Column: Winter is coming for Sheriff Villanueva, one way or another
In cream khakis, gray Oakley sneakers and a sherbet-colored striped polo shirt, Alex Villanueva looked more like your uncle from Santa Clarita than the sheriff of Los Angeles County.
At the sunny Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica around noontime Saturday, he stood in front of a now-closed Mediterranean restaurant with a “Re-Elect Villanueva” banner hanging below a “For Lease” sign. A security guard stood at the door.
L.A. County’s top lawman looked relaxed, even happy. And then he looked at me.
His campaign had sent out a press release advertising a walk-and-talk about homelessness with residents and shopkeepers. It sounded like a repeat of what Villanueva did in June 2021, when he strutted through the Venice boardwalk in a cowboy hat and vowed tough action in a jurisdiction that wasn’t even his.
I expected the same charade in Santa Monica, so I had dressed the rancho libertarian part. I wore my 501s, good leather shoes, a pearl snap western shirt and the coup de grace: my glorious cinto piteado complete with arabesque designs and my full initials — GAM, for Gustavo Arellano Miranda — on the belt buckle.
For the last year, Villanueva and I had dropped diss tracks on each other in public, online and in print. I figured a lunchtime stroll — the wannabe cowboy and the scribbling son of one — would be a fitting next round.
“I’m going to follow you around today,” I told El Sheriff.
“How about that?” Villanueva replied, eyeing my ensemble. He then slunk back inside the restaurant-turned-temporary campaign headquarters.
These are desperate times for the incumbent. His opponent, retired Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna, attended a “Women for Luna” event that same afternoon in East Los Angeles that included community organizers and politicians who helped Villanueva pull off an upset in 2018.
An October poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, found 36% of likely voters favored Luna, while 26% wanted Villanueva. Forty-four percent viewed the sheriff unfavorably.
At the Third Street Promenade, shoppers barely cared. They paid more attention to the dinosaur-shaped bushes, to the giant Día de los Muertos skeletons, to the couple dressed like Edward Scissorhands and Swamp Thing. One man did go inside Villanueva’s headquarters to grab a campaign hat, then suggested to his wife — who had been browsing at the clothing shop next door — that they snap a quick photo with the man of the day.
“No,” she replied. They walked away.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva is in a tight race to keep his job, with retired Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna emerging as the front-runner.
Soon after, Villanueva emitted a loud whistle. About 20 volunteers filed in. A while later, a middle-aged Latina cornered me.
“Why do you have to say so many lies?” said Michelle, who refused to give her last name or where she lived. When I asked for examples, she stated that I had spread “false negative propaganda” about Villanueva.
Like what?
“That he drinks the blood of children,” Michelle replied.
Um, that’s the language Villanueva himself used to describe how the political establishment views him.
Michelle went on and on extolling Villanueva’s supposed virtues, until I realized what she was doing: The sheriff had escaped through a back alley and into a getaway car.
Curses!
I hurried to my Yukon with a Times photographer and sped through Santa Monica’s Pico neighborhood, where his campaign spokesperson told me Villanueva was going to canvass.
After a fruitless half-hour — imagine “The Fast and Furious” meets “Mario Kart” — we returned to the Promenade, where more volunteers now waited for their man. Steps away, a busker played “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” on violin.
The sheriff emerged with Tariq Ali and Chie Lunn on either side of him. Ali is a security guard in Venice who lost a finger last summer after an attacker slashed him with a broken vodka bottle. Lunn is a Venice resident and teacher at the Realm Creative Academy in Santa Monica. She has publicly criticized L.A. City Councilmember Mike Bonin and other public officials over their handling of homeless people, whom she blamed for making it unsafe to take her students to the beach or on the Metro.
“When I yelled for help, I couldn’t tell you who the sheriff was,” Lunn told me. “Only he and Judge [U.S. District Court Judge David O.] Carter listened. I get a whole lot of flak for being a Black woman who supports the sheriff. Well, I’m not a token for anyone.”
Here, as in Venice, residents can vote in the Nov. 8 sheriff’s contest, but their streets are patrolled by city police officers.
A hatless Villanueva and his supporters marched up and then down two blocks of the Promenade. If he was expecting throngs to join, that didn’t happen. Only a few people went up to greet him. A group of zillennials drinking mimosas applauded only at the prompting of a volunteer. The warmest reception came from Sandro Martin, co-owner of his family’s restaurant, Casa Martin.
“You were here about a month ago!” he told Villanueva. “This is your house.”
But the chumminess was somewhat contrived: It turned out that Martin and Villanueva’s main strategist, Javier Gonzalez, had grown up together in Santa Monica. Gonzalez even had a tattoo of the name of Martin’s late cousin on his right shoulder.
The rally ended in front of a Día de los Muertos statue. The busking violinist’s playlist had turned somber. Villanueva said nothing beyond his key talking points — that homelessness, violent crime and public corruption are destroying Los Angeles County, and only he is brave enough to fight back. There were boos when someone mentioned L.A. mayoral candidate Karen Bass, and laughs when he trashed the L.A. Times.
That was my cue.
Surrounded by dozens of Villanueva fans, I asked how he expected to win with polls showing him behind.
The relaxed Villanueva disappeared. The Villanueva we all know — a man who twists facts like a pretzel maker and who keeps vendettas on his mind at all times — returned.
“One poll,” he said, putting up his index finger, then pointing it at me. “Your poll.”
Everyone laughed.
He didn’t bother to say that there have actually been two Berkeley/L.A. Times polls — and the percentage of likely voters who favored him shrank each time.
Villanueva went on to say that his campaign did “a legitimate poll where we actually asked all the right questions.” And wouldn’t you know? He and Luna were tied.
So how do you win? I repeated.
“We’re going to continue doing what we’re doing,” he said. “My opponent — first candidate in history [who] decides to run without a single plan to do anything. His only thing he says is on the homeless front: ‘It’s unacceptable.’ Oh, gee, thanks for that revelation.”
Before I could point out that Luna long ago revealed a multi-pronged strategy on a range of issues, a supporter yelled, “He’s going to win because we’re going to vote for it. That’s why.”
Everyone applauded.
Someone asked if Villanueva and Luna had debated. “He’s running away from me,” Villanueva said. “He wants nothing to do with me on the stage with him.”
In fact, the candidates have appeared together or online at three primary debates and at two community forums where each had a chance to answer questions from moderators and the audience.
Their only one-on-one debate was such a non sequitur of a disaster — Villanueva insinuated Luna was a gang member and racist, recited all the East L.A. schools his wife Vivian had attended, and answered a question in too-formal Spanish for reasons known only to him — that no one except Villanueva has mourned the lack of a repeat.
The sheriff went on to insist that Luna would become a “corrupt politician” because he has expressed interest in repairing the Sheriff’s Department’s relationship with, well, everyone.
“He is literally born and raised in bureaucracy — a failed one — and he wants to marry himself to bigger bureaucracy,” Villanueva said. “That is not going to fix anything.”
Then he looked at me again.
“You know that very well, because you’re a smart man, and I have yet to see the L.A. Times pick apart Mr. Luna’s answer to anything, because he has no answers. But the worst part is you’re not even asking the questions. That’s the scariest part right there.”
Everyone cheered.
I didn’t have the heart to tell his admirers that it was Villanueva, not Luna, who used his meeting with the L.A. Times editorial board to bray with no evidence whatsoever that one of his main critics, L.A. County Inspector General Max Huntsman, is a Holocaust denier.
The busking violinist suddenly struck up a new tune: “Winter,” from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons.” The concerto’s dark, frenetic notes of chaos and closure sounded like a cosmic joke as Villanueva returned to his headquarters, where everyone munched on pizza.
Or was it a warning?
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
