Fryhoff wins, Villanueva struggles in a tale of two sheriff’s races






HAPPY RESULTS–Cmdr. Jim Fryhoff and his wife, Traci, react to the first batch of votes showing him leading the race for Ventura County sheriff during a campaign party Tuesday night in Moorpark.                                                                                                                                              MICHAEL COONS/Acorn Newspapers

A tale of two sheriffs dominated discussion in the law enforcement community Wednesday following a somewhat surprising result in the June 7 primary election for top cop status in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

Challenger and police union favorite Jim Fryhoff knocked off one-term incumbent Bill Ayub in the race for Ventura County sheriff, while across the county line Alex Villanueva was forced into a runoff against Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna.

Los Angeles County

Villanueva, a 36-year veteran of the department, needed 50% of the vote plus one to avoid a restart in November, but currently standing at 34% he will likely fall short. As of June 8 Luna was trailing by 10 points, a good enough showing to force a runoff in the field of nine candidates.

“I think we’re on the right track here,” a confident Villanueva told supporters late Tuesday, equating the race to playing 8-on-1 basketball. “If it goes a long way, I’m built for endurance.”

As the ballot tally went on, Luna struck a tone that was cautiously optimistic.

Eight people challenged Villanueva for the top job at the largest county sheriff’s agency in the nation, which provides law enforcement services for unincorporated L.A. County as well as many contract cities, including Calabasas, Agoura Hills and Westlake Village. The department is also responsible for one of the largest jail systems on earth.

At forums and in interviews, several challengers’ loudest argument seemed to be “anyone but Villanueva.”

Luna, however, emphasized his record and emerged as the obvious thorn in the sheriff’s side.

Luna, whose endorsements include the Times and Southern California Newspaper Group, spent 36 years with LBPD, the county’s second largest police department.

Growing up in a poor East L.A. household in an area patrolled by the sheriff’s department exposed him to “good and bad policing,” Luna says. This inspired him to become a police officer, shaping a philosophy of what Luna calls “relationship-based policing,” specifically in communities of color.

CANDIDATES—Sheriff Alex Villanueva, second from left, in a May debate against five of his eight challengers for the June 7 primary.                                              Courtesy California Contract Cities Association

Villanueva was a lesser-known lieutenant when he first won the sheriff’s race in 2018, doing something that hadn’t been done in more than a century—defeating an incumbent L.A. County sheriff, Jim McDonnell.

The first Democrat to win the seat since 1880, Villanueva swept in at a time of scandal for the agency—and embroiled in scandal is exactly where the department finds itself today.

Democrats and progressives supported his promises to clean things up. Now, they decry the fact Villanueva appears on conservative Fox News where he asserts getting along only with Janice Hahn of the 4th District and Kathryn Barger in the 5th.

The other three, he complains, “are driving the defunding of the sheriff’s department and law enforcement . . . putting on the ballot all these alternatives to incarceration.”
As for scandals, they are numerous, including alleged “deputy gangs” and Villanueva’s handling of the case of a deputy caught on video kneeling on a handcuffed inmate’s head and neck for more than three minutes.

Closer to home is a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by the newly installed Malibu-Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station Capt. Jennifer Seetoo, who claims gender discrimination, harassment and retaliation relating to a previous posting at the station.

In addition to Luna, the men and women trying to unseat the sheriff were sheriff’s Capt. Britta Steinbrenner; retired sheriff’s Capt. Matt Rodiguez; law enforcement chief Eli Vera; LAX Police Chief Cecil Rhambo; parole agent April Saucedo Hood; sheriff’s Lt. Eric Strong; and sheriff’s Sgt. Karla Yesenia Carranza. Strong is the only challenger besides Luna to garner at least 10% of the vote.

Ventura County

Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub emailed his staff early Wednesday morning to say the agency would likely “experience a change in leadership near the turn of the New Year.”

Cmdr. Jim Fryhoff, who started his law enforcement career with the department 31 years ago at age 19, unseated Ayub in Tuesday’s election to become the county’s top lawman. He will take office in January and oversee a department with a $300-million annual budget and 1,300 employees.

Bolstered by the deputy’s union—which spent $159,000 on pro-Fryhoff mailers, yard signs and banners—the former Thousand Oaks police chief won 56% of the vote as of Wednesday morning, putting him ahead of Ayub by over 12,000 votes. Ayub, who is in his first term as sheriff, has been with the department since 1997.

Much of the campaign centered around union politics, with Fryhoff saying deputies were unhappy with Ayub’s leadership, and the sheriff saying it came down to money, specifically his opposition to turning the Ventura County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association president position into a full-time taxpayer-funded role and changing the test to become captain.

In addition to the $159,000 they spent supporting Fryhoff, the union also spent nearly $29,000 on negative mailers opposing Ayub, campaign disclosures show. Ayub said the union was upset over his efforts to curb pension spiking and diversify leadership ranks; Fryhoff said Ayub lost union support over his lack of leadership during the pandemic and following the George Floyd murder.

Another central issue in the campaign was speculation over why Fryhoff was abruptly reassigned from his post as Thousand Oaks police chief to head of detention services last June.

Ayub said in a May candidates debate he transferred Fryhoff due to insubordination to a ranking officer and failure to follow policies and procedures during a time of emergency. Fryhoff said the transfer was due to a disagreement between him and his superiors over how to approach enforcement during the pandemic-related shutdowns of 2020. Fryhoff said he opted to offer more warnings while large swaths of county residents were laid off during COVID and criticized Ayub’s approach as “business as usual” and too “stat-driven.”

Fryhoff’s campaign raised over $227,414 as of May 21. Ayub’s campaign raised $233,334. Including independent expenditures by the union, almost $650,000 was poured into the sheriff’s race.

Ayub’s tenure as sheriff was fraught with unprecedented crises in Ventura County.

He took office Nov. 10, 2018, just three days after the deadliest shooting in county history took place at Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, leaving 12 victims dead, and two days after twin wildfires that would eventually burn over 100,000 acres ignited on both ends of the Conejo Valley.

Five months after the one-year anniversary of the Borderline shooting, the COVID-19 pandemic triggered an economic shutdown that shuttered businesses and left Ayub to decide whether to use sheriff resources to enforce public health orders.

He declined to intervene when Godspeak Calvary Chapel resumed in-person gatherings in defiance of a judge’s orders.