A lot of people want to see Alex Villanueva fail.
Progressive activists, local TV news stations, billionaire heiress Nika Soon-Shiong, some WeHo City Councilmembers, a sizeable portion of L.A. County voters and its entire Board of Supervisors — all of them would love to see the controversial sheriff lose his re-election race in November.
They supported him on his road to becoming the first Democrat and the first Latino in 138 years to hold the position. In 2018, he rode in as a dark horse candidate to unseat Sheriff Jim McDonnell, a former Republican, despite being outspent 8 to 1.
It was a historic victory, and the establishment was pleased with their new prized pony. But Villanueva slipped his reins. He ended up being more moderate than they thought he would be. More critical. Less obedient. Upon taking office, he re-hired a slew of deputies fired by his predecessor, and gutted the bloated executive ranks of the department.
When he was rebuked by the Board of Supervisors, he thumbed his nose at them. When they wanted him to enforce a countywide mask mandate during the pandemic, he refused. And so, the coalition that delivered him to the top job turned their guns on him.
Villanueva is L.A.’s last lone ranger, stubborn but unbending, always in the line of fire. He’s diversified the department, reduced costs, cleaned up homeless encampments, kicked ICE out of the county jails and brought a renewed sense of morale to the department — but his curt style and combative nature have turned former allies into enemies.
And now they’ve got a new horse in the race. Enter Robert Luna, a 36-year veteran of law enforcement and former chief of the Long Beach Police Department. The biggest contrast between the two is temperament. Luna is low-key and chummy; Villanueva is stern and no-nonsense. Luna is diplomatic; Villanueva isn’t afraid of confrontation.
While Luna’s qualities might make for an ideal School Board or City Council member, a sheriff’s job isn’t to make friends. In the midst of rising crime and public unease over movements to defund the police, we need a fighter like Villanueva in charge of keeping us safe now more than ever.
We also need him to keep standing up to the Board of Supervisors, who want voters to give them the unilateral power to remove the sheriff if they deem it necessary.
The board is already too powerful, and the sheriff is one of the few county leaders not beholden to them. If Luna were sheriff, would he dare investigate Supervisor Sheila Kuehl and the allegations of bribery and corruption she’s facing? Not a chance.
We cannot hand the powers that be a sheriff who will kow-tow, capitulate and grovel before them. The establishment needs a constant reminder that it’s not about what they want — it’s about what we, the voters, want.
Sheriff Alex Villanueva is the hard-ass, tough-talking straight shooter we need in this day and age to keep crime at bay and put power-hungry government and party officials in their place. He has our back. Now, we need to have his.
I love Villanueva. He’s hilarious!
[…] you are not familiar with our WEHOville voter guide and our piece supporting the sheriff, many of you called with your support, many others had […]
Just Google LASD Gangs
This is a joke, right?
Kindly share the 8 to 1 spending data from 4 years ago. If I go down that google hole I might not get out before election day. I only recall voting for Villanueva because all the Democratic mailers were endorsing. Last time I’ll ever use those party mailers as a guide.
This is a new low for WeHoVille and shows how truly out of touch it’s editor is with reality. Today would be the day I gave up reading WeHoVille if I weren’t so addicted to the small town meaningless gossip of the comment sections.
Not as low as the City Council cutting the sheriff budget and putting our safety second to their pet projects.
This doesn’t even make 1oz. of sense. The LAPD and County Sheriff’s budgets have gone up WAY more than the same or a decrease for the last few decades. And with all those resources things have gotten worse. Alex is a corrupt politician/license to kill murderer, that belongs behind bars. Money doesn’t solve a lot of the world’s problems, and this violent gang member, yes factual gang member, doesn’t deserve anyone’s vote unless you are support an increase in gang violence and public distrust in policing and government institutions.
Don’t you work for LA County and get a government check ? Doesn’t that make you part of the establishment? Get a job in the private sector and your bias will not look so self serving.
Well your sheriff has had years to clean it up so why hasn’t he? He had his chance. Time to go.
I wish that the writer of this opinion piece had delved deeper into the shooting of Andres Guardado by LASD Deputies.
The two LASD homicide detectives assigned to investigate the death of Andres Guardado pled the Fifth rather than testify at the Coroner’s Inquest.
So.
They didn’t testify.
County lawyers are recommending an 8 million dollar settlement.
The death gratuity for a U.S. soldier killed in combat is, in comparison, $100,000.
as it says at the top of the article, this is part of the wehoville magazine.
Larry It does not say anything about a magazine which would be a meaningless distinction anyway. This article is subtitled, “Part of the WEHOville Voter Guide 2022, free at locations throughout West Hollywood” It’s an endorsement. You can call it a banana but it’s still an endorsement. It should be clearly titled as such. Having an endorsement authored by your writer/editor creates a poor appearance. Should Brandon ever cover the Sheriff or his Dept in the future – which is highly likely given how central the Sheriff is to WEHO – there will be a shadow of potential bias since… Read more »
Please change the name to Larry Block Opinions because you do not report the news. You are as bad or worse than Fox News. Where are the other candidates? WehoTimes at least tries to report on current events.
I will never vote for Villanueva – he’s like a mob boss for LA’s police gangs. I’m all in for Robert Luna.
Will never vote for Villanueva – he’s like a mob boss for LA’s police gangs.
He has my vote. It’s not his fault we have the DA and Officials that we do in office. He’s done a great job considering the insanity he has had to face.
Crime in WeHo is up almost 200 percent over 18 months.
And it’s the DA’s fault?
Hardly. The Sheriff isn’t PREVENTING crime if it keeps skyrocketing.
Sheriff is working with almost 1300 less personnel since pre covid due to budget cuts.
The Sheriff dept overall lost that – West Hollywood had about 62 pre covid now it’s like 46
not in weho
Non- Violent sex and drug crimes are to be enforced unless directly requested from the public per individual incident and if you call the substation they will be way too happy to get to respond. Even people walking along the center median on the Blvd they can sound out over the speakers “get out of the street” but until I called and stated my name and number ( concerned they might be suicidal) they were not going to go against the service contract but three cars zoomed past me towards the person I reported 4 minutes later.
WTF is a “non violent sex crime?”
He was there before the DA too, remember?
I’m voting for Villanueva because everything you said makes sense. It’s the Board of Supervosors who have ruined LA County
Both candidates are flawed but Villanueva at least has gotten a few things done like the sweep of the homeless in Venice. He is not afraid to stand up to the racist supervisors at LA City Council who all think it is perfectly fine to allow people to live on the streets unhoused among trash and filth as long as they stay in power and cut their deals. The laws allowing the homeless to stay in place in the name of homeless rights are absurd and will never allow these people to get their dignity and lives back. It will… Read more »
……and as an FYI, not one of the LA County Supervisors lives in County Sheriff jurisdiction.
Except Sheila Kuel.
Sure he handled Venice so well. Taking on work that was not his departments to do. If he’s so short staffed, why doesn’t he focus on his territory? Sounds like really bad management or someone who just loves to get on TV, https://patch.com/california/venice/la-county-sheriff-comes-venice-moving-lapd-territory
I can see your point but at least he did SOMETHING. None of these other county officials have done anything including Garcetti. How did we get to a point in our City that we are all OK allowing our friends and neighbors to live on the street in filth and squalor?
Too late, this article won’t influence the outcome. Polls already show a shift to Luna. Villanueva is a terrific politician, excellent on-camera. How has he been as Sheriff? Hmm, that’s hard to fathom amidst all the grandstanding. He actually did something about the homeless in Venice, yea … but that was all for show to poke his finger in the eye of local elected officials there … of course those dirty, crazy, dangerous homeless are back in Venice and where is Villanueva now?
You have to blame those “local elected officials” for not following through, no one else.