In a split vote, West Hollywood City Council decided at their Monday night meeting to proceed with the decision to remove up to five deputies from the budget for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department over the next two years.
The plan — popularly known as “defunding the sheriff” — was first approved by City Council over the summer, but they paused its rollout back in October when Block by Block fell behind on their hiring of 30 new security ambassadors.
Mayor Lauren Meister and Councilmember John Heilman pleaded with their colleagues to reverse course.
“When I look at the statistics that we’ve been provided, it’s very troubling to me,” Heilman said. “ Less than 50 percent of our residents feel safe at night. That to me is something that we need to address.”
Mayor Pro Tem Sepi Shyne and Councilmember John Erickson were unmoved.
“When I take a look at the reasons why we instituted an alternative way of keeping the public safe, it was because we wanted to do something differently than we’ve done before and be innovative,” Shyne said. “Safety was at the forefront of that decision that we made in June. I am not in favor of steering away from that. I think we need to give this program a chance and keep the course of where we are.”
“I’m not prepared to add more guns to the streets at this moment,” Erickson said. “And that’s not because I don’t want people to feel safer. I just don’t know if guns or more cops do what I think people are trying to do.”
New Councilmember Chelsea Byers sided with Shyne and Erickson.
“It’s not a matter of making the most with less — it’s just doing more with different,” Byers said. “And we haven’t given this idea a test yet. I certainly didn’t get elected to get up here on day one and rip out the course of action that was laid forth. I think this is the plan that is moving ahead and I’m excited to see that, and I’m excited to continue conversations about what else we can do.”
Two deputies are now set to be removed Jan. 1. The Community Safety Department will return to City Council in April with data about how the plan is working, and the decision whether to cut three additional deputies will be made at that time.
“And we haven’t given this idea a test yet.”- says Chelsea Byers. In other words, we’re making the safety and lives of you and your loved ones a big social experiment using data we 100% know doesn’t work! What a bunch of total A-Holes!!!
BTW POLICE PROTECTION IS USUALLY LAST THING EVER CUT WITH CRIME AND I’M GUESSING ECONOMIC CRISIS (NO four letter work of your choice) POLICING IS FIRST TO GO UP IN FUNDING BEFORE ALL ELSE. POLICING BUDGET CAN NEVER BE AFFECTED BY ANY SHORTAGE IN CITY BUDGETS (despite the “not in the least” ie LIE, current low budget of WeHo) What is a “CITY” WITHOUT ADEQUATE Law Enforcement (plus a few more?) Dangerous to residents, visitors, shoppers and drunk late night party people …… REDUCING BUDGET BY CUTTING LAW ENFORCEMENT, WILL LEAD TO FAST CONSECUTIVE YEARS OF DECLINING CITY BUDGETS, CALLING… Read more »
I’d rather have MORE Sheriff’s AND
GET RID IF SAN VICENTE ELEVATED PLANTERS IDEA OF JOHN HEILMAN.
This is like a pure Republican move. PURPOSE OF POWER – CAUSE CHAOS – SPLIT CITY OPINION.
“defunding the sheriff” is simply outrageous! We need every LASD person we can get on the streets, in their squad cars, on their motorcycles and walking the beat to “Keep WeHo Safe”.
SEPTIC SHYNE HAS TO GO. RECALL NOW!!
When one of the 3 council members get their home broken into or mugged, they will be wanting to double the sheriffs dept.
First of all, the sheriff is not a ‘police force’. In West Hollywood, we have no legitimate criminal law enforcement. The sheriff is the marshall for the civil or property court, called the Magistrate. Simply put, we have no law enforcement agency which directs cases to the criminal court. If you don’t believe me then research sheriffs’ roles historically, globally and even currently outside of California. In practice, our sheriff acts like a policeforce, setting up drug stings, “murder investigations” a’la Ed Buck, and even surveillance (sans a search warrant in many instances). These cases could get totally discharged and… Read more »
The Block by Block kids are a sad joke on the residents of West Hollywood. They barely have the energy or ambition to pedal their bikes from block to block, let alone carry their weight as security officers.
Lauren Meiser and John Heilman, it’s up to you to bring back our police force, and save us from John Erickson and weak-minded buffoons of his ilk.
John Erickson: we don’t need more cops with guns out there. Criminals: sounds great to us! Right now in Tri-West:
It was Annie’s antics that lead Erickson to vote to move ahead with the plan to cut two sheriff’s deputies. He said so in his comments. Her plan worked. We need more people to speak up in favor of the Sheriff’s Department.
Whilst it doesn’t seem Block by Block does squat, in a perfect scenario they are the eyes and ears for the sheriffs and it’d be interesting to see statistics on their contacts with Sheriffs. Do they only call in homeless issues? As for more sheriffs, everyone I’ve spoken to over the years haven’t been too thrilled by their curt response when called, their actual response time on the scene, and lack of visibility in actually being out policing the community rather than waiting for calls to come in and sending 10 cars racing down SMB at top speed (99.999% of… Read more »
Tom your comments are spot on but I can’t figure out how we improve deputies response times when we have fewer of them.
Why is it one or the other? We can have security ambassadors AND more sheriff’s deputies. The city has plenty of income to support it.
Because they have a new pool that needs millions of dollars to keep it open and repair the issues with it.