CALIFORNIA—On February 8, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 in favor of the termination of 4,000 deputies. During the meeting they focused on the public health order regarding COVID-19, and the termination of city workers including police and firefighter in non-compliance with COVID-19 mandates.
During the virtual meeting, 4,600 written public comments were received with many requesting the mandates to be dropped and for the BOS not to fire the LA city workers.
One commenter, Kevin McGuire wrote: “Today the BOS is gonna go full Karen and fire hard-working men and women that have dedicated their lives to making LA a better place to live. Do not fire our city workers for the choice they have every right to make. Our city is burning and you want to get rid of our police and firefighters. In 2020 they were heroes.”
LASD Sheriff, Alex Villanueva was permitted to speak for 3 minutes where he talked about the vacancies in their department leading to the allowance of overtime to 120 hours.
Villanueva requested that the Board of Supervisors not move forward with the termination of employees who did not comply with the vaccine mandates. He referred to the terminations as a “death blow” to the community.
Board of supervisors vote to terminate approximately 4000 LASD personnel
Speakers were permitted to call in and give opinions on any of the other 70 topics, including in-school mask mandates, and the effect on children.
Some callers complained about Sheriff Villanueva’s job performance, others on mandates, transparency of LASD.
On January 17, 2022, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and LAPD Police Chief, Michael Moore revealed 2021 crime stats, where Los Angeles had its highest homicide rates in 15 years.