That is the MO of the Far Left, when it gets too hot for them to challenge the truth, they move to ad hominen attacks. So, some people think pointing out the truth is “crazy”. Too F bad! Life is about the truth. Facts scare the weak, knowledge is power and nothing gets accomplished by the uninformed…they are responsible for helping to create exactly what we are dealing with in this city and country. I can promise you sweetheart, I have lots of crazy when it comes to knowing the nuts… Read more »
Let me put it another way, just because you’re hearing voices in your head doesn’t mean you should let others know. This isn’t about what the truth is, this is about how to persuade others.
Dearie, when one’s mental capacity suffers from arrested development by age 15, they often think others are crazy. Adulthood escapes them.
“This isn’t about what the truth is”…nuff said.
Having a sensible conversation with Weho Mary is not possible as he/she is dedicated to the art of contrarianism for the sake of it. Impervious to facts, unwilling to research he/she is happy defending ghosts on Wehoville.
Your bs isn’t truth. Grow up.
Blaming everything you don’t like on “Soros”” is weak and childish. What a sad fantasy world with a healthy dash of anti semitism. Pathetic.
Hear hear!
Sounds to me that we’ve struck a nerve as to where Mary’s (Blanche) paycheck may be coming from.
Delusions aren’t facts. Just thought you should know, since you delve into so many of them on here.
Especially since it’s a ridiculous fantasy. Might as well be trump supporters. Oh wait.
True. Soros nuts and neo-fascists are hard at work in these comments.
When Soros donates hundreds of thousands to Gascon, Newsom and others across the country, it’s not my obsession. Stop simping for your own slavery.
THIS!