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Can L.A. County Supervisors remove Sheriff Villanueva? Experts say the options are limited
Los Angeles Oct 30, 2020
Sheriff Villanueva (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
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The bitter discord among Los Angeles County’s top elected leaders ramped up a notch this week with a push by two supervisors to explore what it would take to remove Sheriff Alex Villanueva from his elected position.
The Board of Supervisors’ vote on the matter was postponed by two weeks. Questions remain, though, about whether the board has the power to force Villanueva out or if the proposal is more of a symbolic gesture to pressure him as he faces mounting calls to resign.
The answers are complicated, and Villanueva has suggested he would challenge any effort to remove him.
Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas — who authored the proposal in one of his last moves before next week’s election, in which he’s running for a City Council seat after serving the maximum 12 years on the board — said it’s still worth at least looking into.
“We will not be able to do that if we don’t try,” he told The Times. Ridley-Thomas and Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, who coauthored the motion, have criticized Villanueva’s failure to cooperate with […]
