In her short tenure as West Hollywood’s Public Safety Commissioner, Nika Soon-Shiong did not exactly cover herself with glory. In Thursday’s Daily News, John Phillips took a cold, hard (but hilarious) look at her “accomplishments” such as voting to defund the police, resulting in cutting the city’s number of LA County Sheriff’s Department deputies from 60 to 56.
What have been the results of this change so far? As Phillips points out, “In such a short period of time, Soon-Shiong has put some pretty serious numbers on the board as a–you should pardon the expression–Public Safety Commissioner. On her watch last year, West Hollywood saw a 32 percent increase in violent crime, a 126 percent increase in property crime, and an increase of 137 percent in overall crime including murder, assault, rape, arson, human trafficking, and burglary.”
Add to these gloomy stats 137 incidents of pickpocketing in the city’s bars during just the first two months of this year and it’s easy to see that critics of Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong’s little girl have plenty of reasons to be, well, critical.
Phillips continues, “And here’s the cherry on top of the sundae. After throwing West Hollywood to the wolves, Soon-Shiong promptly resigned her position as Public Safety Commissioner and announced that she’s moving to London, England to finish up her doctorate…and presumably launching an initiative called ‘De-Fund The Bobbies.’ (Soon-Shiong is still serving and has not formerly resigned but has stated she is preparing to leave.)
“Of course, she can’t be bothered to stick around and live with the consequences of her reckless actions, that’s for the non-billionaires in West Hollywood to worry about.”
For more of Phillips’s amusing but all-too-accurate musings on the reign of Soon-Shiong, check the Daily News story below.
As a resident I cannot express how egregious and harmful the tactics and behavior of Nika Soon Shiong has been! She goes unscathed and residents that have not been able to confront her. She deliberately finds ways to avoid the public ridicule that she deserves and conveniently never seems to tell people why she moved into the city and for what purpose and now London to pursue her degree at Oxford. Nice to know she can afford to live in two expensive places in the world with no mention of her real address or if she has multiple addresses or… Read more »
What I find hilarious is that Robert Oliver enthusiastically embraced Nika Soon Shiong’s and Lindsey Horvath’s position and voted to defund the Sheriff about 5 seconds ago. Then, the second that he declared his candidacy for council and started asking locals for support, he said he “made a mistake.” Does he take us for fools? What a loser.
Could not agree more with such an accurate statement you made! They don’t want to be forced to admit or confronted on the topic in public either!
Following in the footsteps of John Duran who is seemingly unable to admit his gross mistakes ofcharacter which continue. Is JD the poster boy or charter member for Grinder? Neither one belongs on City Council, presumably a position with high ideals and integrity.
I believe (or hope) that Horvath will lose the Supervisor’s race, and we will be rid of her influence on the City of West Hollywood, at least, for awhile. She will pop up somewhere else. That is all but guaranteed.
My daddy owns the La times and I live in a home with security system. F all of you, sheriffs need to be reformed. Says someone with no experience.
I read that article several days ago when it came out. Make no mistake about it, this troublemaker is going to go to London an act out there in the local politics to create more chaos. She was successful here at doing it, so why not create havoc wherever you go, especially if you have a father that will bail you out at all costs! What goes around comes around and she will get hers in the end!
NOT “SOON” enough as far as I am concerned. She should not have been in the position in the first place. I wonder how much money changed hands to get the position?
Glad to see that spoiled little rich girl go.
I agree that we shouldn’t demonize her, but her approach could have been MUCH better. She might have been more effective and convincing if she had taken the time to engage the community directly, like she’s done in Compton, instead of focusing on grilling the Sheriff. She should have done what John Erickson does and go to a park and have an event where she talks with people, and it would have meant a lot to residents. The little girl vocal fry baby talk trying to be so brave thing is really irritating too.
The problem with Nika and her de-funding cohorts, is that they are so focused on dismantling law enforcement that they have abdicated all efforts to reform the Sheriff’s Department and force it to make meaningful change. Taking away funding only makes their job more difficult and renders them less effective while putting the public at risk.
Beyond the commissioners, it would be fair to ask if Danny Rivas is up to the task of piloting the public safety ship as the former director was not, exponentially increasing the downhill slide West Hollywood finds itself in.
Spoiled little girl in her Range Rover telling us how to conduct ourselves. Real golden coming from a billionaire daughter going back to Oxford. West Hollywood gays are the ones to blame for this fool. Can’t wait for her doctorate thesis. It’s going to be grand.
Lindsey Horvath’s brought this gadfly to the city and should bear the full responsibility by not electing her as supervisor. No Vision!
SO TRUE!!!