First-term Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath faces three challengers in her first election bid since winning the Third District open seat in 2022 by beating long-time San Fernando Valley-based State Sen. Bob Hertzberg by 29,000 votes.
Horvath faced issues in her district that includes county areas devastated by the Palisades fire. In addition, she’s pushed for price-gouging regulations for displaced fire victims facing high rents.
In a major motion, she led the divorce from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), while leading the way in forming the new county Homeless Services & Housing Department. She also placed a county reform measure on the ballot despite strong opposition from two fellow supervisors. Still, Measure G passed and will soon add four new members to the five-person board, create an elected county chief executive officer, and just recently prompted the board to create the first-ever LA County Ethics Commission.
District 3 is 446 square miles large, home to 2 million people. It includes portions of 10 cities, 26 unincorporated communities, and 49 neighborhoods in the City of Los Angeles. The district stretches from Santa Monica to Hollywood, Sylmar to San Fernando, and takes in most of the Santa Monica Mountains and the San Fernando Valley.
The four candidates running for the seat in the June 2 primary are: Tonia Arey, 55, a Realtor who lives in Calabasas; Horvath, 43, the incumbent who once was mayor and councilmember of West Hollywood; Carmenlina Minasova Minasyan, 54, a reform activist from Los Angeles, and Tomás Sidenfaden, 45, a software engineer from Los Angeles.
The candidates expressed their views in a questionnaire from this news group.
Arey said the board is not “getting the job done,” in areas of homelessness, public safety and emergency preparedness. “Right now, it feels like the focus is on bureaucracy and politics instead of solving real problems,” Arey said.
She agreed with breaking from LAHSA but has concerns about the new county homeless services department. As to Measure G, she’s worried it will cost county taxpayers. “Expanding from five to nine supervisors raises a basic question: Where is the money coming from?”
Arey wants the Board to get the 10 million county residents much more prepared for a wildfire or other disaster by performing readiness audits annually. “Don’t tell us the system works. Prove it. Test alerts. Test coordination. Fix what fails,” Arey wrote.
On the rise in jail deaths, Arey said the Board needs to work more closely using “clear leadership and defined responsibility” with the Sheriff’s Department.
She disagreed with the public being limited to one-minute per board item. She thinks the time allotted should be raised to five minutes. She called Measure ER, a half-cent sales tax on the ballot to plug the gap in county healthcare services due to federal cuts “the wrong approach.”
As to two major reforms under her watch, Supervisor Horvath said her leadership is moving to a central, homeless services system within the county that will bring the structural reforms and accountability lacking under LAHSA. “As we enter this transition, we are ensuring providers are paid and financial best practices are in place,” she wrote.
Second, she described Measure G as “the most significant reform of LA County government in over a century.” She said expansion of the board from five to nine members helps by “broadening representation and reducing concentrated power.”
In response to the Palisades and Eaton fires, Horvath said the county is modernizing the communication system used by first responders. Also, she said the county found water supply was sufficient but pressure was not, so Public Works is upgrading infrastructure. The county has hosted emergency preparedness fairs teaching people to build go-bags and create evacuation plans, she said.
Horvath did not take a position on Measure ER, saying she’s leaving it up to the voters to make the decision.
Regarding jail deaths, Horvath called them “a failure of our system to protect the most vulnerable people in our care.” The board has improved security screenings and added more cameras. But she also emphasized investing in prevention, such as mental health care, substance abuse treatment and other supportive measures to reduce recidivism.
Horvath said the one-minute rule, which “can feel restrictive,” is not the only way the public can communicate with the board. “That’s why it’s important we pair time limits with other ways to engage — written comments, digital submissions and community meetings — so people can share more detailed input,” Horvath said.
Minasyan rated the board as “not good” due to “all the fires, empty reservoir, crime, high taxes, homeless and drug addictions.” She later added: “Our government system is broken and too often works only for billionaires rather than local residents.”
She wants the county to follow “the values God teaches us.” She also favors “centralized homelessness and mental health services, including free detox and recovery programs for those struggling with drug and alcohol addiction.”
For better emergency preparedness, she wants to reduce 9-1-1 response times and offer free EMT-to-paramedic training. She’s calling for stronger brush-clearing measures and building more water reservoirs.
On the surge in jail deaths, Minasyan said the justice system is not working. She said many defendants take plea deals “just to finish their sentences, and then end up committing crimes again. The justice system, including the jail system, needs reform.”
She said she’s “not in favor” of Measure ER. She also said Measure G’s reforms “is not a fix to problems” and “creates more spending.” To increase public participation, she would raise the speaking time limit to three minutes.
Sidenfaden said the board has a big budget but is not delivering tantamount results, especially on homelessness, housing and public safety. “We’re still building $750,000-per-unit permanent housing that takes a decade to deliver while 45,000 unsheltered homeless citizens suffer on our streets,” he said.
He calls for more emergency shelters on government land. “Enforce public camping bans when shelter beds are available,” he said. The new county homeless services and housing department “is just rearranging deck chairs.”
The county has not moved fast enough helping fire survivors rebuild, he said. “We need to clear the red tape, take the lead on reconstruction and stop letting jurisdictional confusion slow recovery for families who’ve lost everything,” Sidenfaden said.
Alerts are too disorganized and the county needs a “unified, real-time communication platform across Fire, Sheriff and OEM (Office of Emergency Management) –– a clear, codified authority so alerts don’t require a game of telephone between departments.” To prevent fires, firefighting equipment and personnel should be pre-positioned in high-risk areas during Red Flag events, he said.
He supports the requirement of Measure G to have an elected county executive officer, calling it a separation of powers, as well as the Ethics Commission, an expanded board and new public budget hearings. To increase public participation, he suggested a public input portal where residents can submit videos and written comments on any agenda item.
On the surge in jail deaths, he said the problem is the board moving to close Men’s Central Jail with no replacement plan. “You cannot simultaneously defund, depopulate and neglect a jail while expressing outrage that people are dying inside it. That’s not progressive governance, it’s negligence rebranded as compassion,” he said.
He understands the urgency felt for asking voters for a tax increase to fill gaps in healthcare, but doesn’t accept the tax hike on what he called “an already overtaxed county.”
The L.A. County Board of Supervisors, the county’s five-member governing body, oversees a budget of around $50 billion and 117,000 budgeted employees across 38 departments, including public health, homeless services, public safety, social services, animal care and public works.
Unless one candidate garners more than 50% of votes in the June 2 primary to outright win the seat, the top two vote-getters will move on to the November general election ballot.