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PERSPECTIVE -
A $50 billion government, rising failures, and a challenge from outside the system.
Los Angeles County is not just another layer of government; it is the command center, the CPU of a $50 billion enterprise, controlled by five female supervisors who have sweeping authority over nearly every aspect of daily life. They typically arrive in the Supervisor’s Office after decades inside the political system. In theory, it should deliver results. In practice, it has become something else: a bureaucratic system increasingly detached from outcomes, where power is concentrated but accountability is not, and failure on every level is visible across the region.
Crime and lawlessness are unchecked, overwhelming understaffed police and sheriff’s departments, failures that trace directly to the County Supervisors who set priorities and control billions in funding. Billions spent on homelessness have produced little more than worsening conditions. Infrastructure continues to deteriorate despite record budgets. And a bloated bureaucracy, under their watch, consistently fails to deliver results, let alone get anything right. These are not abstract problems; they are the direct result of decisions made at the top.
Into that environment steps Tonia Arey, a political outsider, a longtime realtor, and now a candidate for Los Angeles County Supervisor in the Third District, challenging the imperial incumbent, haughty Horvath.
Arey’s candidacy wasn’t born of theory or party alignment; it was sparked by a failure of leadership, particularly in the third district. In the aftermath of the Palisades fire, hazardous debris was routed to a site bordering a residential neighborhood near Calabasas, effectively placing toxic waste at local families’ doorsteps. Residents sounded the alarm, demanded answers, requested meetings, and called for the toxic waste to be dumped farther from residential areas.
Haughty Horvath did none of those things, took no meetings with her constituents, and refused any engagement except through unpaid interns. To many, it wasn’t just a policy dispute; it was a clear signal that their elected representative was above them and couldn’t be bothered. That absence turned frustration into resolve and, ultimately, into Tonia’s campaign to remove an imperial acting incumbent who refused to listen to the legitimate health concerns of Calabasas residents.
Tonia argues that Los Angeles County governance has drifted from execution and accountability toward bureaucracy and performative political posturing, with almost nothing to show for a $50 billion budget. In her view, leadership has been replaced by ideology, an equity-first agenda untethered from execution, in which rhetoric substitutes for results. The question is no longer rhetorical: what have the County Supervisors achieved? After years of governance aligned with the worst of toxic empathy, these priorities have worsened homelessness (addiction and mental illness), encampments have proliferated, and billions in taxpayer spending have failed to produce meaningful outcomes.
Public safety has eroded, leaving residents facing rising break-ins and a persistent sense of disorder. Basic services, from road repair to permitting, lag behind demand. These are not isolated failures; they are systemic. And they are no longer abstract—they are visible across the region, undermining the quality of life and accelerating the erosion of public trust. What follows is a conversation that reflects that perspective: direct, critical, and grounded in the belief that government should function more like a results-driven enterprise than a diffuse administrative system.
“I’m Not a Politician—and That’s Exactly Why I’m Running” Arey is explicit about her positioning from the outset: she is not running as a career politician, and she does not view that as a liability. “I come from the private sector,” she says. “If I don’t perform, I don’t get paid. That’s the mindset I bring to this.”
Her entry into public life was not theoretical. It was forced by events on the ground. In the wake of the Palisades fire, the County approved dumping hazardous debris at the Calabasas landfill, effectively placing toxic waste next to a beautiful residential community. Residents weren’t just concerned about exposure. They wanted to know how such a decision could be made with virtually no dialogue with the community. There was concern about safety and long-term exposure from the dust and chemicals the fire spawned. They wanted to know what safety measures would be taken to protect the residents.
According to Arey, the community attempted to engage Supervisor Horvath directly, but she couldn’t be bothered. The response, she says, was limited to having interns come out and take notes. Meetings were delayed or canceled, communication was deflected, and there was no visible presence from the elected official herself. “At a minimum, you show up,” Arey says. “You listen. Even if the vote is already done, you still show up for your constituents.”
For her, that moment revealed something larger: a gap between authority and accountability. “I realized I had three options,” she says. “I could leave, keep complaining, or step in and try to fix it.” She chose the third.
Arey’s critique of county governance centers on a 2020 decision: the reassignment of emergency preparedness responsibilities from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Before that shift, the Sheriff’s Department coordinated countywide emergency readiness, bringing together agencies, establishing chains of command, and conducting regular preparedness briefings.
In 2020, that authority was transferred to the Board of Supervisors. Suddenly, they were the arbiters of security and protection. To Arey, that change is more than a bureaucratic reshuffle—it signals a breakdown in operational clarity. “The Sheriff had a system,” she says. “It was structured. It was consistent. Everyone knew their role.”
By contrast, she argues, placing that responsibility with individual supervisors fragmented the process. Each supervisor, effectively acting as the “mayor” of their district, became responsible for preparedness within their jurisdiction. But without a centralized operational authority, Arey contends, execution suffered.
“When the fires happened, people pointed at the city,” she says. “But the supervisor is responsible for preparing their district. That includes brush management, water readiness, and evacuation planning.” As we all learned, those basic elements were not in place. Her proposed remedy is immediate and specific: restore emergency management authority to the Sheriff’s Department, and rebuild a centralized, accountable system.
Few issues illustrate Arey’s broader critique more clearly than homelessness. Over the past several years, Los Angeles County has directed billions of dollars toward homelessness programs, including funding through agencies such as the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA). Yet public perception—and visible conditions—suggest limited progress.
Arey does not hedge on this point. “About $2 billion in three years,” she says. “And it’s worse. That’s not a funding problem; that’s an accountability problem and a management problem.”
She notes that Supervisor Horvath positioned herself in an oversight role related to accountability and transparency within the homelessness system. For Arey, that reinforces haughty Horvath’s responsibility and record of failure regarding the vagrants, the mentally ill drug addicts that infest the county. “If there’s no accountability, that responsibility comes back to leadership,” she says. Her solution reflects her private-sector background: performance-based funding tied to measurable outcomes.
“You set clear expectations. You give a timeframe—30 days, 60 days, 90 days. If there are no results, funding is cut. If there are results, you continue.” It is a model that prioritizes output over process, a sharp contrast to what she describes as the current system. “You can’t just keep funding programs because they exist,” she says. “You fund results.”
On public safety, Arey’s framework is straightforward: staffing, capacity, and coordination. She points to staffing shortages in both LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, combined with limited jail capacity, as key drivers of what residents perceive as “catch and release” dynamics. “You can’t enforce the law if you don’t have the manpower,” she says. “And you can’t hold people if you don’t have the space.”
Her approach includes rebuilding staffing levels, restoring funding, and moving forward with a modern replacement for Men’s Central Jail that integrates social services rather than separating enforcement from rehabilitation.
She also advocates revisiting prior models that combined enforcement with structured intervention, such as “jail first, then care.” “You stabilize people first,” she says. “Then you connect them to services. Then you give them a path forward.” To her, the current system has inverted that sequence, emphasizing services without sufficient consequences.
Arey’s emphasis on enforcement extends to coordination with federal authorities. She notes that previous practices allowed the Sheriff’s Department to coordinate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when individuals in custody had detainers. That coordination has since been curtailed.
Her position is to restore it. “The law has to be enforced consistently,” she says. “You can’t pick and choose.” Although the issue is politically charged, Arey frames it less as an ideological stance and more as a question of systemic coherence. “If you don’t enforce the law, you don’t have order,” she says.
Arey is openly skeptical of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s current direction, arguing that it has lost focus on delivering functional transit in favor of massive, long-horizon projects detached from present-day reality. “We’re talking about a $22 billion project today (the heavy rail project under the Sepulveda pass) with a 40% contingency—and it’s not even supposed to break ground for 15 years. What is that going to cost then?” she asks. For Arey, the concern isn’t just the scale of spending; it’s the disconnect from reality. While billions are committed to projects that may not materialize for more than a decade, the system today is plagued by safety concerns, declining ridership, and unreliable service, all of which discourage everyday use.
That misalignment, she argues, reflects a broader failure to prioritize. “Why are we setting aside billions for something 15 years from now when people need transportation solutions today?” In her view, the MTA has drifted from its core mandate to move people efficiently and safely in the present and now operates on a model that rewards long-term planning over near-term execution. The result is a system where ambition outpaces delivery, and immediate, practical improvements: cleaner stations, more buses, and visible security are sidelined in favor of projects that offer political visibility but limited current utility.
The rebuilding of fire-affected areas such as the Pacific Palisades highlights another friction point: permitting. Arey argues that the current process treats displaced homeowners as if they were undertaking entirely new developments—subjecting them to layers of requirements that increase cost and delay. “Let them rebuild on their footprint,” she says. “Streamline the process.”
Her approach includes expanding inspection capacity as needed and prioritizing speed without compromising core safety standards. “This is about getting people back into their homes,” she says. “Not burying them in paperwork or fees.”
Arey’s management philosophy is consistent across domains: hire based on performance, evaluate based on results, and remove underperformers. “You look at experience. You look at the track record,” she says. “That’s how you hire.” Once in place, she argues, employees should be evaluated by output. “If someone is not performing, you replace them,” she says. “That’s how functional organizations operate.” It is a direct rejection of hiring or retention models that prioritize factors beyond measurable performance.
With a county budget approaching $50 billion, Arey does not view revenue as the primary constraint. “There is money,” she says. “The issue is how it’s being spent.” She argues that inefficiencies, waste, and misaligned priorities should be addressed before considering additional tax burdens. “Fix the system first,” she says. “Then talk about taxes.”
When asked how she would evaluate her performance in office, Arey offers a two-part answer: outcomes and response. “Showing up. Being transparent. Producing results,” she says. She also acknowledges that meaningful change often meets resistance. “If you’re pushing against something that’s been in place for a long time, there will be pushback,” she says. “That doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It may mean you’re doing the job.”
Arey’s candidacy is about more than one district or one race. It reflects a broader shift—one in which frustration with institutional performance is fueling outsider challenges. Her argument is not that the system is irredeemable. It hasn’t just drifted—it has made the wrong choices, prioritizing ideology over outcomes and forgetting the taxpayers who fund its $50 billion enterprise. Fixing it requires a hard reset: real accountability, clear authority, and measurable results. This is not a social engineering experiment; it is a management failure that must be treated as one.
But the underlying question she raises is no longer rhetorical: if a $50 billion government cannot deliver visible improvements in safety, infrastructure, and basic services, what are the County Supervisors actually doing? Increasingly, critics argue that leadership has drifted toward large-scale social experimentation, prioritizing ideological goals like: Care-first” or “housing-first” approaches, diversion programs over incarceration, equity-focused budgeting and program design over the core responsibilities of governance. The results are not theoretical. They are visible across Los Angeles in rising disorder, worsening homelessness, and declining public trust. This is not a failure of resources. It is a failure of priorities, execution, and accountability. And until that changes, the outcomes will not.
(Eliot Cohen has served on the Neighborhood Council for 12 years, served on the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council, is on the Board of Homeowners of Encino, and was the president of HOME for over seven years. Eliot retired after a 35-year career on Wall Street. Eliot is a critic of the stinking thinking of the bureaucrats and politicians that run the County, the State, and the City. Eliot and his wife divide their time between L.A. and Baja Norte, Mexico. Eliot is a featured writer for CityWatchLA.com.)
