L.A. County supervisors took steps today toward firing or impeaching sheriff Alex Villanueva. Ike Allen has the story.
The supervisors this afternoon passed the motion to look at options for removing LA county sheriff Alex Villanueva. Supervisor Sheila Kuehl explains: “This simply says: what are our options, if any, for removing or impeaching a sheriff, and we are not the first county to ask this question.”
The sheriff and the supervisors have clashed from the first days after he was elected two years ago. The supervisors objected to him re-hiring deputies who had been fired after disciplinary action. They raised concerns that he was rolling back overdue reforms.
Groups like the ACLU, Black Lives Matter L.A. and the LA Hotel Workers Union want Villanueva to resign. They say he’s covered up abuses in the department and abandoned reforms for accountability.
Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas stresses the need for transparency in the office: “May I assert that accountability matters. Its absence contributes to violations of constitutional and human rights. It inhibits the department’s efforts to make public safety real and or believable, and too often it undermines the rule of law…”
The supervisors will also consider appointing, rather than electing, the next sheriff.
Supervisor Janice Hahn voted against the motion, saying it should be up to the public to vote Villanueva out at the end of his term: “With all due respect to my colleagues, I don’t think it’s our job to remove an elected official. If the voters want to do that, it’s totally within their right.”
With the motion passing, Villanueva could face removal before his term is over in 2022.