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I'm David Huizar.

What is wrong with Los Angeles?

That's what many are asking these days.

Out of control.

Wildfires in January 2025.

The worst homeless crisis in the US.

Concerns about increasing crime, transportation and housing problems.

City budget and finances a mess.

Lack of leadership.

These are just some of the issues critics say are plaguing Los Angeles these days came a City of Angels, of a return to its glory days, when L.A. was considered one of the best cities in the world, with everything from a thriving economy and amazing job opportunities to affordable housing and safe neighborhoods.

Back in the day.

We're going to be joined later in the broadcast with a Los Angeles journalist, known to many as the LA watchdog, to discuss all the L.A. money stuff, the finances.

First, though, joining me now is former Los Angeles Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

Share a view of us now.

Join the fight as an advocate to keep officials accountable.

And that, for that matter, the media as well.

Sheriff Vanover, thank you so much for being here.

I thank you, David, for having me.

We've got a lot to talk about.

Sure of you in a way.

But let's begin with LA homelessness.

You were the boots on the ground for many years here in L.A. you know this all too well.

Skid row, MacArthur Park, the fentanyl crisis, the list goes on.

What many claim are the bogus Los Angeles Housing Services Authority reports, those loss or reports.

You know all about where some of these city and county leaders.

I don't know how they're saying, Sheriff, claiming homelessness is a horrific crisis that's actually improving.

The question is, are things improving?

They're not improving at all.

In fact, they're actually becoming cemented as part of our urban landscape to the point now where you can't really separate these third world apparitions everywhere, and they're intruding further and further into what used to be normal neighborhoods or business districts.

And when you have a governor and he had the Board of supervisors, the city council, the mayor all saying, hey, we have it under control, just trust us and send us more money.

It it really it screams no, the exact opposite of what's happening.

To your point, it just seems like they keep throwing money at the problem and it's just become this vicious cycle of nothing getting better.

That is very true.

I mean, from 2011 to 2021, the county alone spent $6.5 billion on homeless initiatives and during that ten year time span, the homeless population doubled inside.

Just think, think about that.

We threw all this money and the problem got twice as bad.

A normal, prudent business person or anybody with a sense of common sense would say, you know what?

Let's stop what we're doing in our tracks because we're going in the opposite direction.

We need to go.

Let's regroup and rethink this thing that never, ever happened.

Because along the way, it was the creation of the homeless industrial complex.

It was a birth of just, I mean, a cornucopia of nonprofits and, not NGOs, non-governmental organizations dedicated to receiving public money.

Not so much fixing something that would put them out of business.

But let's just keep all that money coming in in terms of grant money from the feds, from the state, the county, the city level and there you have a birth of an industry, but you don't have the solution of a problem.

And I talked to hundreds and hundreds of people every year.

Obviously, we're on many stories.

Every resident in LA, every business leader, every homeless expert I interview has said the problem, as you say, is getting worse.

So the question is where is the leadership?

You mentioned the city, you mentioned the county, where's the responsibility?

Where's the accountability on the part of the city and county folks, you know, to try and solve this homeless crisis?

I say that because I know back in the day, some years back, a few years ago, you had a plan which the leaders, the L.A. politicians, everyone else, they sort of condemned you.

You were demonized and vilified.

They were saying, you know, you're criminalizing the homeless.

And you take a look at the problem now, and seemingly nothing is being done.

Yes, we've got to care for the homeless, but we continue to have the worst homeless crisis in the U.S.. Sheriff, that is very true.

And some of the sins of the of the, the strategies of these politicians is enabling dependency sin number one.

And so number two is normalizing deviancy.

When you do those things with taxpayer money, all you're guaranteeing is you're going to have more people that joined the fray.

They want the free handout wanted permissive environment where they can consume all the drugs they want and they don't have to worry about anything.

And you literally have people living their lives on a tent, crapping on a sidewalk, waiting for the mailman to come.

And that personal agency is gone.

Any sense of self-worth or responsibility is gone, and all of their solutions only guarantees the more people want a piece of that, it does not solve the problem.

So the the entire drama, this unfolding here in LA is, I don't know if it's by design.

I shudder to think it was by design, but the reality is their theory is just bad.

The equation, the formula is bad from the very onset.

It's bad because everything.

If you hear the county supervisor in particular talk, they always say, oh, we just got to offer services.

All this give more service is somehow they can cure that, you know, lack of personal responsibility by throwing taxpayer funded services.

We can cure criminality by just giving these people services.

They're not really crooks.

They're victims of society at large.

And that mentality of just throwing more services means, well, someone's going to pay for it.

So let's start dismantling the public safety infrastructure and we can shift the money towards all these nonprofits in the same.

Nonprofits are the one that took the horns of the supervisors, the mayor, the city council offer them volunteers for their campaigns, donate to their campaigns lavishly.

So you have this vicious cycle that feeds itself.

And we're creating this, this, perfect storm of, incompetence and corruption centered around nonprofit world is somehow going to cure something that they created and they have no intention of ever solving, because if they fixed it, they're gone.

There's no need to have all of these nonprofits what what is a solution?

And we don't want to criminalize it where, you know, you're ripping people off the streets and throwing them in jail, obviously.

But we have to save the city, and we have to save homeless folks from themselves, and something must be done.

What is a solution, Sheriff?

Well, we already found a solution, and it worked.

And I can point to Venice as a prime example of that.

Our homeless outreach service team did the outreach, did assessment.

We had over 200 people living in tents on the boardwalk, destroying the entire, business environment of Venice.

The number two tourist draw in all of Southern California after Disneyland is a Venice boardwalk.

And the county and the city was willing to just give it away to the homeless because they wanted to virtue signal, basically say, look how virtuous we are.

We just need to understand them and coddle them and give them services.

And somehow they're going to become, you know, law abiding, responsible citizens are going to care for themselves.

There's smoke and crack on that one.

What we have to do is obviously we have to provide emergency shelter for those that don't have a roof over a head.

No problem there.

For those who are suffering from mental illness, substance abuse, get them housing, get them the treatment, the need for that and the ones that are here, which is the bulk of the rest, you know, get off the street, get an emergency shelter or get the hell out of LA.

We don't need you here destroying our community.

Now.

The free, the freeloading and the free times are over for that crap.

And now the Supreme Court has arrived at that same conclusion and supports what I was putting into play back in Venice, back in Saint Vincent, in front of the VA hospital and procedural, where, for example, in downtown L.A. and all the other places in L.A. County that we went, we cleaned up the place, we returned it regulating public space, giving it back to the community.

So it was used the way it was intended.

Sidewalks are for walking, not for pop up tents and crapping on the sidewalk.

And these are common sense things that need to happen.

And, you know, it is rule of law.

I'm sorry if you don't like it here, leave.

It's as simple as that.

But we should not make it a way of life that is acceptable.

Speaking of rule of law, the other thing that folks constantly tell me when I'm out on my stories is we're worried about crime.

I'm not sure why L.A. is failing where crime is concerned.

You were a tough on crime kind of guy.

You know, today, everyone, where the city keeps saying, well, crime is getting better.

The stats are improving.

However, to be honest, I don't want to get at an issue with the city.

In the county, however, every person I interview, that's sort of my litmus test.

They see otherwise.

Residents tell me they're greatly concerned about their safety, whether, you know they're on the streets, they're in their homes or on the metro busses in subways.

Is there a disconnect somewhere between the city and county and the average folks out on the street who are telling me they're worried?

Well, one thing is they stop counting crime.

The statistics are no longer reliable because people want or not reporting crime.

Cops show up.

They say, well, there's nothing we can do.

A lot of a lot of citizens have figured, well, why bother?

Because, you know, after all, it's just a property loss.

Nothing's going to be done about it.

You have businesses that don't report being robbed, and unless somebody gets hurt, there's something egregious.

You even have robberies.

They're not being reported anymore because they say, why bother?

No one's going to do anything about it.

So that mentality has made the reporting of crime totally unreliable, the statistics unreliable.

So when you hear a politician say, oh look, property crimes are down, I see automatic.

That is garbage.

Property crimes have accelerated because I have people working in retail telling me people walk in and out every hour of every day in supermarkets, parking, whatever they want, and it's a free for all.

And I think with the passage of prop 36 and with Hochman, it looks like we might have turned the corner on that part.

But statistics takes a long time to catch up to people's perceptions.

So any politician telling you that everything is improving down there, they're full of it.

Let's, get away from the homeless and crime and let's talk policy.

You had mentioned policy a moment ago.

You have been critical of Mayor Bass, the county Board of Supervisors, now, talking policy, the politics of all.

What is going wrong with those folks, in your opinion?

Obviously, many of argue that L.A. city, L.A. County, the politicians for years, it's sort of just been the same old, same old, you know what I'm saying, Sheriff?

Sort of like they never recognize their mistakes.

They seemingly never take a different path of action.

There's no change.

What is going on with a policy in the city of Angels?

Well, I can focus.

Let me actually directed towards the county because actually the county policy making has a lot more to do with the region than city policy.

I mean, city always had the scandal of developers too friendly with the city council people and pushing through, projects.

They probably shouldn't build.

I mean, look at Venice, you're going to put a homeless shelter on the beach and prime real estate when you could house ten times the amount of people by moving the project just, you know, 5 or 10 miles inland.

What is the sense of doing that?

They want to do the same with Marina del Rey.

It makes no sense financially, politically or, community wise because no one wants that there.

Yet.

They seem obsessed with doing that, pushing these projects that no one wants for some idea.

But look how virtuous we are.

Everyone deserves a home next to the beach.

I mean, this is insane, but going to the county, most importantly in this, prior to the advent of Mark Ridley-Thomas getting a seat on the Board of Supervisors, you have somewhat of a balance between liberal and conservative voices.

You had a three to split, a 2 or 3 split, but everyone on there, even the most liberal, were fiscally pretty conservative.

They were cautious.

They didn't engage in any experimental anything with the budget or creating new bureaucracies.

They're very loath to do that.

And the county budget was relatively stable.

All of the public safety infrastructure was fully funded.

There was never no drama from Mark, really, Thomas appearing on the board in 2008 and Sheila Kuehl.

That was the beginning of the end of Responsible County government because it became a supermajority far left progressive board.

And they said, hey, let's create a justice, care and opportunities department.

Let's get rid of probation department, let's defund the sheriff's department.

Let's remove all these things that actually keep people alive and safe, all for the sake of pursuing progressive ideology.

That was the beginning of the end.

So when these fires came in 2025, oh, we don't have enough deputies to do the evacuations.

We don't have emergency management capacity because we kind of squandered it all the way.

Oh, we don't have water in our fire hydrants.

Oh, wait, we don't have a reservoir with water in them when they're supposed to be, oh, we don't have fire engines for all the firemen that need to fight fires.

All the basics were neglected in pursuit of progressive ideology.

Look at the budget.

Look at the priorities.

You can trace it back for the county from 2008.

For the city side, pretty similar.

You're going to have the same ideological push.

Hey, look at the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

They have an advisory committee.

They're recommended unanimously to get rid of law enforcement and all of the MTA systems that will tell you how, in how far progressive ideology is intruded into local government.

Sheriff Vanover, we're going to have you back on this program in about a month or so to continue our series.

What is wrong with L.A.?

Is there a solution?

Thank you so much for this interview.

Thanks for being here.

You got a David.

And now joining us is Jack Humphrey.

Bill Jack is known as the LA watchdog.

And if you live in LA, well, you're probably familiar with his City Watch news column.

Safe to say Jack has not made many friends at City Hall.

Well, for that matter, neither has Sheriff Vanover nor I, because we're just trying to keep the politicians honest.

Jack Humphrey.

Bill, thank you so much for being here.

It is a pleasure to see you, David.

We have got to talk finances.

You are the LA watchdog.

I've heard you repeatedly say, Jack, that the L.A. city budget, the finances are in your words.

Now make no mistake.

Your words, not mine, a train wreck.

Can you be more specific?

They are a train wreck.

And that's probably an understatement.

Basically, over the last several years, the city has entered into what I call labor, budget busting labor agreements.

And they're unsustainable.

They're not financed.

There's no there's no basis for them other than the the union bosses.

You know, call the shots, for their puppets out at City Hall, whether it's the mayor or whether it's the members of the city council.

And to give you an example, the city is looking at a, $1 billion deficit, for the upcoming fiscal year.

And I'm not sure how they're going to solve that, that problem.

The reason behind it, as one is that the they had the labor, budget busting labor agreements, and those are accompanied by overly optimistic revenue projections, that, you know, you just don't have any basis in fact, they then also underestimate expenditures, you know, whether they're for the police and the fire departments.

And the other one that's the real monster.

This past year and the upcoming year, the, liability claims for legal judgments and settlements and the past show you, show you how unrealistic it they were.

They.

But it is about 87 million call it 100 million for for round numbers and the numbers coming in at 300 million.

So that's a $200 million, you know, deficit.

The revenue projections, were that they had in the, in, in, in the forecast that was developed by the city administrative officer versus what, what we're seeing the the actual numbers for the upcoming year, there's about a $300 million difference.

Yeah.

You know, you had 203 hundred.

You're at 500 already.

Then you throw in some labor agreements.

You know, it's just a it is a train record.

Whereas the city as the Los Angeles Times said, the city is broke and it's their own doing only they just get get out of their way and, and and this is something that's been going on for a long while.

You know, and 2019, there was a labor agreement that resulted in, you know, huge deficits.

And therefore, you know, there have been some tax increases, and there's bunch of bunch of, departments whose, budgets have been cut.

And one of the casualties for example, are the police and fire departments.

And as you're familiar with the, you know, the fires they had over in the Pacific Palisades, you know, if they had been better equipped over time, could they made that a lot, you know, with the damage that a lot West, lot less.

I can't say that, but I think I, I think the people in the Palisades will tend to believe that if, you know, if they had, you know, bunch of had and and a bunch of fire engines over there that could have been financed with the budget as opposed to being cut, might, might not been as bad.

As it is.

It's, you know, the Palisades is going to be a disaster area for the next, I don't know, 5 to 10 years.

The reports about all the toxics, in the ground and how they should actually be taking up, you know, maybe a foot of dirt as opposed to six inches.

That the.

I mean, Corps of Engineers is talking about.

But it's, it's it's terrible.

Now, my, my frustrations are, you know, in addition to, you know, the budget busting, labor agreements, it's that the city hasn't taken any efforts to reform.

Well, I say we'll say reform.

I'll say clean up his act.

And the neighborhood council budget advocates have come up with, a number of recommendations.

Seven in particular, that, you know, had fallen on deaf ears and at city council.

I mean, we've been vacant for a bunch of years, but, you know, one of them is to, develop a four year budget forecast, that is realistic and not fraudulent.

And I use the word fraudulent, you know, advisedly in the, in the, in these, forecasts, they don't assume any new labor agreements.

You know, they just say, oh, everything's going to go hunky dory.

So Mayor Bass will go out there and tell us, oh, we're we're not going to have a structural deficit because in the fourth year we're showing a surplus.

Well, yeah.

That's, you know, yeah, four years of, you know, optimistic labor, optimistic revenue projections.

You have no labor costs, which are about 70 or 80% of the budget.

You know, and I wonder if you're going to be showing a surplus.

What I did the numbers, and I did some, you know, just some basic not not overly.

I thought, you know, run of the mill types of projections, you know, $160 million surplus, turned into a $300 million deficit in the fourth year.

So you have some problems there.

Another another suggestion we've had is to have open and transparent labor negotiations.

What they do now is they just go into, you know, they go into the back room, where would the what they call the PRC, the Executive Employee Relations Committee, and they have they have negotiations that behind closed doors, and we have, you know, but we have budget based exhibits that, you know, I don't.

So I think you know, we ought to have open and negotiate open, open and transparent labor negotiations would which would mean that the city would have to tell us what their goals are, give us updates during the labor negotiations, give us a final, you know, tell us what the final results are and then give us some time to digest this.

And quite frankly, I think the other other thing is they ought to have an independent review of it.

And you know, that that's that would not be popular.

And my question, you know, everything you are saying is, legitimate.

You've been very critical over the years of the LA city leaders, L.A. County leaders, you had mentioned Mayor Bass a moment ago.

Definitely.

Some of the criticism is warranted.

It's fair.

You're not going to get an argument from me.

No, sir.

Some of the criticism, perhaps not, or at least according to your critics, know they criticize you and they claim judge.

He's a troublemaker.

He's the watchdog.

He's being unfair to local politicians, unfair to Mayor Bass, unfair to all the past mayors.

What do you say to all that?

Are you just a bad guy?

You're a tough guy.

Well, this this is a family oriented channel I would ever meet a very simple response to that.

But, you know, I, I sort of agree that I've been somewhat of a critic, but I run the numbers and having been, you know, I'm a business school guy, was an investment banker.

You know, we ran a small business, you so to understand how the numbers work and, you know, I follow the city for probably 20 years now, give or take.

And I guess my answer to that would be the hell with them.

No, I don't I don't care what they think.

As a matter of fact, one of the guys, call me, you know, call me a jerk, actually a little more spicier than that.

To which I told him, thank you very much, which really, really marked him off.

But I don't care what they say.

And I think, you know, I, I think I have, you know what?

My numbers seem to have never been questioned.

And maybe once or twice they've been questioned.

And, you know, and I actually made a mistake.

And remember, I made one mistake one time, and I was, you know, I was corrected and I made the correction, you know, you know, I'm willing to eat crow if I'm wrong, but I, I don't think that I think too many times I have won and you don't you aren't wrong.

You do crunched the numbers.

And it is a credit to you.

I know you take the criticism as a badge of honor to a degree.

Final question for you.

In our last few minutes, this is an important issue.

Jack, seriously speaking, what should local and state officials be doing?

You know, so people stop fleeing Los Angeles, fleeing California's.

You know, they're fleeing from the crime, the homeless situation, restrictive rules and regs, all the business stuff.

Let's be honest.

You talk to any business owner in LA today.

Really?

In the state of California, they say the city, the state has become the most unfriendly business places in the nation.

And they say they're kind of being forced out of the Golden State.

So in our final few minutes, and yes, I should say with the caveat that certainly people are relocating to California.

Believe me, not as many as those who are leaving in places like Arizona, Florida, Texas, wherever the case may be.

So how do we fix this?

How do we stop folks from leaving California?

Jack Humphrey, Bill yeah, well, the first thing is, is help here.

There's always questions.

How many people are leaving?

How many people are coming?

I think the telling one is that the adjusted gross income, that a tax return is that have been filed or, you know, down like 50 to $70 billion.

You know, that's in terms of revenue, that's, 10% or 12%, because I'm assuming those are fairly wealthy individuals that, you know, hit the 10% or 13% level.

So, you know, you're losing, let's say, $100 billion, that's, you know, $1 billion in revenue.

So it's it's it's significant.

It's significant money.

I guess the first thing I'd say is, they need to balance the budget, just pure and simple as that.

And when I say balance the budget, that means, you know, really balancing the budget, fixing up the infrastructure, making sure the pensions are properly, properly funded, things along those lines.

I think that's the first and foremost thing they have to do.

Jack Humphrey.

Well, thanks for being here.

We're gonna have you back on in about a month to talk more about this issue.

Always a pleasure, David, and thank you for for being such a pain in the neck, as always.

And we're going to have Shirley in a wave on with you as well to talk about what's wrong with LA.

Is there a solution?

And for the record viewers, if you are wondering, yes, I have contacted leaders on the LA City Council and we are going to have city reaction to everything that sure, if you in a way.

But the LA watchdog, Jack Humphrey will have told me in the next few weeks.

Now for more information, just click on cox.org and then click Contact Us to send us your questions, your comments, story ideas so we can hear from you or contact me at.

David is our news on X or on YouTube or just go to David is our news.

Contact me there.

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Thanks so much for joining us.

I am David is are host of Sustaining Us.

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