The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors delayed a motion Tuesday that directs county staff to look into how to either impeach or take away some of the responsibilities of Sheriff Alex Villanueva, as well as to explore how to shift the position of Sheriff from an elected one to an appointed one.

During their regular meeting Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors moved to delay a motion directing Los Angeles County staff to explore options for removing or limiting the power of Villanueva.

“Under the current Sheriff, hard-fought vital progress is being undone, and community trust is rapidly eroding,” the motion reads. “While the Board has been able to navigate challenging times with previous Sheriffs, this Sheriff’s actions demonstrate the dire need to explore options for removing a Sheriff who refuses oversight or, at a minimum, mitigating damages caused by unacceptable behavior.”

Authored by Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas and Sheila Kuehl, the motion instructs the County Counsel to work with the Office of the Inspector General, the Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the Civilian Oversight Commission (COC) to find “options for removing or impeaching,” Villanueva, as well as “legislative changes required to potentially remove certain existing responsibilities of the Sheriff,” and report back within 30 days.

“Given the recent but persistent refusal to provide the transparency and accountability that the community rightly demands, the County should consider whether the status of the Sheriff’s office should be reexamined in order to better serve the more than 10 million residents of the County,” the motion reads. 

While the text of the motion acknowledges the “more limited” authority that the Board has over elected positions such as the Sheriff, it argues that the Board “has general supervisory authority over elected officers to the extent that they function as County officers and may review and assess the officer’s performance of those County duties.”

“The need for mechanisms to hold an elected Sheriff accountable is painfully obvious today, at a time when communities across the County are reeling from violence – including much-too-frequent deputy involved-shootings,” the motion reads.

The motion also directs county staff to look into the possibility of shifting the position of Los Angeles County Sheriff from an elected one to an appointed one, citing how the Chief of Police for the Los Angeles Police Department is appointed by the mayor of Los Angeles and approved by the Police Commission and the City Council.

Ridley-Thomas and Kuehl argue that this structure provides for “robust civilian oversight.”

“On the other hand, with an elected Sheriff, the County has had to maneuver different ways to create checks and balances on the Sheriff,” the motion reads. “Through the Board’s leadership, the OIG and COC now have better tools to perform their oversight of LASD and the Board continues to use its budgetary authority. However, it has become increasingly clear that the Sheriff’s blatant disregard for transparency and accountability requires a more forceful response.”

For her part, Supervisor Kathryn Barger vocalized her opposition to the motion.

“I still stand by my beliefs that the Sheriff is elected,” she said. “It’s important for us to recognize that.”

Prior to the vote, Villanueva addressed the board, stating that he has been “more transparent” than his predecessors, and asked the supervisors to meet with him privately before proceeding.

“We are a county family, and when there’s collaboration, we can do great things,” he said. “Let’s set aside the past and work out our differences.”

The motion is set to be discussed further on Nov. 10, and can be read here.

See Related: L.A. County Sheriff Villanueva Responds To Calls For Resignation

Tuesday’s motion is the most recent development in a long line of confrontations between Villanueva, the County Board, and the COC, which have included back-and-forth statements on social media, and borderline threats of bureaucratic retaliation as tensions have risen during the coronavirus pandemic that have only been exacerbated by curfews, protests, and budget changes.

COC member Robert Bonner, a former U.S. Attorney and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator, was the first to call on Villanueva to step down during the final hours of a commission meeting back in September.

“It’s with great reluctance that I’m calling for Sheriff Villanueva to resign,” Bonner said. “The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department itself deserves better. The men and women of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deserve better.”

The commission expressed doubt over the sheriff’s version of events leading to the filmed arrest of a reporter and asked county attorneys to prepare a report on legal responsibilities involved in law enforcement activities at protests.

“I don’t take this step lightly,” Bonner said. “I only do so because it’s become apparent that he has demonstrated on occasions that he lacks the judgment needed to be the sheriff, and he’s unable to provide the leadership needed by the sheriff’s department.

The Los Angeles County Office of Inspector General later confirmed that it had initiated an investigation into the Sept. 12 arrest by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department of reporter Josie Huang, a KPCC/LAist reporter who was arrested while she was covering a protest following the ambush shooting of two LASD deputies in Compton.

Members of the commission also noted Villanueva’s handling of the deputies who inappropriately took photos of the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash scene in January, and shared them with the media, resulting in public backlash.

During a press conference in September, Villanueva said that the COC was overstepping its role.

“There’s a fine line between being a watchdog and a political attack dog,” he said. “That’s pretty much the line they’ve crossed. They crossed the line a long time ago. This is just the latest example of it.”

Villanueva also called the commission a “political body appointed by the Board of Supervisors,” with whom the sheriff has repeatedly clashed on budget and other issues.

“They’re just part of the echo chamber of the board,” Villanueva said. “And unfortunately, the route they take is not one that’s going to engender goodwill … between myself or the organization, because there’s a fine line being a watchdog and an attack dog, a political attack dog.”

That same day, Kuehl and Ridley-Thomas said that they supported the calls for Villanueva to resign.

“Like the members of the Civilian Oversight Commission, I remain troubled by the Sheriff’s conduct and the way he has interfered with advancing reform and enhancing accountability,” Ridley-Thomas said in a statement.

In response to the comments made by the COC, Ridley-Thomas and Kuehl, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department released an official statement, calling the motion “morally repugnant and emblematic of the political animosity of the politically-appointed commission,” in light of the fact that the calls for Villanueva’s resignation come while two deputies are recovering from a shooting ambush in Compton.

“It is becoming painfully obvious this commission is acting in retaliation against the sheriff for his efforts in investigating potential criminal conduct from county officials and for challenging the legality of subpoenaing the sheriff himself versus the LASD,” read the LASD HQ statement. 

Then, on Oct. 21, Villanueva took to social media to address a resolution from the COC published on Oct. 15, which states that the Commission “has lost confidence in Sheriff Villanueva’s ability to effectively govern the Sheriff’s Department.”

“The Commission finds that Sheriff Villanueva enables a culture within the Sheriff’s Department of deputy impunity, disregards the constitutional rights of Los Angeles County residents, disdains other elected officials and disrespects the will of voters who support robust civilian oversight,” the resolution reads. “The Commission finds that the ongoing issues within the Sheriff’s Department point to a serious lack of judgment and leadership by Sheriff Villanueva.”

Villanueva proceeded to go through the text of the resolution, stating that he has “a lot of concerns” regarding the document.

“If they want to maintain a respectful dialogue, well I think there’s better ways to do it than to call for my resignation,” he said.

Villanueva attacked the COC multiple times, referring to them as the “attack dogs of the Board of Supervisors.”

“They are political animals,” he said. “They act exactly like you’d expect a political attack dog to perform.”

Tensions between Villanueva and the Board of Supervisors are rooted back as far as March, when the Board unanimously voted to remove the Sheriff as the head of emergency operations amid the coronavirus outbreak.

That vote made L.A. County Chief Executive Officer Sachi Hamai responsible for coordinating the County’s activities relating to emergency preparedness, response and recovery, including the activation and operation of the County Emergency Operations Center.

Kuehl noted at the time that the Board has never voted for the sheriff to be the head of the emergency services, and two-thirds of counties in California have their CEO or another entity as the emergency operations lead.

“I respectfully say to the Sheriff, this is not about him,” she said. “This is about the safety of the residents of L.A. County.”

Villanueva responded by saying that the move was a “power grab” by the Board during a worldwide public health crisis.

“This will impact public safety and public health,” Villanueva said. “They’re going to reassign the job to a financial analyst, and not a first responder with experience managing natural disasters and man-made. We’re in the middle of a global public health crisis.”

Two months later, Villanueva denied a subpoena order to testify in regards to the coronavirus amongst the inmates in the County jail system by the Civilian Oversight Commission.

“After repeated requests for the Sheriff to attend our Commission meetings, no one from the department has shown up,” Commission Chair Patti Giggans, executive director of Peace Over Violence, said at the time. “We are in a pandemic which calls for more oversight, more collaboration, more input into policy not less. The role of the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission is a public mandate and one that every commissioner takes seriously.”

KHTS FM 98.1 and AM 1220 is Santa Clarita’s only local radio station. KHTS mixes in a combination of news, traffic, sports, and features along with your favorite adult contemporary hits. Santa Clarita news and features are delivered throughout the day over our airwaves, on our website and through a variety of social media platforms. Our KHTS national award-winning daily news briefs are now read daily by 34,000+ residents. A vibrant member of the Santa Clarita community, the KHTS broadcast signal reaches all of the Santa Clarita Valley and parts of the high desert communities located in the Antelope Valley. The station streams its talk shows over the web, reaching a potentially worldwide audience. Follow @KHTSRadio on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.