Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican candidate for Governor of California, joined KHTS for a special interview discussing his qualifications and plans for addressing key issues.

Bianco emphasized his 32-year law enforcement experience, including leading the second-largest sheriff’s office in the state.

“For 32 years now, I’ve been representing Riverside County and keeping them safe, protecting them, providing that service to them, and then the last six as the Sheriff (…) I’m the second largest sheriff’s office in the state and the fourth in the country, $1.2 billion budget, with 4,400 employees,” Bianco said. “There’s no one else that can say that they have successfully managed an office like that, especially a political office representing all of Riverside County, not a political party.”

He highlighted his transparency and “common-sense” approach, contrasting it with current Democratic leadership at the state level.

“The problem with this woke nonsense is it’s almost like a bully. It’s like, if you’re not woke, you’re a racist, or if you’re not woke, you’re a monster,” Bianco said. “A good person doesn’t want to be labeled as something, they don’t want to be called something, especially something horrific. I mean, the worst thing for anybody is to be called a racist.”

Bianco criticized current Democratic policies on crime, homelessness, and energy costs, advocating for tougher law enforcement, rehabilitation for drug addicts, and eliminating gas taxes.

Specifically highlighting crime rates, Bianco noted that as a law enforcement officer, crime has been his life for over three decades.

“Sacramento has a love affair with criminals that will end when I get there. The only way to stop crime is to make crime not profitable, have there be a punishment for bad behavior, and Sacramento has taken that away, and they’ve emboldened and empowered criminals will end,” Bianco said.

Bianco also noted that the prime cause of homelessness in his experience is drug addiction. According to Bianco, the key to solving rampant homelessness in California is to allow programs like Prop 3, which, among other changes, would allow some persons arrested for possession to be charged with a “treatment-mandated felony” instead of straight jail time.

“We are allowing them to sit on our streets and rot in their own skin because we won’t address the real problem of drug abuse,” Bianco said of individuals experiencing homelessness.

Moving onto a discussion of taxes and utility costs, Bianco criticized the state’s reliance on renewable energy sources and advocated for the use of nuclear power and natural gas.

“It’s environmentalists that are preventing us from realizing the gains of using those fuels,” Bianco said.

Watch the full interview here.

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.