‘I can get the job done’ | Sheriff Alex Villanueva, Series Finale

What would you like to do that you are not empowered to do?

I would like to use eminent domain to start seizing public lands and empty buildings and converting them into emergency shelters. I have the authority to actually get people off public spaces and into shelter, but I just don’t have the actual resources of shelter. So that’s one missing element in my bag of tricks, so to speak.

How does that get implemented? How does that go forward? How does that solution get put into action? Can we physically get to do that?

Yeah, physically. I think the Board of Supervisors has a capacity to actually do that. So does the City of LA, the Mayor’s office and the City Council. Remember I talked about the lack of political will. Give me that ability and we’ll make it happen. In fact, we can get the entire homeless problem in LA County solved in 90 days.

And literally, it’s achievable because remember when Katrina happened, what did FEMA do? They created housing for half a million people in a week. When there’s a war or some famine and some Third World country, along comes the American International Red Cross, and they can house 2 million people in a tent city. They can get it done and it’s a tent city. It’s not going to be ridden with rats, typhus and all these infectious diseases — they’re actually going to have trash picked up, medical care provided. So it can be done. And actually our situation is a lot smaller than a Katrina, than a war and a million refugees, and we’re waddling and just incompetence because we don’t have the political will. It is not impossible. I can get the job done.

I can’t give up on that solution. I didn’t expect to go on this long, or get to this crescendo. Please, what would you like to say to the West Hollywood voters or the LA County voters, who are concerned about everything going on in their public safety issues? Why should we trust you for another term and how can we give you that authority to implement your progressive ideas and make things happen.

For West Hollywood voters, and you’re the heart and soul of what LA County is, you’re right in the middle of LA County in West Hollywood. And that’s the slice of our community that we need to preserve, we need to defend and between homelessness and violent crime, they’re threatening our way of life and our livelihoods. And we have to take that challenge seriously, and I’m running for this second term to do exactly that.

My two challenges are A) Homelessness, and B) Violent Crime. Actually they feed off of each other. We can get the job done.

Deputies are working tirelessly day and night and they are motivated to work even though all the obstacles presented by the Board of Supervisors and the activists with the bullhorns. Deputies don’t care. They are just dead-set focused on keeping people alive, on keeping people safe. And they’re doing this because they believe in my vision for the County, for Public Safety. They are committed to that. I’m not gonna let them down. They know what I have their support, they have my support and I hold them accountable to a high standard and it is working.

You moved me… very much Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Coming Soon: UpClose with former Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna.

Luna will face off against Villanueva in this November’s election for Los Angeles County Sheriff.