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MY POV - When Lindsey Horvath ran for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 2022, she sold herself as a fresh voice. She prevailed at the ballot box, buoyed by a Los Angeles Times’ endorsement that crowned her as the “golden ticket” to a new and brighter political world.
But Horvath, a 43-year-old Ohio native who cut her political teeth in West Hollywood, has not proved to be such a fresh voice after all as she seeks reelection this year to the Board of Supervisors, one of California’s most powerful and least scrutinized elected bodies.
Horvath’s flip-side as just another slippery Old School politician has been on display with her conniving, arrogant and dishonest handling of a plan to construct a 167-bed homeless housing project on land donated with a charitable and binding promise, aka the Bandini-Jones covenant, that the land be used exclusively for veterans.
The Bandini-Jones covenant is named after two philanthropists who donated hundreds of acres in 1888 to an arm of the federal government with the condition that the donated land, including what is now the West LA VA campus, be used only to benefit veterans.
The integrity of that promise was affirmed by a landmark September 2024 opinion of U.S. Dist. Court Judge David O. Carter; a subsequent appellate court ruling did not contest the validity of the Bandini-Jones promise. Also, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has recently showed signs of commitment to the Bandini-Jones promise by agreeing to undo illegal and abnormal leasing arrangements on its sprawling 300-plus-acre West LA VA campus.
The VA for nearly a half-century flatly ignored the covenant by leasing land – bound by the covenant - to oil companies, elite private schools, and parking-lot operators, just to name a few of the tenants. In a report of its own making, the VA also admitted giving those tenants an estimated $45 million discount on their rent payments – just for fiscal year 2024 alone. The hundreds of millions of dollars in fair market rent that was NOT paid to the VA over many years could have gone a long way to finance programs to help veterans. That’s a scandalous misdeed.
While the Bandini-Jones promise is now ascendent, Supervisor Horvath stubbornly ignores this this changed environment by supporting a housing project (also known as the Armory project) for non-veteran homeless civilians on land – verified by a title report – that remains dedicated to veterans pursuant to the Bandini-Jones covenant.
Horvath is on the wrong side of history and the law but she’s betting Armory project opponents don’t the stamina or money needed to block her project in the courtroom. In the meantime, she is reverting to dirty tactics to get her way.
The unpleasant side of Horvath’s political persona was recently on full display when she issued a two-sentence statement to a Spectrum News reporter who asked the Supervisor about the Armory project controversy. Horvath’s statement read:
“Safety and accountability are central to this project, with controlled access, a Good Neighbor Agreement, and on-site mental health, medical and housing services. I hear the community concerns and will continue working with the neighborhood council as the project moves forward.”
This is word salad at its worst.
Start with the so-called “Good Neighbor Agreement.” If such an agreement exists, local residents have never seen it, let alone participated in drafting it. An agreement created without the input or approval of the surrounding community would be meaningless – a paper fiction. Worse still, it is difficult to imagine the County of Los Angeles legally binding itself to be a “good neighbor” in any enforceable way. The phrase is a feckless talking point, not a commitment.
Then there is “controlled access.” What does that actually mean?
A 10pm to 7am curfew for the tenants would be real access control – exactly the kind neighbors would expect to see in a genuine Good Neighbor Agreement. But Team Horvath has already ruled that out, claiming a curfew would “treat tenants like prisoners.” Without a curfew, Armory project tenants would be free to come and go at all hours, day and night. That is not controlled access. That is no access control at all.
But perhaps “controlled access” means screening prospective tenants to root out the “bad apples.” Again, highly unlikely, if not outright illegal. California law prohibits housing facilities, like the Armory project, from rejecting applicants who are not only active drug addicts or alcoholics but also have no intention of becoming sober while living at the site. Also, the law forbids denying applicants because of their criminal or eviction history.
Horvath’s promise of “controlled access” is a phony assurance designed to placate the opposition without offering any concrete, enforceable protections for the surrounding neighborhood.
As for Horvath’s claim that she “will continue working” with the local neighborhood council: If Horvath (a no-show at three Armory project meetings) and her crew are, indeed, “working” with our elected West LA Sawtelle Neighborhood Council (WLASNC), why havent’ the council and Horvath invited representatives of the affected veterans and local residents to participate in these meetings? This is particularly offensive, tone-deaf and undemocratic because not one board member of the WLASNC actually lives in close proximity to the Armory property and at least 25 percent of the members don’t even live within the boundaries of the West LA Sawtelle Neighborhood Council. People with real skin in the game ought to be at the table.
In other words, Horvath’s brief written statement (no face-to-face interview, mind you) is precisely the kind of evasive double-speak voters have come to expect from Old School politicians – slippery language, no substance, and no accountability. It is not what was promised by someone who marketed herself as a “fresh voice.”
Horvath’s record of refusing to come clean about the Armory project is notable and lengthy.
Over an extended period, Team Horvath has failed to disclose or clarify the following uncomfortable truths and critical facts about the project:
Team Horvath has never informed or warned the affected parties (veterans and local residents) that the Armory project, as a Housing First/low-barrier facility, would accept as tenants active drug addicts and alcoholics who would not be required to participate in sobriety and self-improvement programs as a condition of their tenancy.
Team Horvath has never informed or warned the affected parties that the county’s operating plan calls for housing almost 325 unique homeless individuals per year in the Armory project; that can only mean the project will have to import thousands of homeless from all across Los Angeles to meet its “quota.” In fact, buried in the county’s plan (an obscure document to say the least) is the statement that the Armory project will serve the entire Westside from West Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Culver City to Santa Monica and Venice and from the Pacific Palisades and Malibu to Westchester.
Team Horvath has never informed the affected parties if it has a credible plan for protecting their safety. The team has tried to reassure local residents by claiming security guards, hired by the project manager, will keep the peace. The guards may “keep the peace” inside the project and around the project’s “premises” (whatever that means), according to Team Horvath. But, true to their modus operandi, Team Horvath won’t publicly own up to the fact that their guards will not be capable of or authorized to “keep the peace” outside the project - where nearby residential neighborhoods would be affected.
Team Horvath has never informed the affected parties if there is a formal code of conduct that tenants must obey in order to maintain their tenancy.
Team Horvath has never informed the affected parties if it has a credible plan for removing tenants who commit crimes inside the project or outside the project. Would it warrant eviction if a tenant has been arrested and booked, or prosecuted or convicted of a crime?
Team Horvath has never informed the affected parties if it has consulted with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles Police Department or the VA Police Department about the complications of policing the Armory project which is located in a “law enforcement desert” of tangled jurisdictions where law enforcement responsibilities are confusing – and thus ineffective.
Team Horvath has never informed the affected parties if the project will allow tenants to store drugs, alcohol or other items, including weapons, inside the project. In fact, similar projects allow such storage; the banned items are secured in lockers controlled by staff. But items that are “contraband” inside the project can be released to tenants when they leave the project premises. In short, it’s not okay for tenants to get high on heroin or Jack Daniels inside the project proper but it’s okay if project management is complicit in enabling tenants to get stoned or drunk in the surrounding neighborhood.
Team Horvath has never informed the affected parties that a March 2025 Los Angeles Fire Department report found that homeless individuals were involved in one-third of the fire incidents in LA between 2018 and 2024.
Team Horvath has never clarified whether the county plans to turn the Armory project – in part or in whole – into a “Safe Landing” site. In such a facility, homeless individuals who’ve been arrested for misdemeanor crimes – as an alternative to being incarcerated in a “real” jail – would be placed in the custody of the Armory project with the consent of law enforcement. In effect, a “Safe Landing” program would turn a homeless housing project into a jail – but a jail without walls or rules. In a Dec. 15, 2023 email, Horvath’s homeless guru, Amy Perkins, wrote her colleagues: “I have brought up the idea of a Safe Landing – which we all think would be INCREDIBLE.” A few weeks later, Team Horvath visited a Safe Landing program in South LA. Whether this “incredible” program would be part of the Armory project remains a mystery – thanks to the Team Horvath’s practice of keeping the public in the dark.
This is not the record of a “fresh voice.” Rather it is the record of a conniving, arrogant and dishonest Old School pol who would callously betray veterans and casually endanger a residential neighborhood of senior citizens, UCLA students and middle-class professionals in order to get her pet project approved, consequences be damned.
(John Schwada was a politics and government affairs reporter for the LA Herald Examiner, the LA Times and Fox 11 News. He was twice named Distinguished Journalist of the Year (1989 and 2008) by SPJ/LA, and received the Joseph M. Quinn Lifetime Achievement Award from the LA Press Club in 2011. He is an unpaid advocate for opponents of the Armory project and wrote a petition urging the Board of Supervisors to reject its misguided and illegal homeless project.)
