Malibu falls short in push for sheriff’s captain displeasure letter

Malibu falls short in push for sheriff’s captain displeasure letter

Michele Willer-Allred, Staff Reporter

1:33 pm PDT June 16, 2020

A split Las Virgenes-Malibu Council of Governments has decided against sending a letter to Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva reconfirming that city managers will serve on a panel to interview future candidates for Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station captain.

During a meeting held Tuesday morning via Zoom, the mayors of Malibu and Agoura Hills agreed to support sending a letter. However, they couldn’t convince their counterparts from the other three cities to do so.

The vote had to be unanimous to move forward.

Back in February, a COG delegation of board members and city managers held a meeting with Villanueva regarding personnel changes at the station, including the reassignment of the station captain. At that time, Villanueva agreed that the five city managers and two supervisor district representatives could serve on a panel to interview captain candidates.

Terry Dipple, the group’s executive director, said in a report that the COG received a letter from Villanueva that stated he would like a different panel assembled, which was a plan not agreed to at the previous meeting.

Dipple said that in response, the COG sent Villanueva a subsequent letter confirming the process would move forward with the panel as previously agreed upon and the process that all other stations have used during the captain interview process.

Dipple said Villanueva eventually responded with a letter stating he promoted Lt. Chuck Becerra to station captain without any input from the cities because of the emergency situation with the COVID-19 pandemic and the protests.

“It was brought to my attention that maybe the COG should write a letter again reconfirming that,” said Dipple, adding that he wasn’t recommending the board to vote one way or another and left individual cities to decide what side they wanted to take.

Malibu Mayor Karen Farrer agreed that a letter from all five cities should be sent, and emphasized that it had nothing to do with the job that Becerra was doing.

“Chuck’s been doing a great job and Malibu in particular is happy and grateful with everything he’s been doing with our city recently,” Farrer said. “What it is about is the bypassing of the agreed-upon process. And that process was agreed upon by this particular group twice recently and then was ignored.”

Westlake Village Mayor Kelly Honig was first to say she was opposed to a joint letter. 

“We really appreciate (Becerra’s) hard work over the last several months, and I think we should turn our energies toward building our relationship with the Lost Hills sheriff captain and our cities,” Honig said. “I want to show support for Chuck. I think this letter would actually do the opposite in my opinion.”

Honig said that while she agrees the formal process should be followed in normal times, there is a huge budget crisis going on between the sheriff’s department and cities, and she would rather have Westlake Village and the COG focus their energies on maximizing resources right now.

“I don’t think this is a fight worth fighting at the time. I don’t think he’s going to pay attention to this letter and I’m not interested in aggravating the relationship any further. I just want to move forward and let this one go, and work together with Chuck with making our mutual law enforcement in Lost Hills and our five cities the best that it can be,” Honig said.

“I think the issues are bigger with Sheriff Villanueva, and that’s something that needs to be dealt with, but we’re very supportive of Capt. Becerra,” said Calabasas Mayor Alicia Weintraub, who agreed that a letter shouldn’t be sent.

“This is a once in our lifetime pandemic situation … I think if the situation was different, I do believe that the interviews would’ve happened,” Weintraub added.

“I think we’re in a unique time and situation and, as a bonus, we end up with an excellent captain that I think everyone is happy with. I think the letter to the sheriff will accomplish nothing,” said Hidden Hills Mayor Pro Tem Stuart Siegel.

Agoura Hills Mayor llece Buckley Weber disagreed, saying Villanueva told the cities what he was going to do and made promises that they would be part of the interview process, and then completely disregarded it.

Buckley Weber also said that the cities didn’t even get a formal letter about Becerra’s appointment until it was all over the news almost two weeks ago.

“It’s not about picking a fight. It’s about setting a record that our COG was disregarded completely,” said Buckley Weber, adding that the timeline didn’t support Becerra’s appointment being an emergency measure. 

Buckley Weber added that the station is on its fourth or fifth captain in 18 months, and that if Becerra also moves on, the city managers still want to be part of the process of selecting a new captain.

Agoura Hills Mayor Pro Tem Denis Weber, the COG president, said that the COG’s policy is to only send a letter if the COG agrees unanimously, and that Malibu and Agoura Hills would have to send their own individual letters.

Becerra said he agreed with all the comments made about the selection process, adding that he, too, was surprised when he was named the new captain.

“I was notified probably 10 minutes before you were notified,” he said. “I would love a process as well, but I just want to tell you that I’m here to serve the community regardless. I’m just going to do my job and run the station and stay out of the political aspect.”

“I can’t speak for the sheriff,” Becerra added. “He is the sheriff, and he makes the rules and my mandate is to stomp down crime and that’s what I’ll do for everybody in the community.”

Becerra noted that he was the station’s acting captain longer than any captain in the past 18 months.

“I do not plan to leave, by the way,” he continued. “I plan to hold steady. So, if there is any fear of me leaving, I will not leave until it’s time for me to leave.”

Becerra told the board that the area is heading into the busiest weekend of the year for beach tourism — Fourth of July — and the station plans to have Memorial Day-level deployment in Malibu.

He said that from a law enforcement standpoint, they are glad that COVID-19 mandates are being relaxed because they are afraid of what the unemployment rate is going to do to crime.

“It’s been down for three or four months, which is unprecedented. But I think it’s going to climb. I think four or five months from now we’re really going to see the effects of this,” Becerra said.

When asked by a COG member if he’s heard about complaints from people regarding deputies pulling over drivers while wearing no face coverings, Becerra said deputies are supposed to have face coverings during contact with the public and that they will be reminded on that.

Malibu City Manager Reva Feldman told the COG that the city is having high numbers of visitors right now.

“So, if you or your family or your friends are coming into Malibu, please remind people to wear their masks and maintain social distancing,” she said.

“Somehow people get here and seem to forget that there’s still COVID out there,” Feldman said.